Could she really have done something stupid?
The thought arrived before he could stop it, and once it was there it wouldn't leave. Because Greg's theory made a horrible kind of sense. The calm that Dustin had spent three years reading as distance. The way she never panicked. Never once, in three years of watching him hurl himself off increasingly dangerous things, had Cathy saidplease don't do this.
He'd interpreted that as proof she didn't care.
What if he'd been wrong?
“She lives in Ridgway,” Dustin heard himself say. “About five hours south.”
Something like relief crossed Greg's face. “I can be there in seconds.”
“No.” Dustin cut him off. “Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“You're not showing up at my mother's house alone. You walk through walls, Greg. You tried to kill me. You carry a clipboard that tracks dying people. You're not materializing in my mother's living room and introducing yourself.”
“I would knock on the door.”
“Oh yeah that would make things so much better.”
“I was going to be honest?—”
“Honest about what?” Dustin swung his legs off the bed and faced Greg directly. “That you were sent to collect her son's soul? That's your opener?”
Greg faltered. “I was going to say I'm trying to help.”
“You look like a lost accountant, Greg.”
“I don't know what an accountant looks like.”
“Trust me.” Dustin turned to grab his jacket, ignoring the flare in his shoulder. “If we're doing this, I'm driving you. I'll introduce you. And if she tells you to leave, you leave.”
Greg looked up at him from the bed. “You want to come?”
“I don'twantto come. I need to be there because otherwise you're going to freak her out and she's going to call the sheriff and then I'll have to explain to the police why a supernatural entity is harassing my mother.”
That wasn't the reason. Not even close. The reason was that Dustin couldn't stomach the idea of Greg sitting across from Cathy and seeing the shape of what was broken between them without Dustin being in the room. To do what — control the narrative? Protect himself?
He didn't know. He just knew he had to be there.
“Okay,” Greg said. “We'll drive.”
“I'll drive. You'll sit in the passenger seat and not touch anything.”
“I'll need to hold the clipboard.”
“Fine. You can hold the clipboard.”
Highway 550 south out of Montrose was a road Dustin knew by feel.
He'd driven it hundreds of times. As a kid in the backseat of Cathy's truck. As a teenager with Tyler riding shotgun and the windows down. As an adult, less and less frequently, until the trips home becamesomething he scheduled around obligations and cancelled when he found an excuse.
The last time he'd driven this stretch had been five months ago. Their birthday. His and Tyler's. He'd made it as far as the Ridgway exit before pulling over, sitting in the truck for twenty minutes, and driving back north.
He didn't tell Greg any of this.
Greg sat in the passenger seat with perfect posture, clipboard in his lap, watching the landscape through the window with the same wide-eyed fascination he brought to everything. The San Juan mountains climbed in the distance, still carrying snow at the peaks. The valley floor was brown and golden in the late morning light.
