September 2
Nancy wakes up to the sound of the shower. Warm sunlight floods the room. She sits up and notices that a cup of coffee and a doughnut are sitting on her nightstand.
Danny comes out with a towel around his waist, his hair wet and dripping. He smiles and gives her a firm kiss on the lips. She looks at him skeptically. Does he not remember what happened last night?
“I’ve got an idea,” he says, more chipper than she’s seen him in months. “After we drop off Benji at his dad’s, let’s go for a drive. We can go look at horses.”
Nancy can’t help but smile. She loves taking drives and looking at horse ranches. She’s tempted to stop him and say they need to talk about what happened last night, but Danny seems to want to move past it. She decides to let it go. He’s under a lot of pressure, and this is his gesture of making amends.
Thirty minutes later, they’re zooming out of town toward the countryside. Danny whistles. Nancy lets her hand dance in the breeze. They pass farms and horse paddocks, and Nancy feels relaxed. They don’t need a lot of money. All they need is each other and a nice scenic drive—when Danny isn’t acting weird, that is.
They’re approaching the area known as the sand hills, where the vegetation isn’t as lush. Danny pulls over next to a railroad crossing. He parks the car in a pullout, and Nancy has the thought that he’s going to lean over and kiss her, the way he used to when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Instead, he looks her in the eyes, suddenly serious, and says, “Do you know where we are? Could you find this place if you came back without me?”
Nancy nods, uncertain what’s going on.
“I need you to do me a favor,” Danny says. “I need you to pick me up here at three o’clock tonight.”
“Three o’clock?” she says, incredulous. “In the morning?”
“Yes.”
Nancy feels sick. All morning she’d been thinking he’d turned over a new leaf. Things were finally going to change. But he is up to something.
“This whole morning wasn’t so we could spend time together,” she says, hurt. “You’ve got some kind of scheme going on, and you’re trying to rope me into it.”
Danny looks at her sincerely. “Listen, Nancy. I need you to do this for me. Don’t ask me why, but I’ll need a ride from this place at three o’clock.”
Nancy looks out her window, thinking. They’re in the middle of nowhere. She can’t imagine what Danny will be doing here in the middle of the night.
Unless he’s making a drug deal.
“You promised me that you were done with anything shady,” she says.
“Just this last thing,” Danny says. “I have to do this, and then I promise I’m done forever.”
“Just tell me one thing,” she says. “Is it drugs? Are you dealing again?”
Danny takes her hand in his and looks earnestly into her eyes.
“I promise I am not dealing drugs,” he says.
“Okay,” she says, taking a deep, nervous breath. “I’ll do it.”
As they drive away, the mood in the car has changed. Danny seems agitated again, stressed. Nancy is quiet. She tries to convince herself that as long as Danny isn’t dealing, then whatever he’s up to can’t be too bad.
It doesn’t occur to her that it might be worse.