1
DANE
My whiskey burns on the way down, and I nurse the glass between my palms at the bar's far corner, watching condensation bead on worn wood grain. Friday nights at the pub mean the usual crowd—locals who've lived in Sutter's Gap their entire lives, who know each other's business down to what brand of toilet paper they buy at Gideon Strath's store. They think they know me like that too, but they're wrong.
"Another round, Strouse?" Mira leans across the bar, red hair falling over one shoulder, amber eyes doing their usual dance. She's asked me out four times in the past year, and I've declined four times with enough politeness to keep her pouring my drinks without spitting in them.
"Nah." I slide a twenty across the counter, meeting her gaze long enough to be civil but not long enough to encourage more attention. I've seen her go home with one too many of the locals and I'd rather not share in whatever might be passed around. If you know what I mean.
She pouts, full lips turning down at the corners. "You always go home early on Fridays. You never stick around 'til things get good."
"Consistency." I drain the last finger of whiskey and stand, pulling my jacket from the stool beside me. This place isn't always friendly on a Friday night, and with it being a full moon, I expect the idiots who like to cause trouble will be a bit rowdy.
I glance up at the clock and see it's nearing eleven, time for me to get out of here before the keg starts flowing and trouble gets riled up. I'm not fond of Sutter's Gap's sheriff, and he doesn't like me much either.
"Hey, Dane!" Miles Tucker calls from the dartboard, his stocky frame blocking the player behind him. He's one of the few locals I can tolerate, mostly because he knows when to shut up. "Heading out already? It's barely eleven."
"Got an early morning," I lie. My mornings are all the same. I wake up with coffee and make sure things are in order, chop some wood to make sure I get a full eight cords stacked before winter settles in, and then tinker in my garage for a while. But those are plans, and I don't break plans when I make them.
"Sure, you do," another local snorts from his usual table, bald head gleaming under the pub's dim lighting. I don’t know all of their names because I never cared to try to learn them, but when you dislike someone, you don't have much motivation to get to know them. "You know what I think? I think you've got a woman stashed up in those woods. That's why you never stick around."
The other men laugh while I force my mouth into what passes for a grin and flip him off on my way to the door. Their mockery doesn't eat at me the way they think it does, though sometimes,I think they're like grade school boys who only pick on the girls they like. Somehow, their jesting teeters on the edge like that, and I can't tell if they do it to help me feel like I fit in or to remind me that I don't.
The October air hits me the second I step outside, cold enough to see my breath fog up and blow away in the stiff breeze. Cold enough to remind me what month it is, what anniversary is crawling toward me with every passing day. The constant reminder is yet another reason I don't want to be around anyone. It tends to make my temper worse and the hair trigger even more finicky.
My old beater truck is parked around the side of the block where I left it, but with slightly more rust every time I see it. I climb in and turn the engine over, listening to it cough before catching and rattling to life. The heater takes its time, blowing cold air that gradually warms as I pull onto the main road cutting through town.
Sutter's Gap doesn't have much in the way of infrastructure the way the Big Apple does. We only have one grocery store, a hardware shop, and a diner that serves breakfast all day because Ellie Hooper can't be bothered to print a proper dinner menu. And the square sits at the town's center, a cobblestone space with a frozen fountain and bare trees that'll be strung with Christmas lights before November hits.
It's the kind of place people could come to disappear, or the kind of place people never leave because they don't know anywhere else exists. I bet half these locals grew up here and never made it out, unlike me. I'm here for different reasons that they'll never hear because I learned very early in life to trust no one, and that lesson was confirmed to me the night I decided I had to leave New York for good.
I'm halfway through the square when I see a woman standing near the fountain, swaying on her feet. She's wearing a slinky, dark dress, the kind meant for city nightlife, not mountain towns where the temperature's already dropped below forty. She has no coat or shoes and even from this distance, I can see she's not right. The way she moves, uncoordinated and loose-limbed, tells me she's on something. The thing willows in the air like branches in a tornado, and her eyes are wide and glassy.
Whatever trouble she's in isn't mine, and getting involved means exposing myself to questions I don't want to answer. But I'm already slowing and pulling to the curb because some ancient instinct I thought I'd killed years ago is screaming that leaving her here is an inhumane thing. The men of this town are mostly good men, and I don't think she'd have any problems, but I just can't drive past and let her freeze her tits off.
That's part of me I'll never carve out of this cold, dead heart.
I kill the engine and step out. The square's empty—everyone's either at the pub or home for the night. She doesn't notice me approaching until I'm five feet away, and when she does, her head snaps up with an aggression that surprises me.
"Stay back." Her voice slurs, words running together. Hazel eyes try to focus on my face and fail. She probably can't see me with my headlights blasting her in the face. "I don't need help from another—" She cuts herself off, stumbling sideways.
I catch her before she hits the cobblestones, hands gripping her upper arms. "Oh, easy now…" I coax. She's cold—freezing. Her skin is ice against my palms, and up close, I can see the goosebumps covering every exposed inch of her.
"Come on, now." I try as much as possible not to sound threatening. "You're going to freeze to death out here."
"Good." She tries to pull away but her legs aren't cooperating. "Let me freeze. Better than…" Another slur of words I can't make out tumbles out of her mouth and I know she’s been drugged. I don’t smell alcohol on her breath, but she's definitely on something.
She fights me, or tries to. Her arms bat and swipe at the air, and I'm about to let her go, let her make her own bad decisions, when something around her neck catches the streetlight. I swear I see a golden bullet, but my mind could be playing tricks on me.
So I wrap an arm around her middle and reach for her neck, and as I do, I glance up the street to make sure I'm not being watched. I don’t need attention for what might appear to be some sort of an assault. My mystery woman lurches forward, dangling over my arm as I slide the charm around the back side of her body on the thin gold chain so I can see what it is from my truck's headlights.
My blood turns to ice in my veins as I stare at the charm, fingers closing around the small cylinder. It's real—not a replica, not some fashion statement. An actual bullet, polished and engraved. I turn it toward the light, reading the inscription etched into the brass casing.
Queens, 2011.
The world narrows to that single point. The small piece of metal that shouldn't exist, that I disposed of personally after the job. I made sure—I always make sure. And yet here it is, hanging from the neck of a drugged woman in the middle of the town I callhome, days before the anniversary of the night that ended my career.
Someone knows—who I am, where I am, and what I did.
