“Because of me?”
“Not everything has to do with you.”
“Why are you getting in touch with people?”
He takes off his jacket before responding. “Ivan Petrov is here in town. I saw him at the ski hut.”
An ice-cold shiver runs down my spine and all I can think of is Paisley.
Paisley.
Paisley.
PAISLEY.
I choke back a gasp. “What’s he doing here?”
Dad looks surprised. “You know him?”
“Yeah. He was Paisley’s trainer in Minneapolis. He…” I don’t know how much of her background I’m allowed to share. “She ran away from him. That’s why she’s here.”
Dad’s eyes widen, then he jumps up.
I follow his lead. “How doyouknow him?”
He purses his lips. His face grows firm. “Your mother. They were a figure-skating pair when young. He was a fucking pig.”
What the…?
“Where’s Paisley?” he asks, still typing into his phone.
“I don’t know.” Saying the words makes me feel sick. I don’t know where she is, and her psycho trainer is in town. My body is ice cold.
Dad looks at me. “You don’t knowwhere she is?”
“No.”
“Youalwaysknow where she is.”
“Not now,” I say while pulling my jacket out of the closet. “But I’m going to find her. No idea what that dude is looking for here, Dad, but it can’t be anything good. We’ve got to get rid of him.”
He raises his phone and casts me a glance as if I were slow. “What do you think I’m doing?”
Paisley doesn’t see me as I walk into The Old-Timer. She’s sitting in a green cord chair from the 70s with a wool blanket around her legsand a pair of old, retro headphones over her ears that’s connected to the record player next to her. Her eyes are closed, and her head is leaning back.
I close the door. William’s face peeks out from behind a bookshelf in the middle of the room.
“How long has she been there?”
“Hours. She’s been listening to one record after another and doesn’t want to talk. I even tried offering her a cheese sandwich.”
“She doesn’t like cheese, William.”
“That explains why she always looks so sad. She should eat some. Cheese makes you happy.”
“I’m going to go talk to her.”
“About the cheese?”
