The Killing Moon: A Novel

"I heard about your mother," she said. "Sounded like it was awful at the end. I was very sorry. I always liked her." The Sinclairs and the Maddoxes had lived on the same street, Val having moved to Black Falls when she was seven. Single-parent kids, both of them—Val with her crooked father, Donny with his troubled mother—and Val used to fantasize about their parents marrying and Mrs. Maddox becoming her mother and protector. Even into high school, she was always on her best behavior around Donny's mom, on the off chance that, even if she couldn't find a way to fall in love with Val's father, maybe she would fall in love with Val. Maybe enough to want her as her own daughter. "But why have you stayed?"

"Just to sell her house and get her things settled." He smiled a smile that had no meaning behind it. "I'm kind of stuck here until then."

"You've got nothing else out there waiting for you? Where have you been all this time? What've you been doing? We heard rumors."

"Rumors?"

"Town talk, you know. After the way you left. All the promises you made, then broke. Me, I was laughing. I hope I would have had the guts to screw off like you did."

"What rumors?"

"Someone said you'd joined a band. Or that you were in banking or finance or something. Someone said they'd read somewhere that you'd founded one of those Internet companies and made a billion dollars."

He smiled and shook his head, relieved to change the subject. "No, nothing like that. Just bouncing around. What about you? You still draw?"

She huffed out a laugh at her long-ago artistic pretensions.

"What?" he said. "You were good."

"You know how they say that if you really want to make God laugh, tell him your plans? God had milk coming out of his nose every time I opened my mouth about art school."

Donny shook his head. "None of us are the people we hoped we would be. Probably nobody ever is. But you're happy, right?" He leaned back for a look at the house. "You have a home. A husband."

She flashed a quick, hard smile, preferable to flowing tears. She looked down at the thin wedding band cutting into her swollen finger. "So, I don't know where Dill is," she told him. "No idea."

"Okay," said Donny. "Hey, I'm sorry if I…"

She shook her head, wanting very much not to say anything she would regret. "I was happy for you, Donny. Really, I was. Crushed for myself. I mean, a B-plus instead of an A-minus, and poof, your future plans are no more. But at least, with you getting away…one dove got free, you know? If it couldn't be me. I just—I didn't ever think you'd waste it. But now, fifteen years later, you're here again. It's a little hard for me to see. So don't take this the wrong way, Donny. Please don't take this the wrong way. But I really wish you had never come back."

After closing the door, she stood with her hands trembling in a prayer pose against her nose and lips, then went to refill her glass of wine.

15

BUCKY

THEY CAME UP Old Red Road in the rescue truck, Bucky and Eddie, the box siren whirring out of the roof over their heads. Eddie slowed when he saw Maddox's blues skimming the dark trees, and eased in around the corner.

Twenty bucks extra they were paid each month, the Black Falls Volunteer Fire and Rescue, to keep their town pagers handy night and day. Seven more bucks per call, per hour, on top of that. Because of the overlap in certification training, the police force and fire and rescue were one and the same, the off-duty cops available as on-call firefighters.

Except rookie Maddox. He had not, and as far as Bucky was concerned, would never be invited to join.

Beyond the patrol car, a mustard gold Subaru wagon sat steaming. It had punched straight into a broad tree trunk, its hood mashed like a broken fist. The impact had brought a heavy limb down on the roof, and gasoline from the fuel line was puddling into the road, streaked green with antifreeze.

The pumper truck came up behind them and Eddie hopped out, him and Mort taking the ice ladder down off its hooks in order to flip open the side compartments and pull out the medical cases. Bucky dropped out of the passenger-side door wearing old painter's pants and a ribbed tank shirt, grinding his cigarette butt into the dirt shoulder and spitting into the trees. He reached for a fire extinguisher and a red ax and walked to the car as the other two jogged past him.

Maddox was at the Subaru, trying to talk to the driver and passenger inside. He stepped back as they arrived. "I called the ambulance," he said.

Best-case scenario—nighttime, no traffic tie-ups, drivers who didn't get lost more than once—it was a thirty-minute ambulance run from Rainfield into Black Falls. Leaving Bucky plenty of time.

He checked the hissing engine first, verifying that it was steam rising and not smoke. The windshield had shattered over the crumpled hood and the dash, so that when Bucky unclipped the small flashlight from his belt, its beam shone through an empty frame.