Chapter 43
Luke
Tuesday.
I told Marin I’d come back Tuesday. But now it’s the faucet. That was the reason she called. A kitchen faucet that drips every six seconds—she counted—and needs replacing, not patching. Parts and an hour of labor. Simple.
Nothing about this is simple.
I’m at the hardware store in town. Henderson’s.
The kind of place where everything’s behind the counter and you have to ask Earl for what you need and Earl asks you what it’s for and then tells you a story about the time his brother-in-law installed a garbage disposal and flooded his mother’s basement.
“Kitchen faucet,” I say. “Single handle. Brushed nickel.”
Earl pulls three boxes from the shelf. Lines them up on the counter. Starts explaining the differences between them the way a sommelier explains wine—seriously, passionately, with the unshakable belief that this decision matters.
I pick the middle one. Earl nods like I’ve passed a test.
He rings it up. Pauses. Sets his hands flat on the counter.
“That for the house?”
He doesn’t say your house. Doesn’t say Emily’s name. Doesn’t say anything about the family who sold it or the woman who bought it or the reason it changed hands. Just the house. Like it’s a wound we’ve agreed to refer to by location.
“Yeah.”
“How’s the lady settling in? Heard her husband’s not doing so good.”
“She’s managing.”
“Brain tumor.” Earl shakes his head. “Hell of a thing. My uncle had one of those. Went from normal to not knowing his own name in about six weeks. Terrible way to go.”
“Terrible,” I say.
“She’s lucky she’s got you helping out. That house needs a lot of work.”
“It does.”
He bags the faucet. I pay cash. He gives me the change and a look that’s half concern, half curiosity—the look people in small towns give you when they’re trying to figure out the story but are too polite to ask directly.
I take the bag and leave.
In the truck, I set the faucet on the passenger seat. Sit there. Engine off. Stare at the box. Brushed nickel.
Emily always liked that finish.
I start the truck.
The drive home takes eleven minutes from Henderson’s. I make it in eight because I take the back road and don’t stop at the sign on Miller and Fourth. Nobody does. It’s a suggestion, not a law.
At home, I put the faucet on the kitchen table. Pour a glass of bourbon. Stand at the counter and drink it looking at the box.
Brushed nickel. Single handle. For a kitchen I built. In a house I walked out of. Because of a woman who died driving away from it.
And now I’m installing it for a different woman. One who kidnapped her boyfriend and strapped him to the bed I once shared with my wife.
I finish my drink. Wash the glass, dry it, put it back in the cabinet.
My phone buzzes on the table.
Marin. Text.
Your plan is working.
I read it standing up. Read it again sitting down. Four words doing more work than most people’s paragraphs.
I should respond. Something short. Something professional. Something that keeps this where it belongs—a job, a plan, a transaction with clear boundaries.
I put the phone face down on the table.
Reach for the bottle of bourbon. Pour another glass.
The faucet sits in its box. The phone sits on the table. The house is dark and quiet the way it always is and I’m standing in my kitchen at four in the afternoon holding a drink I don’t want, not responding to a text I can’t stop reading.
I pick up the phone. Take a photo of the receipt. Send it.
No words. Just the faucet, the price, the store name. Today’s date in the picture.
She doesn’t respond in eleven seconds this time.
She responds in four.