Page 36 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

Fuck fuck fuck—

I grab my registration and slam the glove box shut. I can only pray I’ve moved fast enough for the gun to slip past Josiah’s well-trained eye.

I haven’t.

“What was that in your glove box?”

“Probably just my cigarettes.”

He takes a cursory glance at my registration. This is no longer of interest to him. “Very funny, Miss Byrd. Why don’t you open it up for me again?”

“No.” So much power in a single word. I lift my chin high and pretend like I’m not deafened by the blood rushing through my ears.

“I’d hate to search it myself.”

“You need a warrant.”

“I only need probable cause.”

“All I’ve done tonight is have dinner with my family.” I strain to keep my voice even. If I talk too loudly, he’ll think I’m defensive. If I talk too quietly, he’ll think I’m scared. He doesn’t need to know that right now I’m both. “I’m not stupid enough to do anything that would send me back to York.”

As he gnaws his tobacco, his face taut like a bungee cord stretched too far, I envision everything I’ve built turning to dust. My chair in the tattoo shop, my apartment, my peace lilies—all of it, gone in a single instant. I did my research before I got the gun: unlawful possession of a firearm is a three-year mandatory minimum, but with my history, I’d be facing a much longer sentence.

My powerlessness in this moment is suffocating. I am a snake with no fangs, a lion with no claws. I force myself to meet Josiah’s eyes. They say the left eye is the window to the soul, and I will him to see through my hardened exterior to the little girl still living inside of me.

He stretches his arm across the top of my window. “Where are you headed off to?”

“Long Grass. I’m staying with a friend there.”

“She’s a good friend?” he asks.

“The very best.”

“One who wouldn’t let you do something stupid?”

“Never.”

Josiah looks off into the distance, the flat landscape faintly illuminated by my headlights. He raps once on the top of the car. “Then you best get going before it gets much later. The drunks will be out soon.”

I don’t breathe until he pulls away.

I lied. I don’t go to Sara’s. I go to Daniel’s instead, and I check my rearview mirror all the way there to be sure I’m not being followed.

If Daniel is perplexed by me asking to see him so late, or if he can sense the distress percolating inside me, he is polite enough not to say anything. He sits on the front porch of his trailer, shrouded by a mosquito net pocked with gaps and tears, his feet elevated in a plastic lawn chair. His coffee mug readsWORLD’S BEST DADin girlish pastels suggesting a daughter. “I think that’s my sister’s dress,” he says once I’m within earshot, maneuvering my way around the dismembered cars on his lawn.

“She let me borrow it.”

“She’ll probably let you keep it if you ask nice enough. Our mom always made her wear it to family dinners. Once she died, Sara was relieved she’d never have to put it on again.” Even during the only personal anecdote he’s shared with me, Daniel remains aloof. “You said you needed to talk about your mom?”

It was a weak excuse, but the only plausible one that could explain me arriving at his doorstep at this hour. The truth is, I’m still reeling from my brush with Josiah, and if he’s tailing me or planning to send a legion of deputies with a search warrant, I want to be around another cop when he does. Daniel won’t stand for Tillman County encroaching on his jurisdiction, and I’d like to think he’ll defend me, even if it’s mostly out of loyalty to his sister.

“Mitch Perkins,” I blurt. “She hung around someone named Mitch Perkins. He sounded like a pretty bad guy.”

Daniel moves his feet so I can sit down. “Been in prison since last summer. Fifteen years for arson. It was a hate crime to boot. Sounds like a real charming guy.”

Fifteen years is probably what I’ll be facing if the sheriff finds my gun. I’m stupid for leaving it in the glove box. I should have slid it under the seat, put it in the trunk, done anything with it except leave it in a compromised hiding place. “So he didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance.”

“Is that really why you called me this late? To ask about Mitch Perkins?”

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