CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Morning in the motel room came in weak and colorless through the curtains. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep.
Selena stood at the sink in the tiny bathroom with one hand braced on the counter, brushing her teeth while the tap dripped in a slow, irregular rhythm.
The mirror above the basin had gone cloudy at the edges years ago.
It reflected a woman who looked sharper than she felt.
Hair pinned back. Jacket laid out on the bed.
Gun holstered and ready. Face composed enough for work.
Inside, things were less tidy.
She had not slept well. The motel mattress had folded under her in the middle, and every time she drifted off, she had seen some version of the same thing.
Tara Brennan in the silo. Croft’s calm face across the interrogation table.
Connor in the parking lot, saying he was trying to help her be right.
What is happening? she thought. She felt like something was eroding at her spirit. Something that was slowly but surely seeping into her soul and casting dark shadows there. She wondered if it was Harlan County itself or just her guilt for leaving it behind.
A knock came at the door, startling Selena from the thought. She spit into the sink, wiped her mouth, and crossed the room, expecting maybe Eric Wilson with some overeager question about hot water or the TV remote.
When she opened the door, Jessie Chase stood there.
For a second Selena only stared in disbelief. She had worried about running into her, but she didn’t think her childhood best friend would seek her out.
Jessie was still beautiful, still slight in the way she had always been, but the years had redrawn her in other ways.
Dyed blue hair had been twisted into a messy bun that looked like it had survived both sleep and bad decisions.
A silver stud flashed in one nostril. Her eyes were the same though. Alert. Wry. Harder now.
Jessie leaned one shoulder against the frame and said, “So this is where you’re hiding?”
Selena found her voice a beat late. “I was going to come and see you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Did Connor tell you where I was?”
“Nope,” she said. “Don’t pin that on my brother.”
“Ugh, Eric…” Selena instinctively knew it must have come from him.
Jessie pushed off the frame. “Well. I’m here now.”
Selena looked at her properly then, taking in the changes and the old familiarity underneath them. Fifteen years had not erased Jessie. It had only roughened the edges and deepened the shadows around the things she used to say easily.
“You look good,” Selena said.
Jessie’s mouth twitched. “That’s a lie, but I appreciate the effort.”
“It’s not.”
“It is. But let’s move on.” She jerked her head toward the lot. “You want to get a coffee? There’s a place nearby that’s good.”
Selena almost smiled at the understatement. “Yes.”
“Good. Follow me.”
Jessie turned before Selena could say anything else.
Five minutes later Selena was behind the wheel, trailing Jessie’s battered Jeep down Main Street and into a part of Elmsview she knew by instinct even after all this time.
Familiar corners came back one after the other.
The hardware store. The laundromat mural peeling at one edge.
The pharmacy that still somehow survived.
Then the sign came into view, and she felt something loosen in her chest.
HANK’S REDHOT DINER
The lettering had been repainted since she was a teenager, but only just. The old shape of the building remained. Same red trim. Same broad front windows. Same parking spaces angled too close together for modern trucks.
Selena shut off the car and smiled at the place as she got out.
Jessie climbed out of her car. “Why does this feel like déjà vu?”
“It’s good to see some things don’t change.”
They went in together.
The bell over the door gave the same tired jangle it had always given.
Warmth met them at once, carrying coffee, bacon grease, syrup, and fryer oil.
Vinyl booths lined the walls. Chrome trim caught the late morning light.
Somewhere behind the counter, an old country song crackled from a radio that probably should have died a decade earlier.
Jessie glanced toward the back corner by the window.
“Remember where we used to sit in high school?”
Selena let out a breath through her nose, close to a laugh. “Of course. By the jukebox next to the window so we could see if any adults we knew were coming in to catch us skipping school.”
Jessie nodded once. “Still a pair of criminals at heart, even with your job.”
They slid into the old booth facing each other.
Before Selena could say another word, an elderly man in an apron came around the counter, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
He was thick through the middle now, hair gone white and thin, but the walk was unmistakable.
Same slight hitch in the left leg. Same broad face that always looked halfway to a grin.
He stopped dead.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Is that little Selena Raven?”
Selena was already rising.
“Hank.”
He opened his arms and she went into them without thinking. The hug smelled like fryer oil and old cotton, and for one strange second, she was fifteen again and trying to talk him into giving their table free pie because Jessie had failed algebra.
Hank held her back at arm’s length. “Where ya been?”
“Oh,” Selena said, smiling, “around.”
Jessie leaned back in the booth and said, “Selena’s a big-shot FBI agent. Not got time for us small-towners anymore.”
The line was tossed out lightly, but Selena heard what sat under it.
“I’ll always have time for my home,” she said.
And she meant it for once as she said it, which only sharpened the guilt. Home was not a place she had lacked time for. It was a place she had neglected because turning away from it had once felt easier than looking straight at what she had done.
Hank nodded like he accepted the answer or at least had decided not to test it.
“What can I get you girls?”
“Coffee,” Jessie said. “And if you’ve got any sense left, two blueberry milkshakes.”
Hank pointed the towel at her. “You know I do.”
He lumbered back toward the counter.
For a second Selena and Jessie just sat there with the old jukebox at their side and the noise of dishes and low voices around them, neither seeming sure how to begin now that they were actually here.
Selena tried first.
“How’re you doing?”
Jessie gave a short laugh and looked down at the tabletop. “Well. Where to start.” She picked at a nick in the laminate with one fingernail. “I got married. You should’ve been my maid of honor, but you didn’t answer my calls.”
Straight to the pain. That was Jessie.
Selena took them without flinching, though it cost her.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself. I needed to get away from everything.”
Jessie looked up at once. “You mean my brother?”
Selena held her gaze.
“You could’ve gotten away from him,” Jessie said, “without putting me on ice.”
“It was too complicated.”
Jessie leaned back. “That’s what people say when they don’t want to explain themselves.”
Selena had no good answer to that.
Instead, she asked, “How was the wedding?”
Jessie barked a laugh. “Beautiful. But the marriage sucked. Now I’m two for two, the least said about both of them, the better.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be.” Jessie shrugged one shoulder. “He was a deadbeat. Good riddance. It’s not like somebody died.”
Hank arrived with two thick glass mugs of milkshake and two coffees balanced expertly on a tray. He set them down with a flourish.
“Here,” he said. “These are on the house.”
Jessie grinned. “Thanks, Hank.”
“Are you sure, Hank?” Selena said.
He wagged a finger at them. “Yes. A homecoming gift. I hope you stick around. Your old man must be thrilled.”
Then he shuffled off again.
“Are you staying?” Jessie asked.
Selena lifted the milkshake and took a sip.
The taste hit with absurd force. Blueberry syrup.
Cold cream. A little too sweet. Exactly the same.
For one moment it carried her straight back to summer afternoons at fifteen, packed into this booth with Jessie and Connor and whichever friends had drifted through that week, all of them full of complaints that meant nothing and hopes that seemed endless.
Back when the world felt on the verge of opening instead of narrowing.
Jessie watched her over the rim of her mug. “How is it?”
Selena set the glass down carefully. “Still the best in the county.”
That made Jessie smile. A real one this time.
Something in Selena gave way then. She reached across the table before she had fully decided to do it and laid her hand over Jessie’s.
“You know I missed you terribly,” she said.
Jessie’s expression changed.
A flicker in her eyes.
She turned her hand and squeezed Selena’s fingers. “I missed you, too.”
As she did, the sleeve of her sweater rode up.
Selena saw the marks. And they were like a shot to her soul.
Needle scars. Faded but unmistakable.
Her breath caught. “Jessie… I…”
Jessie drew her hand back and tugged the sleeve down with a quick practiced motion. “Don’t worry. I’ve been straight for two months. Connor got me into a rehab. Still managed to hold on to my veterinary practice, just had to close it for six months, but I’m getting back on my feet.”
The words dropped hard into the space between them.
Selena stared at her. She had known Jessie might have been unhappy. Angry. Lonely, maybe. Divorced. But this?
Her heart sank.
“I’m sorry,” Selena said quietly. “If I’d known, I’d have…”
Jessie cut her off at once. “Given me sympathy? I don’t want that.”
A tear gathered at the corner of Jessie’s eye, and she wiped it away before it could fall.
“But you know,” she said, voice roughening despite the effort to keep it level, “I could’ve used a friend.”
That one did it.
Selena felt her own eyes sting. “You have one here. You still do.”
Jessie looked at her for a long second, deciding whether to believe it.
Then she nodded once.