Chapter 18: The Stage

I called Cass with the empty folder still in my fist.

"Somebody took it," I said. "Everything. The transfers, the jeweler's post, all of it."

"Did you hear me say printouts?" Cass said. "Sunday, at the library, while you were on that motorcycle."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I'm your best friend and I don't trust a man with a lifted truck. I made two copies. One's in my truck and one's in my apron."

"That's all of it?"

"I also have it on three drives. One is in the freezer, wrapped in foil, inside a ham."

"A ham."

"A foil-wrapped drive in the freezer, Joni. Go put on the dress."

I put on the dress.

It was a deep red, plain, with long sleeves and a hem that stopped above the brace on my knee.

Holt stood in my doorway and said nothing for a while.

"Is that okay?" I asked.

"It's okay," he said, and cleared his throat. "I'm going to be looking at you all day."

"You're supposed to be looking at Brent."

"I'll do both."

Lakeshore Truck & Auto had rented a stage.

It stood at the front of the lot with a banner behind it, and a tall screen on a stand that played truck commercials in a loop.

There were three hundred people on folding chairs and in clumps along the fence.

Balloons, hot dogs, a country band doing sound checks.

Holt parked at the very back, where the gravel met the road, and got out with Bear on a short leash.

"Here's the line," he said, pointing at a faded curb stripe. "I'll be on this side of it."

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