I didn’t, though. I answered it. I couldn’t not answer it. It was Adeline.

Her eyes were bloodshot. She wore tight jeans, a fitted flannel shirt, and a smile. I smelled cigarettes and booze.

“Hi,” she responded.

“Did you drive here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I eyed her. “How did you know where I live?”

She giggled. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

I stepped to the side and motioned her in. “Do you want a drink?” I asked.

“That would be great,” she said, and walked to the refrigerator. She wasn’t slurring or stumbling.

“How did you know where I live?” I repeated.

She took her time and selected two pale ales from the refrigerator, then walked toward me. She twisted the tops of both and handed me one. Still no response. I tilted my head and squinted my eyes. Waiting.

“You really think it’s a secret where anyone lives?” she said finally.

“No,” I conceded. “But…you didn’t have my phone number or my address, far as I know, and now magically you have both.”

She shrugged. “I have my ways.”

I had more questions, and I was going to ask them. I started to, pressing her on what her “ways” were, exactly, but she stopped me. She stopped me because she knew she could, and so did I.

“Shhhh,” she said, putting a long, slender finger over my lips. Her touch made my skin tingle. “No more talking.” And then she kissed me for the first time.

33

In the morning she slept. The sky was clear as usual, the sunshine rousing me just after seven. I made a pot of coffee and waited for her to wake up, but she didn’t. She lay on her side and slept, her breathing rhythmic, her face and hair still perfect. There was no morning slump for her, and this did not surprise me.

With a mug of coffee, I sat on the edge of the bed, and she rolled over and smiled.

“Good morning,” she said without a yawn.

“Good morning,” I said. She put her arms around me like we were old lovers.

“Why did you come here last night?” I asked after a long silence.

She paused, then looked up and answered. “I wanted to be with you.”

“Is that all?”

“What else would there be?”

I nodded and left it at that.

She stayed for a cup of coffee. She did not scurry off like a drunken mistake. It put me on edge, her being in my apartment in the light of day, but she didn’t seem bothered by it, and I wasn’t going to tell her to leave.

“What do you do?” I asked her.

“Whatever I want,” she said, and flashed her smile.

I would have pressed anyone else. But not her.

And she was in my apartment. And she belonged to my boss. And he smuggled heroin. And all of the things associated with it. It was problematic.

“I probably don’t need to say this,” I said when she was leaving, “but this should just stay between us.”

She smiled and kissed me. “Julian, this doesn’t have to scare you. It’s not like I need to ask permission for anything. I’m my own woman.”

“Certainly. But you’re also Vince’s girlfriend, correct?”

“Yes, but I’m not his property.”

“I understand,” I said. “But I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t say anything. For me.”

She touched my face. “You don’t need to worry.” And she left.

Soon after, my phone buzzed. It was Damon. We had a run.

These odd coincidences piled up, coming one after another without a break. There wasn’t time to think, to sleep on decisions, to deliberately determine where my path would go. Instead, the path led me.

I still had a partially full duffel bag by my bed. I could hop in my Explorer and drive to Denver in a few hours, and figure out the next step once I got there. But this was hardly a consideration this time. Her scent was still on me, her spell was over me, and I couldn’t imagine not seeing her again.

I would not be leaving. I was a Dartmouth grad and a Wall Street swinging dick. These were mountain people, and I could beat them. The old competitive streak that had propelled me though high school, then college, then the job market, suddenly reared its head. It had been dormant for months, successfully suppressed and ignored since my trip west. But it was back. I was something, he was nothing. The thought came on like a fit of anger. I could beat him.

34

Damon picked me up at my apartment at the usual time, and I told him.

“It was heroin; I’m sure of it,” I said as the car rolled west down I-70. It was a risk, but I had to take it.

He had a look on his face; glazed over eyes and sweat forming on his temples. I watched him closely as I told him, to try and pick up cues. If he knew about it, he would have a tell. A twitch, fake bewilderment, something. So I watched him closely, to see if I could identify these things. I couldn’t. He was the one I trusted the most; we had become friends, even if only out of convenience, and when he told me he didn’t know the exact contents of what we were hauling, I believed him. He seemed credible. It was a stupid thing to do, to tell him like that. For all I knew he would immediately call the boss once I got out of the car and I would be dead before morning. But I took the leap. I needed an ally.

“There’s no way,” he said, eyes wide and fixed on the road.

“Is it really that hard to believe?” I asked. “Look at the facts: they purposely keep the cargo a secret. They pay us way more than they should to drive a car for a few hours. If Vince was hauling normal freight, wouldn’t it be in semis or something? We drive sedans and pickups.”

He shook his head. “Shit man. Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“I know,” I said.

“Fuck. There’s no way.”

“There is. It doesn’t take that big a mental leap, when you think about it.”

“Listen man,” he said, putting a hand on his head. “I’m not as smart as you man, alright? Big east coast stockbroker and all that. I’m from Leadville, man. I don’t think about shit the way you do.” His voice rose. It was sinking in.

“I thought you were from Arizona.”

He shook his head. “Born there, yeah. But I grew up in Leadville. I’m a mountain boy, that’s it.”

“It’s not that I’m smarter,” I said. “You just didn’t think about it. I’m more nosy, I guess.”

He shook his head. “No man. That ain’t true at all. Fuck. How could I be so stupid?” he yelled.

“Thinking that way won’t help us,” I said. “We’re both in this. We have to figure out what to do.”

“Fuck,” he said again, and shook his head. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“You don’t think,” he said, pausing to look around the car, then lowering his voice, “you don’t think the car is…like…bugged?”

He exited and parked on the side of a frontage road, and we both got out.

For ten minutes we both searched the inside of his car, neither of us knowing what we were looking for. We looked under seats, beneath the floor mats and on the roof. He emptied the glove box. I ran my hands along the door jambs and trim, feeling for signs of foul play. There was nothing.

We gave up and rode in silence the rest of the way. When we reached our destination, we got out and stood in the dim light of that industrial warehouse district. He looked at me, confused, waiting for me to figure out how to get out of this mess. An Oldsmobile Cutlass and a Chevy Malibu sat parked a few spots down, waiting for us. Mocking us. Damon looked at the cars, then back at me.

“Here’s the plan,” I said, and made it up on the spot.

We would get in the cars and drive east like usual, because they could be watching. We would drive—Damon following close behind me—until we reached the spot I’d pulled off and parked last time. There, we’d open the trunk of his car and examine the contents. This would alleviate any lingering doubts he might have about my story, and seal his allegiance to me. Then we would complete the run like normal, and regroup the next day to work out a long-term plan. At this point, we were knowingly committing a felony, but I didn’t see another viable option. We couldn’t abandon the run without risking a disastrous backlash from the management, the nature of which I did not know and did not want to find out. Furthermore, we had both committed this felony numerous times—me, dozens, him, hundreds, probably. Legally, we were so far up shit creek already, a few more strokes of the paddle wouldn’t make much difference.