City of the Lost (Casey Duncan #1)(79)

“Hmm?”

“Your parents made you stitch your own leg to teach you a lesson? That’s f*cked up.”

“Which is why I don’t usually share those stories. People get the wrong idea.”

“Wrong idea?” he says as I clean the stitched wound. “They took away your toys because you wanted to be a vet. They made you stitch up your own goddamned leg. You do realize that’s not normal, don’t you?”

“My parents had their ways. Their ways were harsh. They thought they were preparing me for a world that was equally harsh.” I pause in my cleaning. “Do I realize some of what they did was ‘f*cked up’?” I meet his gaze. “I do. But they’re dead.”

He nods, as if understanding. There’s no one left to confront about it. No one to hate. So I don’t. I can’t.

I put aside the suture needle to clean and then get my shot of tequila. I lift the bottle, asking if he wants another, but he shakes his head.

“I need to get back to Beth. She shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

I nod. He gets his jacket on, wincing slightly, but makes no move to leave, just looks around the station.

“Anything you need from me?” he says. “Before I take off?”

When I say no, he looks almost disappointed.

“Okay. Guess I’ll go, then.” He eyes the door without moving, and I can tell he isn’t eager to get back to grieving, but he’s right—Beth needs someone there, and there’s really no one else who can do it.

“I know you’re the boss,” I say. “So I can’t tell you to take time off. But if that will help—”

“Hell, no. Working helps. I’ll be in tomorrow. Tonight, I just … Yeah, I should go.” He walks to the door, and as he leaves, he says, quietly, “I suck at this part, too, detective,” and before I can reply, he’s gone.


Day two of mourning. It is only now, when something goes wrong, that I realize exactly how efficiently this town usually works. Every day, I join the same neighbours walking to work. We pass the lumberyard, and it’s already abuzz with activity. At morning break, I will walk to the bakery and get my cookie. The varieties may change, but it will always be warm from the oven at 10 a.m. I can grab a coffee, too, fresh brewed, and I’ll linger a few minutes and chat with Devon and Brian, the couple who run the bakery. They’re my equivalent of the morning paper. No gossip for those guys—just the news. After I get back to the station, Kenny will pop by to check on our wood supply for the stove. And so it goes.

We don’t ever run out of wood because Kenny got busy or the local supply is low. I don’t ever miss out on my cookie because one of the guys stayed home sick or just didn’t feel like baking that morning. Everything runs perfectly and predictably.

When you think about it, that’s amazing, given all the moving parts required. Something as simple as getting a sandwich at lunch means that the greenhouse workers must bring the produce to the shop that morning and the bread must be baked by Brian and the salmon must be filleted by the butcher … the list goes on. In the city, those parts are replaceable. No tomatoes at the usual supplier? Grab replacements from elsewhere. Employee phones in sick? Call someone else. Salmon went bad? Substitute corned beef. That isn’t possible here. Yet the town runs like clockwork.

Today, the clock is broken.

I don’t see my usual neighbours on the way to work. Kenny doesn’t come by. The bakery has cookies, but they’re peanut butter because those were Abbygail’s favourite, and I would feel like a fraud eating them. I already feel like one.

I mourn the girl in that photo. The girl who kept that dingy stuffed animal and cheap tin necklace. The girl who had a crush on the sheriff. The girl who encouraged her boyfriend to go after someone he wanted more than he wanted her. The girl who survived hell down south, came up here, and made a new life for herself.

That’s what people do in Rockton. Make new lives. But for Abbygail, it wasn’t about having fun with a new persona. It was about putting a shattered world back together. About becoming the person she should have been. To do that at such a young age takes incredible strength. She clawed back her birthright—the right to be a capable, independent young woman—and she should have left this town, gone back down south, and lived the kind of life that, in a just world, she would always have had. But someone took that away from her. The place that gave back her life also stole it away.

I’m furious for her. Outraged for her. And I mourn her. But I don’t really have that right, do I? I’m surrounded by people who knew her and are in genuine pain at her passing. All I have is a photo and a stuffed toy and a tin necklace and second-hand memories. So I have no right to mourn. But I still do. Quietly and on my own, because that’s how I spend my day. Being the clock. Being that one functioning piece of Rockton that keeps the rhythm and does her job. My job is solving this crime. Avenging Abbygail.

So I work. All day. Into the night.

It’s dark out now. I’m standing looking at notes I’ve tacked up—easy enough to do when the station walls are made of wood. I’m brainstorming connections when Anders comes in. He grabs a beer from the icebox, walks up behind me, and says, “You need a whiteboard.”

“I can’t imagine that’d be easy to get on the plane.”

“Ask Eric. He’ll get you one.”