Page 73 of Forever Gone

Selena could have left it there. The invitation had been reasonable, and the refusal did not require explanation. Even so, something in Kelly’s posture reminded her of the car ride to Boyd’s, when one memory about a gym teacher had briefly allowed them to speak like people with a shared past rather than opposing versions of it.

“Good work today,” Selena said.

Kelly raised her head. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

The answer sounded sincere.

Selena wondered whether either of them meant what they had said, or whether they were testing phrases that belonged to colleagues who trusted one another.

Kelly unlocked the sedan and placed the file on the passenger seat. “I’ll send the report before I turn in.”

“Don’t stay up too late. We have Blethan tomorrow.”

“I remember.”

“Good night, Kelly.”

“Good night, Selena.”

The car door closed. Kelly started the engine, waited for a county cruiser to pass, then pulled out of the lot.

Selena remained beside her own vehicle.

The department entrance stood behind her. Through the glass, Cheryl crossed the front office carrying a stack of folders. She did not notice Selena outside. The building seemed to operate without her, every person moving through a life that had been in place before she returned.

*

The Wilson Motel lay less than fifteen minutes away. Selena followed Main Street through the center of Elmsview, passing the diner, the closed pharmacy, and the hardware store with stacked bags of salt visible through its front windows. Traffic had thinned to a few pickups and a school bus returning empty to the county depot.

The route carried her toward the southern edge of town.

A familiar brick building appeared beyond the next intersection.

Elmsview High School occupied the same rise it had when Selena was a student. Newer additions stretched behind the original structure, their flat roofs and broad windows altering the outline without replacing it. The main entrance still stood beneath a stone lintel carved with the school’s name. A flag moved above the front lawn, dark against the remaining color in the western sky.

Selena slowed.

The turn signal clicked before she consciously decided to use it.

She entered the parking lot.

Most of the spaces were empty. A maintenance van stood near the gymnasium, and three cars remained beside the teachers’ entrance. The football field beyond the school had no players beneath its lights. Aluminum bleachers rose along one side, pale and empty in the low evening.

Selena parked near the far end of the lot and shut off the engine.

The building filled the windshield.

At first, nothing moved inside. Then a cleaner crossed one of the upper corridors, visible for two seconds through a row of windows before disappearing behind a classroom wall.

Familiarity came in fragments.

The stone steps had been widened. Security cameras watched the entrance now. A covered walkway connected the main building to an extension Selena did not remember. The old science wing remained near the rear, though its windows had been replaced and the brickwork cleaned.

She could still locate the places that mattered.

Behind the vocational building, an alley of cracked pavement had once hidden students from the main yard. Selena and Jessie Chase had crouched there during lunch with a cigarette Jessie stole from her mother’s purse. Neither of them knew how to smoke properly. Jessie inhaled too deeply, coughed until tears ran down her cheeks, then insisted they finish because throwing it away would be wasteful.

Selena had taken two more drags and spent the afternoon convinced every teacher could smell it on her clothes.