Headlights(42)

“It could make a person into a monster.”

“Yeah. I mean, he could be responsible for the murders after. I don’t have a fuckin’ clue, but I’ll look on our end and see if there’s anything that could possibly tie him in to it, and you guys do it too. Might be able to get some of the Drifters retried without him breathing down everyone’s necks too.” He takes a sip. “Any other leads?”

Hannah Lawrence, my brain says. Hannah Lawrence, the outlier, who might somehow be the key to everything. My hand twitches, wants to reach in my pocket, for the card.

My eyes find Brianna’s posterboard project again. Something …

I pause. Glance up to the little window in the corner that looks out over the front yard, think I catch movement.

I wait, tense. But there’s nothing there. Of course there isn’t.

“I’ll send you everything,” I say. “Everett Brown’s lying about logging in to the chat rooms. I gotta look at those transcripts tonight. So far, those two feel the most promising.”

“Thank you,” Jack says after another long minute. “Thank you for what you did for Brianna, and thank you for coming back. I … we needed you on this.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Dan, I’ve seen you solve shit no one could, and in record time. This case is fucked up, and there’s no one who could’ve figured it out. I mean, we’ve been trying. We haven’t stopped. But you … you just know how to see things, things that people wouldn’t think to look at. And I think this Drifter thing just got your confidence, put up some kind of block for you. But you are the best we have. And I know grief does a lot of weird shit to people, but you can do this. If someone’s gonna figure this thing out, I know it’s you.”

The fake fire crackles in the heater, wind blows against the house. And I remember what I should have this whole time. The man across from me, he’s not just a boss or friend. He’s family. He and Emily never had to invite me in to be a part of their lives, even now. I don’t want to lie to him. Not about something as big as this. It might help the case even. Maybe … I just. I think I have to tell him. The Happy Inn. My birth parents. My connection to all this.

I take a deep breath. I don’t know what’s right and what’s not and if me telling him jeopardizes us even having a chance of solving this. But I say, “Jack—”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “About Nat and Josie. I shoulda told you. And I mean it sucks. She just really went for it, I guess.”

I exhale. “Can we not?” I say, running my hands over my face.

“You know … he’s a good agent. He’s annoying—like Emily and I have not invited them over, just so you know. Team D forever. Obviously. And truth be told, I just don’t really wanna hang out with him. But.” He shrugs. “Take a look at his notes, he saw stuff I couldn’t, before. Not that it, you know, led to anything. But it’s never the same urgency with cold cases, you know that. I think we might actually have a shot at this. Maybe, with the two of you…”

He lets it hang there. The possibility of a future in which we aren’t buried under the weight of this all the time. I down the drink. I can’t do it. I’m not doing it, telling him, I guess.

I keep my voice even as I say, “That was a real dick move you pulled.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know you wouldn’t want to partner with the climberbro Deadhead who’s taken your job and your house and your wife?”



* * *



It’s late when Jack and I step out of the garage. The lights are on the tree. Bret’s gone to bed. “Mom said I could stay up to see you put the star on,” Brianna says.

I look to Jack and then back to her. “Me?”

Emily laughs. “Okay, to be fair, this is sweet, but it’s also because last year Jack did it, and the whole tree fell down. We lost like eight ornaments.”

“Santa works in mysterious ways,” Jack says, tucking her under his arm, kissing her head.

I hang the star, and I promise them I’ll come for Thanksgiving, as if I’m doing them some kind of favor. As if they’re not rescuing me in every way. As I fix it in its place, movement catches my eye again, outside. I turn to the window.

Blood, bathtub—

I close my eyes against my reflection in the glass. I force a breath and open them again, look above and past my reflection, out into the night.

Pressure, a strange … pull.

Bad Feeling.

“I gotta go,” I say. “Thank you, guys, so much.”

I hug them and step out the door. It closes behind me, sealing in the warmth of the house.

I scan the night for any movement, any life. Quiet suburb, waning moon through the trees.

I have a Bad Feeling.

I walk to my car, boots crunching on November grass and fallen leaves, the air chilled enough that I see my breath. Yellow-white streetlamps illuminated up and down the cul-de-sac.

I pull my keys out of my jacket, and there’s movement out of the corner of my eye.

I turn just as a black shape rushes forward, throws me back against the car.

I can’t see, am blind suddenly. Something shoves its fist down my throat, blocks my airway. All I see is black. Panic, as I try to breathe. I drop to my knees in the grass beside the driveway, choke, hold my hands to my throat. I can’t breathe.