“You looking for Hink?”
Maggie nodded. “Yeah. You know where he is?”
“Moved out,” the man said. The expression on his face didn’t look sorry that Hink was gone.
“How about where he works?”
“He does security gigs mostly. Nothing permanent. Any place where they need muscle.”
“Well, do you have any idea where we can find him? Where did he move to?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know the address, but I think he’s over in Wisconsin now. His mother had a stroke, so he lives with her. She’s got a little house just off the highway south of Superior.”
For most of her life, Serena had never believed in premonitions, or intuition, or a sixth sense. She was too practical for things like that. She’d never believed in God, either, not after the things God had let happen to her in Phoenix. But over the past few years, she’d begun to wonder if it was arrogant to think that there was nothing else to the world but what you could see with your eyes.
A couple of years earlier, she’d met an actress named Aimee Bowe who claimed to be psychic. Serena had dismissed the idea as foolish. And yet when Serena had been hunting for Aimee after she’d gone missing, there had been a mental connection between them that Serena couldn’t rationally explain. She’d felt Aimee reaching out to her. Guiding her. The only word that fit was telepathy.
Then there had been Stride’s surgery. Serena, who never prayed, had prayed that day as if God were real. When Stride lived, she told herself it was the skill of the doctors that had saved him and nothing more. And yet, deep down, she couldn’t help but wonder.
As Serena drove down the Point, exhausted and confused, she had another premonition, but this time it was of dark things coming. A bad moon rising. She didn’t doubt her instincts for a second. She looked over at the dog in the passenger seat and knew their time together had come to an end. And she knew that, without him, she would be heading over a precipice.
“I’m sorry, Elton,” Serena told him. “They’re going to take you away from me.”
He seemed to understand her because he bumped his face against her arm repeatedly until she took one hand off the wheel to pet him.
When she got to their cottage on the lake side of the Point, she saw a slick, expensive SUV parked outside, and she had no doubt that the truck belonged to Dale Sacks. She pulled into the driveway and put her arms around Elton, and she held him silently and kissed his head. Then she attached the leash to the dog’s collar and brought him into the house through the back door.
In the living room, Jonny stood by the stairs that led to the unfinished attic. He was in hushed, intense conversation with Dale Sacks, who sat on the red leather sofa. She knew perfectly well that Jonny was trying to convince Dale to give Serena more time with the dog, and she knew equally well that Dale was having none of it.
When the man spotted Serena and Elton, he bolted to his feet, his face red with rage. He swore at her, and that made Jonny take a step toward him, his attitude calm but menacing.
“I know you’re upset, Mr. Sacks, but do not talk that way to my wife.”
“It’s okay,” Serena murmured to Stride. “He’s right.”
She squatted next to Elton and held the dog’s face. “You have to go home now, sweetie.”
“Sad,” Dale Sacks commanded, snapping his fingers. “Over here. With me, right now.”
Sad Sacks. Serena still couldn’t believe this son of a bitch would name their dog Sad. She patted Elton’s backside and whispered, “Go on. It’s okay. You need to go with him.”
Elton whimpered and refused to move.
“Sad!” the man shouted, but his command had no effect.
Serena stood up and used Elton’s collar to pull the dog to his feet. With the leash, she dragged him across the room against his will, and then she handed the end of the leash to Dale Sacks.
“I apologize for my behavior,” Serena said calmly.
Dale swore at her again, and Elton growled, and Stride looked ready to throw a punch.
“Elton, you need to go with him,” Serena told the dog.
Dale yanked on the leash, but Elton dropped back on his hindquarters and refused to stand up. The man grew exasperated. “Do I have to carry you? I’ll fucking carry you if I have to.”
Serena caressed the dog’s head and pointed at the front door. “You can go, Elton. It’s okay. You need to go.”
And then to Dale Sacks: “I expect you to treat him better. Is that clear? Animal control will be following up with you.”
“Fuck off, you crazy bitch.”
Serena had to stand in front of Jonny and hold him back.
Elton whimpered again, but now he let Dale pull him across the room. The front door was partially ajar, and Dale and the dog disappeared through it, and the man slammed the door behind them. His footsteps thumped down the porch, along with the scratch of Elton’s paws. Serena didn’t move at all, but she grimaced when she heard the dog howl in grief from the front yard. It made no difference. She stared at the windows, saw the headlights of the SUV shine to life, and saw the U-turn as it drove away toward the lift bridge. Elton was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Jonny apologized. “I did everything I could. I offered him any amount of money to let you take him.”
“I know.”
“We can get you another dog. We’ll go to the Humane Society; we’ll find you a rescue dog.”
Serena shook her head. “No.”
“What can I do? Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.”
“There’s nothing you can do, Jonny.”
She turned around and headed to the rear door of the cottage.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Out. I need to be somewhere else.”
“Let me come with you.”
“I want to be alone,” Serena said.
“I’m sorry about Elton,” he repeated.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. I knew it would end this way.”
“Serena, stay here with me. You shouldn’t be alone feeling like this.”
She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice. “How do you think I feel, Jonny? Tell me.”
That was cruel.
Cruel to put him on the spot. Cruel to show him how little he really knew her.
He spread his arms wide, looking more helpless than she’d ever seen him. “Lonely. Abandoned. Heartbroken. I don’t know if you won’t open up to me. How do you feel?”
“I don’t feel anything, Jonny,” Serena answered in a robotic voice, which she knew was like turning a knife into him. “Nothing. I don’t care about anything. I don’t care about anyone. Not me. Not you. I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing in this world. I might as well be dead.”
16
“Are you laughing, Samantha?” Serena said aloud. She found herself waiting for an answer, but her mother didn’t give one.
“I bet you think this is pretty funny. All these years later, and you can still totally mess up my life. I never took that power away. I never figured out how to protect myself. I’m sure you like that. Everything was all about you when I was a girl, and somehow it still is.”
Serena sat on a bench in Enger Park, with the nighttime lights of Duluth spread out below her. The evening breeze had turned cool. No one else was around, but the wind rustled loudly through the brush. She felt numb, not conscious of time passing. She’d lost track of the hours she’d been here.
A bench. That was appropriate.
They’d found Samantha stretched out on a bench, her heart stopped. The police had sent her a picture because they needed someone to identify the body. It had taken Serena hours to gin up the courage to open the image and look at it. The years hadn’t been kind to Samantha, but it was definitely her. The lush blond hair had turned gray. Her pretty skin had grown blotchy and wrinkled and sunken against the bones of her face. Her eyes were closed, hiding the electric emerald green. Her mouth held no smile, and that was strange because Serena couldn’t remember a time when Samantha hadn’t been smiling. No matter the situation, Samantha smiled, no teeth showing, just a little bend of the lips. She smiled at the good. She smiled at the bad. She smiled when Blue Dog was stripping her teenage daughter naked and taking her to bed. She smiled when Serena told her she was pregnant and needed an abortion.