Barbed Wire Heart

by Tess Sharpe

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Never cut the drugs—leave them pure.
Guns are meant to be shot—keep them loaded.
Family is everything—betray them and die.

Harley McKenna is the only child of North County's biggest criminal. Duke McKenna's run more guns, cooked more meth, and killed more men than anyone around. Harley's been working for him since she was sixteen—collecting debts, sweet-talking her way out of trouble, and dreading the day he'd deem her ready to rule the rural drug empire he's built.

Her time's run out. The Springfields, her family's biggest rivals, are moving in. Years ago, they were responsible for her mother's death, and now they're coming for Duke's only weak spot: his daughter.

With a bloody turf war threatening to consume North County, Harley is forced to confront the truth: that her father's violent world will destroy her. Duke's raised her to be deadly—he never counted on her being disloyal. But if Harley wants to survive and protect the people she loves, she's got to take out Duke's operation and the Springfields.

Blowing up meth labs is dangerous business, and getting caught will be the end of her, but Harley has one advantage: She is her father's daughter. And McKennas always win.

From a powerful new voice in suspense fiction comes the unforgettable story of a young woman facing the most difficult choice of her life: family or freedom.

Release date: March 6, 2018

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 416

Sample

One

I’m eight years old the first time I watch my daddy kill a man.

I’m not supposed to see. But those first few weeks after Momma died, whenever Uncle Jake isn’t around, I’m just running wild.

I spend a lot of time in the woods, playing up in the deer blinds or seeing how high I can get in the trees on my own steam. Sometimes I cry over missing Momma. Sometimes I can’t help it.

I try not to do it around Daddy, though.

I like the woods. They’re loud and quiet at the same time, the soundtrack and lullaby of my life for as long as I can remember. When I climb the big oaks, pulling myself up with all my might, reaching and jumping and swinging my body along branch and bark like a squirrel, I have to pay attention or I might slip and fall. When I climb, I don’t have to think about Momma being gone. Or about how all Daddy does now is storm around in a whiskey cloud, cleaning his guns and muttering about Springfields and blood.

Momma’s been dead for three and a half weeks, and already the skin on my palms is worn rough from climbing. My knees are scabbed over from the time I fell out of the tall redwood near the creek. My fingers are stained with blackberry juice, and my arms get scratched from the thorns. My pockets bulge with the treasures I find in the forest—things she would’ve liked: blue jay feathers and smooth rocks perfect for skipping, a cracked acorn that looks like a face.

I stash my gifts from the forest in one of the deer blinds. Uncle Jake promised he’d take me back to Momma’s grave even though Daddy glared at him when he said it. I want to bring her my presents, because Uncle Jake says she’s in heaven looking down on us.

Sometimes I stare up at the sky and try to imagine it. Try to see her.

But there’s nothing but branches and stars.

Daddy doesn’t notice how much I’m gone, warm in the forest’s hold. He’s got other things on his mind.

That night, after I watched the sunset, looking for a trace of Momma in the night sky, I’m still perched in the oak near the edge of the garden, the one that has a good straight branch for sitting. It’s getting late and I should go inside, but I hear the sound of truck tires crunching on the gravel road that leads through the woods to our house. I tuck my feet up and out of sight before the headlights of Daddy’s Chevy round the curve and flood the garden.

With my bare feet pressing up against the trunk for balance, I stretch myself belly down on the limb. I wrap my arms around it in a hug and crane my neck to get a better view.

If he’s drunk again, I don’t want him to see me, because I look like her. It makes him sad. Sometimes it makes him angry, but he tries to hide it.

Instead of pulling up next to the house like normal, he drives right under the tree, toward the rough road leading to the barn, parking right in front of the doors. The light on the barn flips on, the sensor detecting the movement.

I watch from a distance as he cuts the headlights and gets out. Daddy’s not stumble-down drunk, but it’s too far to see if he’s covered in his own sick like last week. I’m about to swing down from the tree, but instead of heading toward the house, he walks over to the passenger side of the truck and pulls the door open.

I squint in the darkness. He’s almost completely hidden by shadows as he drags something big out of the cab. He yanks the barn door open and the light shifts, just for a second. A beam illuminates the doorway, and I catch a glimpse of a man’s feet being dragged across the barn floor before the door slams shut.

My breath comes quick and fast, so hard my belly’s scraping against the rough bark. My fingers tighten on the branch as my heart hammers and the world spins. I want to dig inside the oak like the woodpeckers and squirrels do. I want to burrow and hide.

I try to tell myself my eyes are playing tricks on me.

But deep down, I know better.

A few minutes later—it seems like forever, my breath and the chirp of the crickets echoing in my ears—the outside barn light snaps off, and darkness creeps through the trees, spreading across the property.

I should climb down and run into my room and shut the door and pull my quilts over my head. I should pretend I never saw those feet being dragged across the ground.

I don’t, though.

Instead I climb down the tree and head toward the barn.

I could say I regret the choice, looking back, but that’s just foolishness.

I had to learn somehow. What he was. What I would be.

This was how for me.

  

I sneak ’round the back of the barn, where the cedar planks are pockmarked with holes. They give a terrible view into the barn, but it’s the best I can do. Kneeling down in the dirt, I push my cheek against the wood, angling my head to peep through the biggest hole I can find. I’m breathing too quick still, my heart rabbit-fast under my skin, my mouth dry from the air whooshing in and out.

At first, I can’t see Daddy at all. All I see is the old tractor he has stored in here, and the smashed-up quad he crashed last summer. A bare bulb strung up from an orange cord swings gently back and forth from one of the beams and that’s when I hear it: his voice.

“You’re going to tell me what I wanna know,” Daddy says. There’s a rummaging sound, like he’s going through the red toolbox in the corner. And sure enough, after a few seconds pass, he finally comes into view, a screwdriver in his hand. Shadows lengthen across Daddy as he moves away from my hiding spot, turning the screwdriver in his hand over and over as he walks back behind the tractor, disappearing from view. A groaning sound fills the air.

It’s not Daddy.

It’s whoever he brought in here. And they’re hurt.

Daddy hurt them.

It’s strange to think of Daddy’s hands, big and strong and calloused, so good at hugs and tugging at the end of my braid, doing that.

“You’re gonna tell me what I wanna know,” Daddy says. “We can do it easy or hard. Your choice, Ben.”

“Fuck you,” a second voice—Ben—slurs.

“Tell me,” Daddy says.

“Not gonna tell you shit.” There’s a wet, rattling sound, like he’s coughing up more than spit.

“Okay then,” Daddy says. The shadows stretch above the tractor, a blurred glimpse of his arm as he shoves forward, sharp and fast. The sound that comes next, a gritted-out groan that punches out of Ben, makes the hair on the back of my neck raise.

“That’s going to stay in there until you tell me what I want to know,” Daddy says, and I realize he means the screwdriver.

Black spots crowd along the edges of my vision. I have to plant both palms in the dirt and concentrate, slow myself down so I don’t faint. My eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of my head, and my cheek presses hard against the pecky cedar siding. I want to run away. I have to stay and see what happens.

“Tell me,” Daddy says.

“No.”

Daddy straightens, coming back into view, and from this angle, I can see he’s digging in his back pocket. He comes up with the antler-handle knife he sharpens every Sunday without fail. He flips it open, eight inches of deadly steel shining in the barn light and tests it on his thumbnail. “Let’s try something different.”

Daddy kneels again, disappearing; the shadowy blur of his arm comes up and then down again. Ben’s sound is even worse this time, no gritted teeth, no effort to suppress the scream.

I don’t close my eyes or hide my face or do anything that I should.

I keep my eyes wide open.

It feels like it’s the first time they’ve ever been.

“Tell me,” Daddy says, when Ben finally quiets to a whimper.

“I can’t,” Ben gasps out. “I can’t. He’ll kill me if I do.”

“You Springfields, your momma didn’t pop you out too bright, did she?” Daddy asks mockingly. “What do you think I’m gonna do if you don’t tell me where he is?”

“Please. I’ll do anything—money, whores, drugs, you name it, Duke, and I’ll do—” His words dissolve into a yell, though I can’t see what Daddy’s doing to him with that knife.

I press my lips together to hold back the nausea as Daddy says, “Tell me,” again, like it’s the only words he knows.

“Unnggghh,” Ben gurgles, panting. “Please. Please.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t. Carl’s my brother.”

Ben’s left foot keeps twitching, like it’s trying to make a break for it. It’s the only part of him that’s not blocked by the tractor, and I keep staring at his boots, because Daddy has the same pair. Momma bought them for him last year for Christmas. I’d helped her wrap them.

“Tell me where Springfield is,” Daddy says. “Or I go find Caroline. How does that sound? That worth protecting your brother for? Last time I saw that wife of yours, she was looking mighty fine. Maybe I’ll take my time.”

I’m too young to understand what he means. Later, it’ll horrify me.

Later, I’ll tell myself it was a bluff. That he isn’t that man.

But the possibility is there, right in front of me: He might be.

“No,” Ben says weakly. “Not Caroline. Please.”

“Then tell me,” Daddy demands. “And I won’t touch her or your boys. They’ll be safe from me and mine. All I want is Springfield.”

“Shit, shit…Carl’s in Manton. Exit thirty-four on the old highway. House at the end of Hell’s Pass. Don’t you fucking touch my family!”

Daddy gets up off his knees, straightening, finally in full view. “Thank you.”

He moves so fast—the motion so familiar as he reaches. His hands—and then gun—are almost a blur.

It’s loud—the gunshot hammers in my ears, and there’s this squishy sound that makes my stomach lurch.

I clap my hand over my mouth, but it’s too late. I throw up, vomit staining my shirt, a wet splat against my skin. The smell of sour bile makes me gag as I try to get up, my legs refusing to cooperate.

I have to get into the house before he realizes what I’ve seen. But my legs are like rubber and there’s dried salt on my cheeks when I push my messy hair out of my face.

I want Momma with an ache that never seems to get smaller, and just thinking about her makes me clumsy, stupid. When I get up, my foot hits a rock, sending it skittering against the barn, making a loud thunk.

I freeze on the spot.

“Who’s there?” Daddy’s voice thunders through the walls of the barn. I hear his footsteps, swiftly crossing the ground, and then the creak of the door opening as he peers out.

Oh no. My stomach tightens horribly. I feel like throwing up again.

“Harley, if that’s you, you’ve got three seconds to let me know. Otherwise, I’m shooting. One…” Daddy says.

My mind’s racing. I’m trying to understand.

Daddy killed him. Made it look easy. Like it doesn’t matter.

Like it wasn’t the first time.

“Two.”

What’s he going to do with the body? Will he bury it? Where? The woods?

“Th—”

“It’s me!” I yell out, scrambling to my feet. My jeans are covered in dirt and my shirt’s damp with vomit. My legs are still shaky, but I dart forward, around the corner and to the front of the barn.

He’s standing in the entryway, the light spilling out, his arm still holding the door open.

Beyond him, in the barn, I can see the blood pooling, fast and dark on the ground next to what’s left of Ben’s head. It lolls to the side, his open eyes facing me. He looks confused. Like he expected Daddy to let him go.

I swallow hard.

It’s way worse up close.

Daddy looks at me, his 9mm still raised. Then he looks over his shoulder at Ben and the expanding puddle of blood. Daddy steps to the side, blocking my view of Ben’s face. “Baby,” he starts. “How long…” He stops. “Sweetheart,” he tries again. “I—”

I keep staring at the blood, because even though I’ve helped Daddy field-dress deer, it’s never been this much. It’s dark and thick, like paint. But it smells sharp, like copper, like life, soaking into the ground.

“Harley-girl,” Daddy says, gentle, the voice he uses when he reads me stories in bed.

I’m going to throw up again. I grit my teeth and manage to swallow the bile down this time, my throat working furiously, sweat popping out on my face. I sway on the spot, and then Daddy’s hands are picking me up around the waist and I go limp, I don’t even try to fight.

I’m too scared of what this new—no, this old, hidden—Daddy will do if I try.

He’s silent the whole time he carries me up to the house, up the stairs. He sets me on my bed and pulls my boots off, and I just sit there shaking and let him. He swaps my vomit-stained clothes for one of my sleep shirts before pushing me gently on the shoulder so I’ll lie back on the bed. I think about Ben’s blank eyes, and for the first time in my life, I shrink from Daddy’s touch, but he doesn’t notice. I expect him to leave after he tucks me in, but he stays sitting next to my bed for a long time.

It’s only when he stands up after what seems like hours later when I get the nerve to say it. Daddy’s silhouetted in the doorway, about to shut the door, when I blurt it out: “He told you what you wanted. You didn’t have to.”

I hear his sigh, but I can’t see his face, hidden in shadow. He leans against the doorway, his shoulder pressing against the frame. “A life for a life,” he says. “Only way, Harley-girl.”

A life for a life. Ben’s life for Momma’s.

“Does that mean you’re not going after Springfield?” I ask.

Daddy shifts from foot to foot in the doorway. “I have to,” he says.

“But—”

“He took your momma away from us,” Daddy reminds me gently.

As if I could forget.

“But you said you wouldn’t hurt Ben’s family.”

Daddy straightens, rising from the doorframe. He looks huge, like a shadow himself. I still can’t see his face, but when he speaks, just two words, it’s like gravel: “I lied.”

Two

June 6, 7 a.m.

Each morning, I walk the land.

I take a rifle, slung over my back, because there’s always trouble of the animal or human kind brewing. I switch up my routes every few days. I can’t cover all six hundred acres. Some mornings, all I do is patrol the border fences that run along the north end, the slap of canvas against my legs like a heartbeat. Duke’s jacket is too big for me, but I wear it anyway, the sleeves rolled up three times so my hands are free.

This morning, I hike deep into the forest, Busy at my side. She bounds ahead of me, her whip of a tail lashing back and forth, snub nose glued to the forest floor, sniffing out the trails of deer and mountain lion.

I walk behind her, the crunching of my feet across branches and dry pine needles mingling with the squawks of the magpies waking up. The air is crisp in my lungs and the ground is steep, my foothold steady. Each step draws me closer, red dirt crumbling beneath the pressure of my boots as I climb.

When it comes to the land, to this stretch of forest, mountain, and volcanic stone I know like the back of my hand, I am Duke’s daughter through and through. I know this place better than anyone but him. Its dangers and its secrets. Some of them I’ll take to my grave—whether that’s forty years from now or forty minutes.

“Hey!” I call, snapping my fingers when Busy wanders too far, and she skids to a stop, running downhill back to me. Her eyes shine in the early morning light, and as I scratch behind her ears, her blocky head tilts back in bliss.

“Good girl,” I say. “C’mon.”

By the time we get up the hill, my boots are dusty and Busy’s tongue is lolling out of her mouth. As the ground levels out, she scampers after a squirrel, and I let her.

The oak’s trunk is thick with age, and its branches spread out low and high, making it perfect for climbing. But that’s not why I’m here.

I approach it slowly, like it’s a buck I’m getting ready to take down. It’s silly, but I can’t help it.

Some things are sacred.

Carved over a hundred years ago, the names in the trunk start high up, faded but still legible: Franklin + Mary Ellen. Joshua + Abigail. David + Sarah.

I trail my fingers down, over the names—there are more than thirty of them—the great loves of the McKenna family, from the Gold Rush days to now.

There was a time I dreamed about carving my own name here. But I try not to think about Will anymore. Thinking on him takes me down the shaky path that only ever leads to us. And there’s no us. Not anymore.

I have to be focused on other things.

Today’s the day. Time’s run out.

I trace the final names carved into the tree. They’re down so low I have to crouch to reach them.

Duke + Jeannie

I press my hand over Momma’s name and close my eyes. My head falls forward, forehead pressing against the rough bark. I breathe in the smell of sap from the nearby pines, and Busy rustles through the brush, searching for squirrels.

I think about Momma, of what I can remember about her. Flashes of bright dresses and cowboy boots, chunky silver-and-turquoise jewelry, the faint scent of lilies floating in the air around her. How she loved the forest and the little keepsakes she collected here: a gnarled twig that looked like a question mark, a clump of moss on a heart-shaped rock. Her smile, the way she’d wrap her arms around me and lift me off my feet.

I used to think about what it might’ve been like if she’d lived. But the older I get, the harder that is to do. My life is my life. My fate’s been set since the day she died. And now it’s time to take it back.

“I’m sorry,” I say to their names. To the promise the two of them made to each other. To her, dead because of that promise. Maybe even a little to Duke, because he loved her too much to let her go, and I understand that inclination better than most.

McKennas love hard and fast and only once.

I clear my throat and get up, because crying over it’s no use.

Today’s the day.

Only way, Harley-girl.

Three

I’m eight years old when my momma dies in front of me.

She’s been nervous since breakfast. Halfway through pancakes, she walks into the living room with the phone and leaves me alone with the syrup, which I manage to dip my braid in.

I’m trying to clean it up best I can when Momma’s voice rises from the living room: “Will, no, listen—I’m coming right now. You don’t need to worry. Forty minutes. Okay? I’ll be right there. Don’t be scared, honey. Don’t let Carl in. Don’t let your mom unlock the door. I’ll be right there, I promise.”

My hair’s making a sticky puddle on my shirt when Momma comes back.

“Harley,” she sighs, and wipes the ends of my hair with a wet paper towel. “Run and get dressed. We’re going into town.”

“It’s not Wednesday.” On Wednesdays, Uncle Jake drives us in his truck to grocery shop, and I sit between them on the bench seat. Momma likes to sing along to the radio, to ladies who sing about coal mining and broken hearts, and men whose deep voices remind me of Daddy’s.

“I know, sweetie. Just do as I say.”

She’s waiting by the front door when I come back downstairs, dressed in my jeans and boots. She grabs the pink-and-black cowboy hat Uncle Jake bought me at the fair and plops it onto my head. She keeps her hand on my shoulder after we get into the Chevy, and doesn’t let go until we’re all the way into town.

She won’t turn on the radio, and she rolls up all the windows even though it’s edging into summer. Every few minutes she glances at her phone, tapping it against her leg.

“Where are we going?” I ask when she drives past the grocery store.

“To see a friend.”

She turns the truck onto a street I don’t recognize, with dirt and patchy grass in the yards and jacked-up, rusted-out cars without tires sitting in the driveways. The houses grow sparser until there are acres between them and the road turns to dirt. Momma keeps driving until we get to the end of the road.

She doesn’t stop right in front of the rickety ranch house, spread low and sagging against the land. Instead, she turns the truck around and parks across the road. Then she leans over the seat to flip open the glove compartment. Her long hair swings across her shoulder and brushes against my arm, silky and smelling like flowers.

My eyes widen when I realize that she’s got her semi-automatic in her hand. I watch as she calmly snaps the magazine into place.

“Momma—”

She smiles reassuringly at me, stroking my head with the hand that’s not holding the gun. “It’s fine, baby,” she says. “You’ve gotta do something for me, okay? No matter what, you stay in the truck. A nice boy named Will is gonna come out of the house. He’s ten, and he’s gonna sit with you. You let him in, and then you two lock the doors. Don’t let anyone but me in. You got that?”

I nod unsurely. She’s smiling, but she looks weird, her eyes shiny and wet.

“Repeat it back to me,” Momma directs gently.

I do, trying hard not to let my voice shake.

Momma kisses me on the forehead and stares at me for a long second. “Good girl,” she says. “I love you. I’ll be right back.”

I watch as she strides up the road and to the house. She doesn’t even knock on the door, just turns the knob and walks in, leaving it wide open.

My fingers grip the edge of the dashboard, my chin propped up between them. I scoot until my knees are jammed up against the glove compartment, my nose inches away from the windshield. It’s stuffy inside the truck, and I bat at the pine-tree air freshener hanging on the mirror, watching it spin and wishing I could open a window. But I do what Momma says.

Movement in the house’s front yard pulls my attention back. A black-haired boy bursts out of the house, his skinny legs narrowing into bony ankles and bare feet. He pelts across the yard toward me. Dust flies behind him, and I pull on the door handle, pushing it open as he comes running up.

“You Will?”

He nods, panting. I hold out my hand, and even though he doesn’t need to, he grabs it and climbs up into the cab.

“What’s going on?” I ask him as he shuts the door and slams his palm down on the lock.

“The other one locked?” he asks.

I nod.

“You got the keys?”

I hold out the set Momma had pressed into my hand before getting out of the truck.

“Good,” Will says.

“What’s going on? Where’s my momma?”

“She’s with my mom,” Will says. “We’re gonna wait until Carl leaves.”

“Who’s Carl?”

“Mom’s boyfriend,” Will says, but he says it like it’s something dirty in his mouth. The skin below his left eye’s swollen and puffy, and there’s a trail of big circular scabs running up his left arm. “Don’t worry. Your momma’ll make him leave. She’s done it before. It’ll be okay.”

Almost as soon as the words are out of his mouth, it happens.

There’s a roar, so loud and unlike anything I’ve ever heard, cracking and shattering and popping all at once. I yell and clap my hands over my ears. And suddenly, the house just isn’t there anymore. All I can see is fire and black smoke, bits of wood flying up to the sky and then raining down on the truck like a hailstorm.

Will’s mouth moves, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. He’s leaning over, yanking the keys away, and he jams them into the ignition.

Suddenly, it all catches up with me, like the world froze and now it’s rushing forward. Fire. Smoke. Pieces of wood—pieces of the house—slamming down on the Chevy’s hood and roof.

Momma!

I scream for her and lunge for the door, scrabbling at the handle, trying to get it to open, but it’s locked. Will grabs my arm, fighting me with one hand. He yanks me toward him as he starts up the engine, stretches his long legs, and presses hard on the gas. The truck leaps backward, away from the pieces of wood, shingles, and plaster that fly everywhere, shaking the truck and cracking the windshield. Will steers one-handed as he jerks me against his side, practically pinning me there, and he doesn’t let go.

We spin away from the explosion, debris flying off the hood, and it’s too fast. The bed of the truck tilts off the road into a ditch with a thump, so the cab’s angled up, and then we’re stopped, far enough away to be safe. Will’s hand is still on my arm, and mine’s on his now, grabbing him back just as hard as we stare out the busted windshield.

And we watch whatever’s left of our mothers burn.

Four

June 6, 8:30 a.m.

As soon as we get back from the woods, Busy and I stop to load up my truck with what I need before we hit the road. She hops up in the cab, and we take off down the winding driveway toward the iron gates of the McKenna homestead. The tires kick up dust clouds behind us—the land’s so dry this time of year, one spark could be the end of us—and Busy hangs her head out the window, drooling into the air.

I punch my code into the keypad, and the iron gates slide open. Busy barks into the wind as I switch the stations until I get more song, less static, settling on our homegrown celebrity, Merle, telling us how his momma tried. I take it as a good omen.

We live forty miles from the nearest—and biggest—town in the Dirty 530. The sky’s smudged with plumes of smoke blowing in from Trinity County—the forest fires are raging toward us. But North County’s always walking through fire of some kind. Our little chunk of territory should’ve dissolved back into wilderness, like so many of the Gold Rush towns, but somehow it survived. Folks still make their living pulling gold from the creeks—trading old-school tin pans for sluice boxes and illegal dredges. Families are still farming on land that’s been in their blood for generations. We’re not exactly thriving as a community, but we make do, best we can.

Busy and I drive down the mountain into forest so thick there isn’t an end in sight, along red dirt cliffs and past the jagged slate crags that out-of-towners like to climb. The road snakes up and down, winding through the forest, and my truck takes the curves smoothly.

When we get to Salt Creek, I take the first exit, down Vollmer’s Pass. The courthouse and tiny hospital are at the top of the hill, along with the nicer houses—the ones that have been kept up. But go a few miles down the road, and you leave the neat hedges and tasteful rose gardens behind for the trailer parks, mobile homes, and motels with filled-in pools and dirty children wandering the halls.

I’ve got collections to make today. If I skip them, it’ll look suspicious.

To most of the world, the regular folks, Duke is a businessman who ran a trucking business with his brother-in-law for years. He owns a string of motels, a bar or two, a few diners, some land here and there, until he seems almost legitimate now.

But if you step a little farther into the backwoods, where we’ve got our own laws and where things get real bloody real fast, you’ll see who Duke McKenna really is.

For a long time, he tried to keep me away from the drug side of the business. Uncle Jake had insisted on it—it was one of the few things the two of them ever agreed on. So when I was sixteen, after I got my GED, instead of teaching me to cook or deal, Duke gave me a list of the people who owe him money and pay it back on a monthly basis.

It isn’t a short list. Mainly women, business owners who haven’t been able to get bank loans, so they go to Duke instead. He’d made a gamble sending out a sixteen-year-old girl to be taken seriously, but the power of the McKenna name in this town is absolute, and so far, I’ve had no problems.

I always start my collections at the Talbot Bakery, tucked away in one of the dingy, half-abandoned strip malls they built in the seventies, trying to pump business into the town.

I leave Busy in the car because I know Mrs. Talbot doesn’t like her. When I open the glass doors, the bells attached to them tinkle, and the smell of fresh bread and chocolate surrounds me. It reminds me of when I was little, of helping Miss Lissa, our housekeeper, in the kitchen.

Mrs. Talbot looks up from the glass case, where she’s arranging brownies.

“Hey, Harley,” she says. Her hair is tucked underneath a green bandanna, a few stray locks curling around her face. She’s got purple smudges under her eyes that come with the worry of having one kid in the Army and the other stuck in a nowhere town with too little to interest her.

Duke had been smart when he picked my collection list all those years ago. He chose women who are mothers. Who wouldn’t hate me or cause trouble, but instead feel sorry for me, because they’d see their kids in me.

But I’m not like their kids. My childhood wasn’t bikes and swim parties, it was full metal jackets and other men’s blood crusted beneath Duke’s fingernails.

“Hi,” I say. “How’s Jason?”

“Good. He might get some leave for Christmas.” Mrs. Talbot places the final brownie in the case and slides it shut.

“And Brooke?” I ask innocently. Mrs. Talbot’s never been thrilled about me being her daughter’s friend. But it’s not like she can do much about it now that we’re grown.

She couldn’t do much when we were teenagers, either.

“She’s got a temp job in Burney,” Mrs. Talbot says, walking over to the cash register and punching a few buttons so it opens. “They’re even paying for her gas. It’s leaving me short-handed here, but it’s a good opportunity for her.” She pulls an envelope from the cash register and hands it to me.

I take it, but I don’t open it to count the money. I’m not going to insult her, not after all this time.