by Harry Dolan
“You want to talk to him,” Garza says.
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
Rose hesitates. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“Because it’s either that, or I stop. And if I stop, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Garza walks along with his head bowed, as if he’s considering her answer.
“The truth is I’m not sure where Sean and Molly are,” he says. “The one thing I know is they want to be left alone. I could make a guess, but if you want guesses, all you have to do is go on the internet. You can find any number of people who’d be happy to tell you where to look for them. I’ve read some of that stuff. People say they moved to Canada. Or Mexico. Or Australia.”
Rose has seen the same rumors. And more. “I heard they went back to Houston,” she says. “Or maybe they’re living on the beach. In California, near Coronado.”
“I heard that one too,” says Garza. “Only it was North Carolina. The Outer Banks.”
You could go round and round this way, Rose thinks. It’s a game of speculation. But she doesn’t mind playing.
“Someone on Twitter said Sean rejoined the army,” she says. “He’s running missions in Afghanistan with the Special Forces. Someone else said that was bullshit. They said he was making furniture in Elkwood, Indiana.”
Garza slows and comes to a stop. The two of them stand on the edge of the plaza.
“There you are,” he says with a shrug. “Plenty of options to explore. But if you like, I can give you some advice.”
“Please,” Rose says.
“First, if you find them, keep your hands in plain sight. They spent years looking over their shoulders, worried about who might be coming after them. Those habits die hard.”
She nods. “And second?”
Garza offers her a gentle smile. “I believe you’ll find there’s no such place as Elkwood, Indiana.”
*
Rose lingers another day in Detroit. Spends most of it looking at paintings in the halls of the DIA. The following morning, she drives to Indiana.
She went back to Twitter for the name of the city and discovered she had misremembered it. It’s Elkhart, not Elkwood.
She arrives in the early afternoon, crossing a bridge over the Saint Joseph River. She parks on Main Street and has a look around. The people seem reserved but friendly. The kind who would surely hold a door for you and depending on their mood might stop and pet your dog.
There’s one small furniture store downtown. Rose goes in and chats with the owner. Says she’d like to have some custom pieces made. The owner tells her he knows a guy. Works with him all the time.
She leaves with a business card: SEAN MORGAN DESIGNS. The address is on County Road 7.
It’s farm country: barns and silos and open fields. The houses are set far apart from each other. Sean and Molly’s house is two stories, white clapboard, a foundation made of fieldstones. SEAN MORGAN DESIGNS painted on a plank above the door of the garage.
Sean is working in the driveway, applying wood stain to a trestle table. Molly is walking in the yard, pulling a toddler behind her in a red wagon.
Rose passes the house and drives half a mile before she finds a place to turn around. When she comes back, she parks in the grass beside the road.
Sean finishes his work and joins Molly and their son in the yard. He lifts the boy from the wagon and holds him up high in the air.
Rose rolls down her window and watches. There’s an oak tree growing near the house, with a swing suspended from one of its limbs. Molly keeps the swing steady while Sean places the boy in the seat.
They take turns pushing. They’re cautious at first, but then they push him higher.
The boy squeals.
The sound comes to Rose clearly across the distance. It’s a happy sound, a normal sound. It tells her she shouldn’t be here. She should leave these people alone.
On the drive from Detroit, and long before, she thought about what she would say to them. One obvious thing: she would thank Sean for saving her life. But there are other things she needs to say, things she’s kept from everyone:
That she sees Henry Keen’s face almost every day, at random moments, in the faces of strangers.
That when she dreams, she dreams about his victims. She sees the fear in their eyes, and the fear is directed at her, as if she’s the one who’s trying to kill them.
That on that day in Houston, she felt terror every time Keen pulled the trigger. But she also felt relief. She felt hope, every time, because as long as Keen was aiming his gun at someone else, he wasn’t aiming it at her.
That’s the worst of it. That’s the thing Rose doesn’t dare tell anyone else.
It was foolish of her to think she might tell it to these people.
But she needs to say it. If she doesn’t say it, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. She doesn’t know where she’ll go from here.
Rose steps out of her car, closes the door, and leans against it. The road is empty. There’s nothing coming. But she’s stuck. She can’t bring herself to go any farther.
On the other side, they see her. Molly spots her first and points her out to Sean.
Sean stops the swing and lifts the boy from the seat. Hands him to Molly, who holds him on her hip.
The sun shines on the boy’s dark hair. The wind ruffles it.
Sean walks to the road and pauses before making his way across. He moves with a limp, favoring his right leg.
His expression is neutral, until he gets close. Then Rose sees it warm. He recognizes her. There’s a kindness in his eyes she never saw that day at the mall.
“This is unexpected,” he says.
She can’t think of a reply.
He reaches for her hand.
“Come on,” he says.
Acknowledgments
I’m profoundly grateful to Victoria Skurnick and Otto Penzler for everything they’ve done to help send this book out into the world. Thanks also to Lucy Stille, Sara Vitale, Deb Seager, Samantha Trovillion, Erica Nuñez, Julia Berner-Tobin, Paula Cooper Hughes, Matthew Huff, Kirsten Wolf, Melissa Rowland, Elizabeth Fisher, and Miek Coccia.
About the Author
HARRY DOLAN is the author of the novels Bad Things Happen, Very Bad Men, The Last Dead Girl, and The Man in the Crooked Hat. He graduated from Colgate University, where he majored in philosophy and studied fiction-writing with the novelist Frederick Busch. A native of Rome, New York, he now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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