Chapter 4: Mill Road

Carys drove me to the end of Mill Road and stopped without turning off the engine.

"Nine o'clock, my ranch," she said. "You owe me, Mr. Rawlins."

"I know what I owe you."

"No, you don't," she said. "Not yet."

I got out, and she drove away.

The house was a quarter mile ahead, and every window was lit.

I had built the porch myself, three summers ago, on my last leave.

Brody's black truck was parked in my driveway, nose to the door.

I stood at the end of the gravel and looked at it for a while.

There was a dent in the tailgate.

I thought about the truck, and then I walked up and knocked.

Cassidy opened the door in a silk robe I had never seen.

She did not look surprised.

She held a folded paper in one hand, and I understood that she had been waiting for me with it.

"Don't come in," she said.

"Where's Poppy?"

"Asleep. She's had a terrible night, thanks to you."

"I want to see her."

"No."

She held the paper out.

I read it under the porch light.

It was a court order, signed at one in the morning by the county judge.

It called me an armed and unstable danger to my family.

It said I could not come within five hundred feet of my daughter or of this house.

It said that was effective immediately.

"A judge signed this in the middle of the night," I said.

"He plays golf with Brody's father," she said. "You'd know that if you'd been here."

"I was in a war."

"You were in a war for nine years," she said. "I was here."

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