“Oh, Grandma…”

“I didn’t keep your father safe.” Her voice caught, but she kept going. “So far, you have been safe with us. I want to keep it that way forever.”

Annabelle slipped out of the bedroom before Jody could get to her feet and catch her for a hug. She watched her walk down the hallway toward the master bedroom and close the door, then she shut her own door and leaned her back against it. Tears started to roll down her cheeks until she had to run to get her pillow and put it over her face to cover the sound of her sobs. She wasn’t even sure who she was crying for this time-her grandmother, her lost parents, herself, or for everybody whose lives had changed so much on that violent night twenty-three years ago.

32

JODY COULDN’T SLEEP because she couldn’t stop feeling miserable and because she was afraid of what she might dream. Finally, around eleven-thirty, she threw off her covers and got up and dressed again, feeling as if she had to get out of there. She didn’t want to worry her grandparents-or piss off her uncles-but she longed for her own home, her own bedroom, and her own bed. Knowing there were sheriff’s deputies stationed at either end of Billy Crosby’s street made her feel she might safely get what she wanted. The desire to leave was so strong it surprised her. She hadn’t realized how completely she had already transferred her allegiance to her parents’ house in Rose and how powerfully it could pull her toward it. She was a little worried about whether she’d get spooked inside of it again, but also determined not to let that get to her.

She wrote a note and taped it to her bedroom door.

Please don’t worry about me. I couldn’t sleep. I’ve gone for a drive.

It wasn’t as irresponsible as it might have seemed to an outsider. In the Linder family, “going for a drive” at any time of day or night-in a car, a truck, on a horse, or even on a tractor-was a time-honored tradition that signaled, I’m losing my mind. See you later. It wasn’t remarkable for any of them to wander in the middle of the night, rendered sleepless by ghosts and painful memories. Her grandmother had been known to ride her horse around the yard at three in the morning with the horse practically walking in his sleep. Her grandfather took his truck out to scare the coyotes with his headlights now and then. When her uncles visited, they often drove to Bailey’s tavern late and got home later.

She had her cell phone, which still worked.

They could reach her at any time.

As she hurried through the kitchen, Jody grabbed a couple of leftover biscuits and a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator. She sneaked out of the ranch house, where the only interior sounds were a ticking grandfather clock and a snoring uncle. Outside, it was so quiet she could hear the whir of the occasional truck tires on the closest highway.

Three of the ranch dogs trotted up silently to sniff her.

She cracked open a biscuit and divvied it up for them, letting them grab the pieces from her open palm and then lick her clean. And then, with a sigh, she divvied up the other biscuit for them, too.

Worried about the noise she’d make by starting her truck, she got it rolling downhill without the engine on and didn’t start it up until she was many yards away from the house.

She switched on the CD player as she drove toward stars on the horizon.

Johnny Cash-her father’s favorite singer-crooned into the cab of her truck. She rolled down the front windows so he could serenade the cows as well. It was a Johnny that might have shocked her dad, Jody thought-not a country-western song, but a cover of the Nine Inch Nails’ song, “Pain.” With all the emotion, honesty, and life experience that Johnny poured into it, it was enough to break your heart. When it finished, Cash’s voice rocked out of the truck speaker again, this time singing a cover of Depeche Mode’s “Your Own Personal Jesus.”

Jody figured her dad would like the singer if not the songs.

“Hey, Dad,” she murmured, feeling love for him, “times change.”

She let the cool night air roll in while the music rolled out.

She passed Red Bosch’s house, with its garage door left half open for his dog. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with him, but as Red’s home passed in her side mirror, so did the moment of desire.

She wasn’t afraid of being out on the road by herself at night.

Wide-open spaces didn’t scare her. She felt as if she needed them in order to keep breathing; the way other people needed oceans or mountains, she needed the plains. And anyway, she was fairly sure there was nothing to fear on this night. Billy Crosby was inside his house with law enforcement outside to make sure he stayed there. As for herself, she had a big powerful vehicle with plenty of gas, and a cell phone with its battery fully charged, and there were people she knew living down almost every road and around every corner, even if the corner was a mile and a half away. This was her territory, which she knew like the soft comfortable feel of her saddle.

The night smelled to Jody like fresh-plowed dirt and new things growing.

WHEN SHE DROVE into Rose, it was close to midnight.

Most of the streetlights were out, because the town couldn’t afford to turn them on all night anymore. “We’re safe,” was the sad local joke, “if anybody ever wants to bomb us from an airplane.” No bomber pilot could spot them in the vast Kansas darkness below. In truth, Rose had already been bombed by the economy. “You want a growth industry?” one wag had said about struggling rural towns like Rose. “Sell the lumber people use to board up their store windows.” Surprisingly, at least to Jody’s family, her aunt Belle’s museum was a rare bright spot and success story in the county’s economy, a fact that Chase claimed “only goes to show how hard up this place really is.”

But Rose still had a high school, and Jody had a job teaching in it come fall.

She was thinking about that as she drove slowly down the street that crossed at the north end of the Crosbys ’ block. As she neared it, she saw a deputy’s sedan blocking the entrance, and when she drove up parallel to his car, she spotted a second one blocking the other end of the street, just as the sheriff had told her grandfather they would be.

Through her rolled-down window, she called to the deputy next to her.

“Hi, Ray.” He was an old friend of her uncle Meryl’s.

“Jody? What are you doing out so late?”

“I just wanted to see you maintain the peace.”

She smiled to make sure he knew she was being nice about it. She didn’t know what, if anything, his boss had told his deputies about the tense standoff at the ranch that evening.

“We cleared everybody out hours ago.”

“I’m glad.”

He gave her a curious look. “I wouldn’t think you’d care.”

“I care about what happens three blocks away from my house. And I don’t want anybody to get hurt or arrested because of Crosby.”

“We’re not going to arrest anybody, don’t you worry.”

Jody nodded her head in the direction of the Crosby place.

“What about the rear of their house?” she asked.

“What about it?”

“The alley in back? Might be kind of vulnerable?”

Ray glanced in that direction. “If he’s nervous, he can stay up and watch.” Sounding resentful, he added, “Like I am.”

“This citizen appreciates it.”

He softened a little and smiled up at her. “Does the citizen happen to have fresh coffee with her?”

“No, but I’ll bet she could bring some back with her.”

“Nah, I’m just kidding. You go on home, Jody. It’s going to be a peaceful night in Rose, just right for sleeping.”

She gave him a grateful wave and drove on home, but didn’t go inside.

Instead, she left her truck parked behind her house and started walking to Bailey’s Bar & Grill. Since supper, she’d felt a growing need to talk to somebody who wasn’t in her family about her family.