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Harry was wrung out by the time he got home.

He trudged through the door, took his weapon from his belt, and put it on the top shelf of the front hall closet, as was his

routine. He walked slowly into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge, then went out onto the back patio, dropped

into a chair, and twisted the cap off the bottle.

He killed off the first beer pretty quickly, went in for a second, and came back out. He’d been sitting there for a good ten

minutes, struggling to unwind, hoping to clear his head, when he heard someone moving around in the kitchen. Seconds later,

the door opened and Janice came out with a beer of her own, clinked bottles with Harry, took the chair next to his, and, without

saying a word, had a drink.

Janice let another few minutes go by before she asked a question she already knew the answer to. “Bad day?”

Harry said, “Where’s Dylan?”

“I think he’s upstairs.”

“Got something I have to tell him.”

Janice sat up straight and set the beer on the broad arm of the chair. “What’s going on?”

“I’d like him to hear it from me before he hears it from his friends, although it might already be too late. You know his

friend Auden?”

“Is Auden in some kind of trouble?”

Harry quickly shook his head. “His dad.” He told her.

“Oh my God,” Janice said. “You stay. I’ll find him.” She slipped back into the house, and two minutes later Dylan was walking

out onto the patio. “What’s going on, Dad?”

“Have a seat.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No. Why would you think you’re in trouble?”

The boy went quiet. He needed a moment to work up the nerve. “I lost my skateboard.”

“When’d that happen?”

Dylan shrugged. “Couple days ago. Went into Wilson’s to buy some Ho Hos and left it leaning up against the front of the store,

and when I came back out it was gone. So, like, I didn’t lose it, exactly. Somebody swiped it.”

Harry sighed. “That’s a real shame, pal.”

“I’d left it there lots of times before and nobody ever took it. So I’m sorry, and I’ll save up money to buy another one.”

Harry pulled him closer. “It’s okay.”

“I’m not in trouble?”

Harry, a hand on each of Dylan’s shoulders, said, “Sometimes these things happen.”

“I thought if the chief was your dad people wouldn’t steal from you.”

Harry smiled. “I wish.”

“So why did you want to talk to me?”

“Sit.”

Dylan sat.

“You know your friend Auden?” Dylan nodded. “Well. there was an accident this afternoon over at his place. Some kind of malfunction with the barbecue. A gas leak or something. It blew up. His dad was a little too close, and, well, it was pretty bad, and Auden’s dad was killed.”

Dylan’s face went blank, as though he didn’t quite know what to feel. “Oh,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“That’s really awful.”

“Did you ever meet him when you were over there?”

Dylan’s head went up and down. “Couple of times. He was okay. Auden said his dad drank a lot. Is that what happened? Was he

drunk when he was using the barbecue?”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t go around repeating a story like that because there might not be anything to it. Anyway, Auden’s

going to need his friends in the days and weeks to come. Pretty hard, losing your dad.”

Dylan bit his upper lip. “I worry about that a lot.”

“About?”

“About you. Being the chief.”

“I’m okay. I’m careful.”

Dylan cast an eye at their own barbecue. “We shouldn’t use that anymore.”

“Tell you what. I’ll get it all checked out before we throw any more burgers on the grill. Check the gas connections and everything.”

Dylan nodded slowly. “Okay.” A pause, and then, “Is there anything else?”

Harry shook his head. “If you want to talk about it later, you know, we can.”

The boy nodded and went back into the house as Janice was coming out. She sat. “How’d he take it?”

“I don’t know what I was expecting. I thought he might burst into tears or something, but he seemed okay.”

“It’s a lot to process.”

They were both quiet until Harry finally asked, “So, how was your day?”

Janice worked in the offices of Lucknow Power and Light, which supplied electricity to the town and the surrounding region.

“SSDD,” she said, short for same shit, different day . “They had the crew out again trying to track down that drain on the system.”

“Have you told me about this? When I ask what drain on the system, are you going to give me that you-never-listen look?”

“I’m doing it now,” she said, glaring at him.

“So tell me again.”

“You know how last year around downtown, we replaced all the old low-pressure sodium lights in the streetlamps with induction

bulbs? That use forty percent less energy?”

“If you say so.”

“We were able to measure a drop in demand, which saves the town money, but in the last few days we’ve seen an uptick. Something

drawing more power. So the new bulbs may work for a while, then they start sucking up more juice... and your eyes are glazing

over.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Tell me what you were sitting out here pondering. I’m guessing it’s more than what happened to Dylan’s friend’s dad.”

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I might be in over my head, Jan.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This... what’s been happening. Something’s not right.”

“No kidding. Someone killed Angus Tanner. That other guy is still missing. I know that’s on your mind.”

Harry had not told her about what had been done to Tanner’s body. There were some things he kept under wraps. Not just from

Rachel Bosma, but from everyone. Even those closest to him. Not to protect Janice—she was as tough as they came—but because

he didn’t want there to be any chance of information getting out before it should.

But he did say this: “It’s uglier than people know.”

Janice let those words hang in the air a moment. “Okay.”

“I’ve never dealt with something like this.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

He smiled at her. “My biggest fan.”

“Just because it’s something you haven’t faced before doesn’t mean you can’t handle it.”

“Oh,” he said, suddenly remembering something. He dug down into his shirt pocket and brought out the single lens from a pair

of sunglasses that he had found earlier in the day. “You can use this like an eyepatch until you find the ones you lost.”

“How thoughtful,” she said as he handed it to her. The lens was dusty, with small flecks of dirt stuck to it. Janice brushed

much of it away with her thumb. “Where’d you find this?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She had a close look at it, held it up to the light. “Might actually be from the ones I can’t find. See here?”

She pointed to the upper left corner of the lens. Written on it was the word “Ray,” followed by a hyphen. “It’s supposed to

say Ray-Ban, but the ‘Ban’ part got worn off. Mine were like that.”

Harry held out his hand, and Janice placed the lens on his palm.

“What? You’ve got a weird expression on your face.”

“Any idea where or when you lost them?”

“As best I can remember, it was when I went in to pay for gas. Filled up, went inside, probably took them off when I was doing the credit-card-and-keypad thing, got back in the car, drove off, realized I didn’t have them. I went back, but they weren’t there and the cashier said he hadn’t seen them.” Again, she asked, “What?”

“Nothing,” Harry said. “Nothing.”