After a day that involved a dead body and a lot of mowing, Virginia figured she deserved waffles for dinner. Jason hadn’t kicked her out. Wayne’s body would be found. They’d pull the thread back to Hazard, and Virginia would be free. And maybe, if she kept on living, she’d become an accountant, and somehow Jason would always be there. Without Aubrey.
She sank her fork into the waffles, thinking of all those things and feeling that shuddering thrum of hope inside her chest, when a middle-aged man in a shirt and tie slid into the empty side of the booth.
“Ms. Campbell.” He smiled.
She lifted her head and froze. The cop from Hazard’s driveway. The cop who went golfing with Hazard. Whose Impala had caught her and Jason. Who had been parked at the Wardens’ open house. “State Detective Alvarez,” he said with a friendly smile. “Pleased to meet you.” His sunglasses were the wraparound kind, placed on top of his head. His tie had recently been tightened. His shirtsleeves were wrinkled and rolled up. He looked like he’d been in a car for a while. He lifted his finger for the waitress.
“What do you want?” Virginia said through clenched teeth.
“How’s your mother?”
“Is she in trouble?”
He shrugged. “Just making conversation.”
“I’d rather you get to the point,” Virginia said.
The waitress stopped.
“Coffee, please,” he said.
Virginia met his eyes and refused to look away.
His jaw tightened. “What do you know about the Wardens?”
“Jack shit,” Virginia said, pushing a bite of her waffle into a pool of syrup. “Why?”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with them.”
“I went to school with one of their daughters. I hang out with her. I’d hardly call that ‘spending a lot of time’ with the Wardens. Do you hang out with your friends’ parents?” She shoved the bite in her mouth and chewed, still staring. “That’s a little weird.”
He didn’t look bothered. Yet.
“You seem like a straight shooter. I know you’ve got your mom to take care of.”
“And?”
“Did the pageant thing for a while. But not much going on anymore.” He nodded to the waitress as she set down his coffee. “So it would make sense you’re trying to get in with some biker to support you and your mom now.”
Years of pageant training enabled her to keep her face perfectly still. “This all sounds like gossip.”
He smiled. “Maybe so. Maybe so. I think you have some things you want to tell me,” he said.
She snorted. “Yeah? Do people fall for that, much?”
He smiled again and pulled over the container of sugar. “Only people who have something to tell.” He ripped open a packet. “We found a body today in the woods and we’re certain it’s the work of the Wardens. Now, I know you’ve been hanging around them this summer. And I think you seem like the kind of girl that has something to say. And this isn’t anything official right now, you understand. But we can make it official.”
Virginia wanted to grab his ears and shove his face into that little coffee cup, but she just raised an eyebrow. “No, thanks.”
He ripped another sugar packet. “You’re what? Eighteen?” He dumped the sugar and shook his head. “This isn’t the kind of life you want to start for yourself. You know that. You can see exactly where you’re going, can’t you?”
Virginia couldn’t think of anything quick enough to say back, so she just kept staring and chewing. It had always seemed to work on Hazard.
“I’ve seen you so many times y’all look like one girl. Same story. Same look about you.” Alvarez dragged his gaze over her as if he might be looking for something different but didn’t find anything. “Busted up a little young. Some kind of tragedy hanging over you like a cloud. You attract the same kinds of things. Broken and busted and tragedy. At eighteen, you’ll still look alive, you’ll still have some youth, something that seems like it could be called potential.” He looked out over the diner and picked up the mug as if he weren’t even talking to her anymore, but to himself. “By twenty-three you’ll be nothing but more busted and more tragic. A few babies and some stretch marks will rub off anything that seems like potential. The only way you can get anywhere is to get out of here. Out of these hills and into some nice city where you can get a nice job. College, even. This is your chance, Virginia. We can figure out a situation that’s better than the one you have here.”
Virginia dragged in a deep breath through her nose, looking down at her plate. He was a cop. A cop. She couldn’t lunge across the table and choke a cop. She couldn’t stab him with a fork. A cop. Everything inside her wanted to scream how wrong he was, but she had nothing to say. Closing her eyes, she heard Hazard talk about moving on to better things and realized how similar Alvarez sounded to Hazard—you’re worth nothing until I can help you. She spoke calmly. “You want to help me, huh? How much?”
“It’s not about the price. It’s about what you want.” He slurped his coffee and set it down. “I’m not asking you to do anything official. I’m not asking you to testify against the Wardens. I just want to hear what you have to say. About the Wardens. About what you know about their criminal activity. Or their version of heroic activity.” He seemed to roll his eyes without actually doing it.
Unbidden, all the things she knew about the death of her father jumped into Virginia’s mind. She looked down and stabbed her waffles.
“And then we’ll get you out of here. What now, Virginia Campbell?”
Her chin jerked up.
He took another sip of coffee. “Of course, you could always come with me and we can talk about your years of drug dealing instead.”
Swallowing the waffles, she looked out the window, at the lights of the mall across the highway. What now, Virginia Campbell?
But the thing about knowing you weren’t worth anything to anyone: That knowledge made it easy to tell when someone was giving you bullshit. She put her chin in her hand and snarled, “Fuck you.”
He shrugged, as if he’d expected as much. Ripping open another sugar packet he dumped it in and glanced at her. “You know they found a weapon.”
She gave him a flat look, hoping he didn’t have a sixth sense for when someone’s heart rate went up.
“The .38.” Alvarez said, eyebrow lifting. “You know the one, don’t you, Virginia?”
Virginia tried not to panic. Tried and failed.
“That .38 was reported stolen five years ago. It’s Calvin Harris’s gun.” He took another drink of coffee. “I guess they found it, though.”