It takes me twenty minutes to dig it out, my hands getting progressively dirtier as I move chunks of charred wood and twisted metal.
When I finally get it open, relief floods through me.
My veterinary license, insurance papers, and emergency cash are all intact and protected.
I blow out a relieved breath, nearly sagging with relief. At least this stuff is okay.
My phone buzzes with another call from Katie.
It’s the seventh one this morning.
I’ve been letting them go to voicemail because I don’t know how to explain what’s happening without putting her in danger.
But I can’t avoid her forever.
I answer on the next ring.
“Gigi? Oh mygod, where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling—” Katie’s voice is tight with worry, the words tumblingover each other. “I saw the news about the fire. Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m…” I start to say I’m fine, but the words stick in my throat. I’m not fine. I’m so far from fine I can’t even see it from here. “Can you come pick me up? I’m at the clinic.” I glance around. Calling it “the clinic” still seems so wrong. “Or what’s left of it.”
“On my way. Don’t move.”
Twenty minutes later, Katie’s ancient Ford Fiesta pulls up to the curb, music blasting from speakers that have seen better decades.
She gets out wearing her favorite Northwestern T-shirt and jeans with holes in both knees, her blonde hair escaping from a messy bun in the way that somehow looks effortlessly perfect on her.
The moment she sees me, her face goes pale.
“What thefuck, Gigi?” She’s at my side in seconds, her hands hovering over me like she’s afraid to touch me.
The smell of her vanilla body spray and the coffee she’s perpetually drinking envelope me. “What the hell happened to yourface? Who did this to you?”
I’d almost forgotten about the split lip and the bruise blooming across my cheekbone. I touch it gingerly and wince. “It’s nothing?—”
“That’snotnothing. That’s—” She stops, her eyes going wide as she notices how carefully I’m moving. “Are you hurt? Should we go to the hospital?”
“No hospital.” I grab her arm, probably too hard, but I need her to understand. “Katie, please. Just…can we go somewhere? I need to talk to you.”
She studies my face for a long moment then nods. “Okay. Come on.”
We drive to Lincoln Park in silence, Katie occasionally glancing at me with worried brown eyes that keep dropping to my ribs.
I’m holding myself too stiffly, I know, trying not to breathe too deeply because each breath feels like knives.
“Did someone attack you?” Katie finally asks as she parks under an oak tree whose leaves are just starting to turn yellow at the edges, autumn coming whether we’re ready for it or not. “Gigi, we need to call the police?—”
“No police.” The words come out sharper than I intend. “Katie, I can’t. If I go to the police, Dad dies. And maybe you too.”
Her hands tighten on the steering wheel and her face whitens. “What?”
“Okay.” She turns off the engine and faces me fully, a serious expression on her pretty face. “Talk to me. What’s really going on? And don’t tell me it’s nothing because I know that look. That’s your ‘my life is imploding and I don’t know how to fix it’ look.”
I lean back against the passenger seat—carefully, because my ribs scream in protest—watching joggers pass by on the lakefront path.
They look carefree.
Relaxed even.
