Chapter 9: I Touch You

The Volvo died on a Thursday night, on the shoulder of Sheridan Road, in the worst rain of the month.

I had driven to the restaurant supplier for Dolly after closing.

The engine coughed twice and quit with the lake roaring somewhere to my left.

Carl was in Milwaukee until morning, and my phone had four percent left.

I got out, lifted the hood, and stood under it in the downpour, looking at an engine I didn't understand.

I didn't.

I reached for the latch to pull the hood down, and the edge of it slid across my palm and opened it from the heel to the base of my thumb.

I swore, loudly, and pressed the cut against my shirt.

Headlights swung across the road behind me and slowed.

A black sedan pulled in at the curb, and the engine went quiet.

The driver's door opened.

I didn't have to look to know who it was.

For eight nights, a car had been parked across the street from the diner at closing time.

It had never moved.

Nobody had gotten out, and nobody had come in.

Carl had noticed it first and asked me twice whether he should go over there with the wrench.

I had said no both times.

Stanley came around the front of the car in the rain with a first-aid kit from his trunk.

"You've been following me," I said.

"The dot on my phone stopped moving. I was four minutes behind you."

"You've been parked outside the diner for a week."

"I know."

"Why?"

"Because you told me not to come in," he said. "And I couldn't make myself leave."

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