Cougar started barking. The lights in Stimpy’s cabin were turned on. There was no time to close the latch. She got off her stomach and grabbed onto Adam’s arm. “Go, go, go,” she said, pushing him forward.

They took off running down the dock and across the parking lot. They made it to the far side of the Pavilion and ducked underneath the steps. Caroline pressed her back against the wall. Adam did the same. Between heavy breaths and Cougar’s barking, she listened for footsteps. She pinched her eyes closed. Please don’t let them catch us. After what felt like several eternal minutes, Cougar finally stopped barking. She peeked around the corner toward the dock. The lights in Stimpy’s cabin were off.

“That was close,” she said. “We better get out of here.” It didn’t make sense for her to follow Adam home, since The Pop-Inn was in the other direction, but she offered to walk him to his cabin to make sure he got back safely.

“You don’t have to walk me back,” he said. “I can make it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, but be careful.” She took a step out from under the stairs.

“Wait,” he said. “Here.” He pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’s beef jerky for Cougar in case he starts barking again.”

“You carry beef jerky in your pocket?”

“All the time,” he said. “Doesn’t everyone?”

She smiled. “Um, no, but thanks.”

Adam crept along the fence line. She hustled across the road and slipped into the woods, weaving her way around to the path that led to the colony. Cougar yipped. She tossed him the beef jerky, and she made it to the cabin without further incident.

She looked at Willow and smiled. “I’m back,” she said, and crawled through her bedroom window and kicked off her dirty sneakers. She peeled out of her wet clothes and dropped them on the floor. She pulled on a nightshirt and slipped into bed. Her arms lay heavy at her sides, exhausted from all of the pulling, lifting, and shaking throughout the night. She closed her eyes, her conscience clear. She believed in her heart she had done the right thing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Cold air blew through the open window, sending the curtains flapping into the room. Thunder rumbled. Jo lay still, listening to the storm. Her head pounded and her back ached. She rubbed the spot along her spine where she had been pinned against the tree. Her mouth tasted like an ashtray. A dried stickiness smattered her inner thighs, and she couldn’t help but think that after all the ebbs and flows, the pushes and pulls, they always ended up right back where they had started.

Kevin stirred and rolled to his side. Dried blood stuck to his lip where she had bitten him. His hair fell in his eyes. She smoothed the bangs from his forehead, and for a second, a fraction of a second really, she closed her fingers around the strands and thought about ripping them from his scalp. His eyes moved behind his lids, but he didn’t wake. She let his hair flutter through her fingers, and she gently kissed the cut on his bottom lip. “What have we done?” she whispered, and quietly got out of bed.

After two aspirin and a hot shower, she peeked into Caroline’s room. Her daughter was curled into a ball, sound asleep. On the floor by the bed were dirty clothes and muddy sneakers. Something about it gave her pause, made her feel uneasy, but she had been feeling that way so often over the last few days, it was hard to tell whether it was her intuition or if she was just being paranoid.

She turned away.

Gram was awake, shuffling her feet in the back bedroom, talking in a hushed voice on the old rotary phone before hanging up with a click.

“Jo, is that you?” Gram called.

Jo didn’t answer. Whatever Gram wanted could wait. She was sure it had something to do with cleaning closets, and just the thought of lugging old boxes around exhausted her. She had hardly slept last night, tossing, unable to shake the way the sheriff had looked at her, his questions, his accusations, the fractured bone.

*   *   *

Jo slipped out the screen door without making a sound. Thunder continued to roll, and the rain fell hard and fast, pelting her cheeks and shoulders. She didn’t mind. It felt good to feel something real, tangible. And besides, summer storms never lasted long. Already the sun was peeking through the clouds on the other side of the mountain.

She walked across the dirt road, dodging the deeper puddles. She glanced in the direction of the Sparrow, the cabin Patricia rented. Patricia was standing behind the screen door, watching the storm, her arms wrapped around her waist. Jo waved, and Patricia called her over.

Lightning flashed.

“Please, come in out of the rain.” Patricia held the door open. She smoothed her blond tangled hair away from her drawn face. “Is there any news?” She clutched the collar of her blouse. Her clothes were wrinkled and worn, as though she had been wearing them for days.

Jo shook her head and stepped inside. “Not that I heard.” She scanned the room. A stuffed cloth doll sat on one of the wicker rocking chairs in front of a child’s tea set. Coloring books were scattered on the floor amidst spilled crayons and colored pencils. Drawings of ponies and kittens covered the coffee table.

Thunder continued to roar.

Jo picked up a drawing. “These are really good.”

Patricia looked at the picture. A smile crossed her lips. “Sara’s. She had an eye for detail. I teach art at the school. I guess she had a natural talent for it.” She covered her mouth and turned away.

Jo put the picture down. “Why don’t I make you some coffee?” She fumbled around the unfamiliar kitchen. She was aware that her wet shoes and clothes dripped onto the linoleum floor, but by the looks of the stained countertops and dirty dishes in the sink, the place hadn’t been cleaned recently.

While Jo waited for the coffee to percolate, she washed the dishes and wiped the table and countertops. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, why she was even here. But there was something about Patricia she found comforting. Maybe they were just two women who understood about regret and mistakes, two women who shared a similar burden in its own terrible way. She picked up a coffee cup.

Patricia settled into a chair at the kitchen table. She wore the expression of someone tired yet wired. The look in her eyes said she was barely hanging on. She turned to Jo as though she had remembered something important. “Tell me,” she said. “Do you still talk to Billy?”

The question was so startling, the cup dropped from Jo’s hand and shattered on the floor. Thunder cracked and lightening lit up the room.

Patricia looked so innocent. Was she mocking her? Did she want to cause Jo pain? Before Jo could find her voice to respond, there was a loud knock at the front door.

“Hello?” Sheriff Borg called. He stepped inside and removed his sheriff’s hat, his gray hair clipped short and neat.

Patricia sprung from her seat. “You found her?” she asked him.

“No, I’m sorry. Not yet.”

Jo’s heart pounded in her ears. She avoided Sheriff Borg’s eyes and grabbed a tea towel. She dropped to her knees and wiped the floor, at the same time trying to make sense of what Patricia had said. Her hands shook as she picked up the pieces of the broken cup.

“Everything okay?” he asked, and raked his eyes over Jo’s wet clothes, her chest, before scanning the mess on the floor.

“That last crack of thunder,” she mumbled. “The cup slipped from my hands.”

“You should be more careful,” he said.

“I will.”

He turned his hat around in his hands. “Have you given any thought to our conversation the other day? Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked. “Maybe something you might’ve remembered?”

Jo shook her head, feeling his eyes on her as she continued picking up ceramic shards.