Page 139 of The Bright Lands

“Mayfield must be sick that he never put that together.”

“He’s sick about a lot. But to his credit I think he’d had his misgivings ever since the sock was found. If I had to guess, framing Jamal was too much, even for him. He botched the booking paperwork eight different ways. And once Grissom was killed, well—” Clark twirled her mug. “He’ll be sheriff soon enough, I’m sure.”

Clark and Joel regarded the window, the broad copper Flats outside.

Joel said, “They never found Mitchell’s body?”

“No. I don’t know how the department is going to spin the story but I’m sure they’ll find a way.” Clark shook out her damp hair from its bun. “Of course, that pit explains why Troy never turned up.”

“You think he got swallowed by that thing?” Joel said.

“I’d rather not think about it, frankly.”

“But Ranger Mason said Troy left town the night I was arrested.”

“Ranger lied about plenty. It would be the perfect way for him to have Troy killed—just get him dumped in that hole and no one would ever find him. Ranger said it himself, he hated y’all that summer.” She drank. “You’ve seen what happens to jealousy.”

Joel shook his head. He touched her hand. “That doesn’t make sense. Think about it. That thing down there, whatever it was, it started moving when people died. Mayfield said everyone got bad dreams after Broadlock disappeared forty years ago. The dead lady at the bank’ll tell you the same thing happened after Dylan was murdered. But, Clark, back when Troy ran off—” Joel smiled. “There weren’t any dreams. There wasn’t anything.”

“Troy told my father he wasn’t sleeping before he disappeared.”

“Neither was Dylan.”

Clark thought about her mother, thought about Troy, but finally she only cleared their cups from the table. “We owe Luke plenty.”

“Clark, you’re not listening to me.”

“I hear you fine. And I appreciate what you’re trying to do, really.” She struggled to smile. “But, Joel, listen—it’s easier to know that Troy’s dead than to eat dinner with his file at the table. When’s your flight?”

“Soon. Sadly. Will you be alright?”

A stone caught in Clark’s throat. Would she?

“You’ll always have a friend here, Joel. Truly.”

He smiled. “Maybe nothere, here. I saw the sign in your yard. Where will you go when the house sells?”

“Somewhere I’m not Troy Clark’s sister.”

When they reached the door, Joel touched her arm. He lowered his voice for one final question. “The night Dylan started all of this he said he’d texted me by mistake. Do you think that’s true?”

“How would I know?” The words had come out sounding colder than Clark had intended. Like always. She readied herself to apologize but Joel only wrapped her in a one-armed embrace.

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Her phone rang as she let him out the door.Detroit, MI, the screen read. Clark didn’t know anyone in Detroit, MI. Another reporter, she supposed. She had nothing to say to them—she’d turned in her resignation days ago.

But whenDetroit, MIrang again (and again and again), when she finally relented and answered, was it any wonder that her first response, upon hearing the voice at the other end of the line, was to feel just as much resentment as relief?

“Star,” a man said—ten years older, ten years the same. The only man who had ever been allowed to call her that.

She sank to the floor. She pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Star, it’s me.”

JOEL

His brother sent him one final message. It came when Joel was in flight, somewhere over the Mason-Dixon line. It came when he was somewhere between the past and the rest of his life, again. It came in a dream.