The Devil Casts a Long Shadow- Chapter Five: Who May Care?

The long-term care facility to which Nate had been transferred was immaculate.

Its polished floors reflected the overhead lights, and the air carried the faint, reassuring scent of disinfectant. The staff moved through the corridors with a tranquil professionalism that seemed designed to inspire confidence. Their voices were gentle, their uniforms pristine, and their expressions composed.

Everything about the place encouraged visitors to believe that their loved ones might someday recover.

Jena wondered how many people had mistaken that atmosphere for a promise.

There was something almost ecclesiastical about the facility. Its quiet corridors resembled the halls of a monastery, its nurses moved with the solemnity of attendants at a religious service, and its patients lay in private chambers where machines performed the functions their bodies could no longer manage.

It was a sanctuary devoted to preserving life.

Yet standing beside Nate's bed, Jena could not escape the impression that she was witnessing something closer to the preservation of death.

Gus stared at his son in disbelief.

Jena could scarcely bear to look at him.

As usual, Ivy-Mae and Jett were nearby, hovering around the room with the watchfulness of spiders waiting for something unfortunate to become entangled in their webs. Ivy-Mae appeared eager to offer emotional support to anyone who wandered close enough, provided she could make herself the center of the resulting conversation.

Jett remained her dutiful shadow.

Gus stood beside the bed, his expression alternating between bewilderment and resentment.

Nate lay motionless beneath the sheets.

Jena needed to move.

Remaining in that room, watching the machinery maintain the terrible imitation of normal bodily function, made her feel as though the walls were slowly closing around her.

She excused herself and went to find the physician responsible for Nate's care.

She wanted to know whether anything had changed.

She wanted someone to tell her that the awful stillness was temporary.

Most of all, she wanted an answer that did not require her to continue pretending she believed in one.

She had barely reached the hallway when she heard Ivy-Mae's heavy footsteps approaching from behind.

"Jena!"

Jena turned.

Her mother-in-law marched toward her with an expression of righteous indignation.

"Where have you been all week?" Ivy-Mae demanded. "Just like last week, I suppose. Too busy to come see your husband?"

Jett was nowhere in sight.

Jena suspected Ivy-Mae had been rehearsing this confrontation for some time. She had probably spent the previous evening imagining precisely how she would deliver her accusations, how Jena would respond, and how triumphantly she would expose her daughter-in-law's supposed failings.

Ivy-Mae had always enjoyed arguments in which she could cast herself as a suffering saint.

Unfortunately, she also enjoyed creating the circumstances that made those arguments possible.

Jena had learned this shortly after meeting her.

When Ivy-Mae was not complaining about Nate and Jena's elopement, she was sending her son referrals for divorce attorneys or attempting to introduce him to younger women she considered more suitable.

She had never made much effort to conceal her contempt for Jena.

Now, with Nate incapacitated, she seemed to regard his condition as one more opportunity to demonstrate that Jena had failed him.

"Hi, Ivy-Mae," Jena replied pleasantly. "It's good to see you. How are you?"

The greeting was deliberately evasive.

Ivy-Mae was not deterred.

"Well? I've been here taking care of my son, and you've been nowhere to be found. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Jena stared at her.

There were several things she wanted to say.

She wanted to remind Ivy-Mae that her son had suffered a catastrophic medical emergency after taking dangerous drugs at a birthday party he had organized for himself.

She wanted to mention that a young woman had died in the marital bed he had shared with his wife.

She wanted to explain that Nate had excluded her from every meaningful financial arrangement in their marriage, leaving her to work additional hours merely to keep his household functioning.

She wanted to ask why a man who had demanded her loyalty, obedience, and assistance for years had never considered granting her the ordinary protections of a spouse.

And she wanted to know why Ivy-Mae, who had encouraged Nate's worst behavior for much of his life, now considered herself qualified to judge the woman left cleaning up after him.

Instead, Jena drew a slow breath.

"Ivy-Mae, things have been difficult for everyone. You know I have responsibilities back home. I'm trying to keep everything in order so that if Nate improves enough to return, he'll have a stable home to come back to."

Ivy-Mae's eyes narrowed.

"I'm working, handling the bills, and doing everything I can for him," Jena continued. "Just as I always have."

The response only seemed to infuriate her mother-in-law.

"You?" Ivy-Mae exclaimed. "You think you've done right by my son?"

She gestured toward Nate's room.

"Look at him! Is that what you call doing right by him?"

A few people farther down the corridor turned to look.

Jena felt something inside her harden.

For years, she had tolerated Ivy-Mae's accusations because arguing seemed pointless.

There was no satisfying a woman who had already decided that every disagreement proved her own righteousness.

But Jena was exhausted.

Her husband might never recover. Her home had been the scene of a young woman's death. Her savings were dwindling, and her brother's pregnant partner was making her domestic life intolerable.

She had reached the limit of her willingness to be polite.

"Maybe Nate is responsible for what Nate does."

Ivy-Mae blinked.

Jena continued.

"Maybe blaming me is a convenient way to avoid admitting that your son isn't the golden child you've spent his entire life telling everyone he is."

"How dare you—"

"I'm his wife, Ivy-Mae. Not his warden. I can't force a grown man to behave responsibly, and

I wouldn't have the right to control him even if I could."

Ivy-Mae drew herself up.

"Well, if you'd been home—"

"Then perhaps I'd have been there when he decided to take drugs and entertain another woman in our bedroom. Is that what you're suggesting? That I should have supervised him?"

A nurse glanced toward them.

Jena lowered her voice, though the anger remained.

"You're taking your grief and your anger out on the wrong person. If you need someone to blame, find someone who actually made the decisions that led to this."

Ivy-Mae's face reddened.

"And another thing," Jena added. "You aren't taking care of Nate. The medical staff is.

You're sitting beside him, waiting for him to wake up. That's your choice, but it doesn't give you the right to accuse everyone else of abandoning him."

Several nurses had begun lingering near the station.

Ivy-Mae noticed them.

Her expression changed.

She had expected an audience for Jena's humiliation, not her own.

Jena stepped aside.

"I don't have time for another argument. If you're struggling to cope, speak with a counselor. But I have serious matters to handle, and right now I need to find the doctor."

For a moment, Ivy-Mae appeared incapable of speaking.

Then she muttered, "Go to Hell."

Jena looked at her.

The words were so familiar, so casually vicious, that she almost smiled.

She wondered whether Ivy-Mae understood how frequently she invoked damnation while behaving as though she had been appointed to decide who deserved it.

"After you," Jena replied quietly.

She walked away before her mother-in-law could answer.

The physician overseeing Nate's care had already left for the weekend.

After several inquiries, Jena was directed to the head nurse, an older woman whose practical manner suggested that years of working around suffering had stripped her of any taste for comforting falsehoods.

Jena asked whether Nate's condition had improved.

The nurse reviewed the information available to her.

"No meaningful change," she said.

Jena felt her stomach tighten.

"None?"

"I'm afraid not."

The nurse's expression softened slightly.

"He's receiving the care ordered for him. But I don't want to give you the impression that we're seeing progress when we aren't."

Jena glanced toward the closed doors of Nate's room.

Then she leaned closer.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Have you ever seen someone in his condition recover? I mean, in all your years doing this?"

The nurse hesitated.

She looked at Jena for a long moment before answering.

"I've seen people recover from injuries that seemed hopeless. And I've seen people deteriorate when everyone expected them to improve."

Jena waited.

"But your husband's case is unusual."

"Unusual how?"

The nurse glanced down the corridor.

"I've rarely seen someone with neurological findings this poor transferred into long-term care under circumstances like these. Usually, there would have been much more discussion about his prognosis and the goals of continued treatment before he arrived."

Jena said nothing.

The nurse continued more quietly.

"Someone went to considerable trouble to arrange his placement."

A cold sensation passed through Jena.

"What does that mean?"

"It means his case isn't typical."

The nurse seemed to regret having said even that much.

"Look, I believe in miracles. I truly do. But I wouldn't want you to confuse the machines keeping his body functioning with evidence that his brain is recovering."

Jena looked at her.

"Is he brain-dead?"

"That is a medical and legal determination requiring specific examinations. I'm not in a position to make that declaration, and I wouldn't speculate about whether those tests have been completed."

The answer was careful.

Too careful, Jena thought.

"But you don't think he's coming back."

The nurse's eyes briefly met hers.

"I think you deserve a direct conversation with the attending physician about exactly what neurological function remains and what treatment is intended to accomplish."

She paused.

"I'm sorry. I need to get back to my patients."

Then she walked briskly toward the nurses' station.

Jena remained where she stood.

The exchange had confirmed none of her suspicions in any official sense.

Yet it had done little to relieve them.

She remembered Nate's cold arm beneath her hand on the night of the party.

She remembered the terrible color of his face.

She remembered the way his body had hung limply while Chris carried him to the truck.

Something about the memory had troubled her from the beginning.

She had never been able to explain it.

Now she wondered whether she had recognized something that everyone around her was determined not to acknowledge.

She wanted to believe Nate remained somewhere inside the body in that room.

She wanted to believe the machines were helping him endure a temporary ordeal rather than merely prolonging the appearance of one.

But wanting a thing to be true was not the same as believing it.

Jena thought of Ivy-Mae's insistence that her son be maintained on life support indefinitely.

Perhaps denial was a kind of sanctuary.

A place where people could hide from the unbearable until the unbearable became ordinary.

But sanctuaries could become prisons.

And sometimes the person imprisoned was not the one who refused to leave.

By early evening, Ivy-Mae and Jett had departed for their rental.

The days were growing shorter, and darkness had already begun gathering beyond the windows.

Gus had fallen asleep on a sofa in the front lobby.

Jena returned to Nate's room.

She pulled a chair beside his bed and sat down.

For several minutes, she said nothing.

The ventilator continued its measured breathing.

The monitors emitted their occasional electronic tones.

Jena watched the rise and fall of Nate's chest.

It was a strange thing to witness.

His body performed the motions of life, yet nothing about him seemed alive in the way she remembered.

He did not fidget.

He did not complain.

He did not demand anything.

The silence should have been peaceful.

Instead, it was dreadful.

Jena finally reached toward his hand.

His skin was cool.

Not frozen, but unpleasantly chilly.

She withdrew her fingers.

"I'm sorry, Nate," she whispered.

She was not entirely certain what she was apologizing for.

Perhaps for failing to prevent the catastrophe.

Perhaps for resenting him.

Perhaps for the relief she occasionally felt when she remembered that he could no longer shout at her.

She pulled her chair closer.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

The machines answered with their familiar rhythm.

She told him about the bills.

About the court paperwork.

About the endless demands from his family.

Then, despite herself, she began complaining about Thallea.

"She's absolutely unbearable," Jena said. "I thought having her stay might help Mom out, but now I don't know how I'm going to get her out of the house."

She gave a tired little laugh.

"You'd probably tell me to throw her out."

Nate said nothing.

"You'd probably be right."

She glanced at his face.

"I miss having somebody there who knows how things work. Even if you made everything harder than it needed to be."

The admission surprised her.

She did not miss Nate's cruelty.

She did not miss his affairs, his selfishness, or his relentless insistence upon getting his own way.

But she missed the certainty with which he had occupied his place in the world.

He had always known whom to call, what to demand, and how to make other people act.

Now she was discovering how much of her life had been organized around his authority.

Without him, she felt as though she had been abandoned in the middle of a complicated machine whose workings had deliberately been concealed from her.

She turned on the television.

His favorite series, Hell on Wheels, was available, and she put it on.

Later, she switched to Mad Men, his close second.

The familiar voices filled the room.

Jena occasionally spoke to Nate about what was happening onscreen, as though he were merely resting with his eyes closed.

She avoided touching him.

Every time she brushed his hand, the coolness of his skin made her shudder.

She did not mention Amber Cortes.

If some part of Nate could still hear her, she saw no reason to burden him with the details of the investigation.

Besides, Turner had already told her that the matter was supposedly resolved.

Roman had exerted his considerable influence, and the investigators had classified Amber's death as an overdose involving drugs she had administered herself.

Her family had accepted a financial settlement through the relevant insurers, agreeing not to pursue a wrongful-death claim against Nate or KT Construction.

Turner had sounded relieved when he explained it.

According to him, Amber's father had accepted the offer and signed the agreement with such eagerness that Roman might have secured the same result for considerably less money.

Jena had disliked the remark.

She disliked the entire arrangement.

Perhaps Amber's father desperately needed the money.

Perhaps he believed the settlement was the only compensation his family would ever receive.

Perhaps grief had left him incapable of confronting wealthy men with lawyers who seemed to know precisely how to make a problem disappear.

Jena could not know.

What disturbed her was Turner's assumption that accepting money proved the girl's life had been cheap.

She knew what it meant to come from a family that did not always recognize a person's worth.

That did not make the person worthless.

Amber Cortes had been a young woman with a life of her own.

Now her death had been reduced to an insurance payment, a signed agreement, and a problem the men surrounding Nate congratulated themselves for resolving.

Jena looked toward her husband.

She wondered whether he would have been pleased.

The thought made her feel ill.

She turned her attention back to the television.

Onscreen, men schemed, deceived, and destroyed one another in pursuit of power.

Jena found it oddly comforting that at least the wickedness on television was fictional.

The following morning, Jena saw Ivy-Mae and Jett approaching Nate's room.

She decided it was time to leave.

Gus intended to remain another day. His nephew would collect him on the way back to Utah.

Gus had a large extended family scattered across several states, and he had always been adept at arranging rides, favors, and temporary accommodations through relatives.

He planned to visit Nate every few weeks.

Ivy-Mae and Jett had considerably more money and leisure time. They had rented a nearby Airbnb and seemed prepared to remain in the area indefinitely.

Jett had enjoyed a successful career as a construction manager, while Ivy-Mae had spent much of her working life pursuing whatever opportunities promised the greatest personal benefit.

Their marriage had always struck Jena as a particularly practical arrangement.

There had been rumors surrounding Jett's first wife, Beth.

Beth had once been a prominent member of the Meadow Partings community, but she had spent much of her later adulthood suffering from cancer.

Gus had told Jena that Jett treated Beth appallingly during her illness.

Others claimed that Ivy-Mae and Jett had been romantically involved long before Beth died.

Some even suggested that Ivy-Mae's presence had contributed to the misery of Beth's final years.

Jena had been too young at the time to know what had truly happened.

She knew only that Jett was a widower when he married Ivy-Mae.

Still, the stories lingered.

Meadow Partings was full of such histories.

People whispered about cruelty, betrayal, and suspicious circumstances, then greeted the people involved with warm smiles at church or community gatherings.

Respectability was an extraordinarily forgiving disguise.

Jena wondered whether Hell had any need for masks when the living had become so accomplished at wearing them.

She slipped out through a side exit, hoping to avoid another confrontation.

She had almost reached the parking lot when Ivy-Mae called after her.

"Jena!"

Jena stopped.

Her mother-in-law hurried toward her.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you yesterday."

Jena studied her.

The apology was unexpected.

She suspected Ivy-Mae regretted the public embarrassment more than the accusations themselves.

Nevertheless, Jena wanted peace.

"It's all right," she answered.

"I know you've got a lot on your plate, going back and forth like this."

Jena waited.

"But could you do me a favor?"

There it was.

The familiar turn in the conversation.

Jena felt a small, weary dread.

"Sure, Ivy-Mae. What do you need?"

Her mother-in-law smiled.

"Could you bring Nate's Super Bowl ring next time you come? Maybe if he has it on, it'll remind him of all the good times and help him come to."

Jena nearly laughed.

Nate did not own a Super Bowl championship ring.

He owned an extraordinarily expensive replica.

Several years earlier, after KT Construction received the first of what would become numerous state contracts, Nate had commissioned a custom ring to celebrate the company's success.

He had insisted upon genuine precious stones rather than the artificial ones commonly used in replicas.

The finished monstrosity had cost more than sixty thousand dollars.

Jena had seen him wear it only twice.

Once at a political fundraising dinner, where he spent much of the evening making certain people noticed it.

The other time was at a highly publicized boxing match in Las Vegas, where he had purchased ringside seats.

The ring was enormous, gaudy, and completely unrelated to any athletic achievement of Nate's.

That, Jena supposed, was part of its appeal.

It allowed him to wear the appearance of a triumph he had never earned.

Most of the time, the ring remained inside a concealed safe in the wine cellar.

Jena knew the combination only because Nate kept the spare keys to his sports car there and occasionally expected her to retrieve the vehicle for him at a moment's notice.

He had never trusted her with his finances.

But he had trusted her to serve as his chauffeur.

She looked at Ivy-Mae.

"All right. I'll bring it next time."

Her mother-in-law brightened.

"Oh, thank you, dear."

Jena doubted the ring would accomplish anything for Nate.

She suspected Ivy-Mae wanted it for herself.

The expensive stones and extravagant craftsmanship made it precisely the sort of possession she would consider a meaningful family heirloom.

Had Ivy-Mae asked for home videos, photographs, or something Nate used regularly, Jena might have regarded the request more sympathetically.

Instead, she had asked for one of the most expensive pieces of jewelry he owned.

It seemed entirely consistent with her character.

Jena said goodbye and continued toward her car.

She had made the promise largely to end the conversation.

Whether Ivy-Mae appreciated the gesture was another matter.

The drive home was long and monotonous.

For much of the route, radio reception was unreliable, and cell service disappeared entirely.

Jena passed the time listening to old CDs and downloaded podcasts.

By the fifth hour, with roughly two hours remaining, she found herself thinking about Thallea.

The young woman had started her new job at a ghost kitchen in which Turner held a controlling interest.

Jena knew she had been hired to take orders, but little else about the position.

She hoped the work would improve Thallea's disposition.

At the very least, spending several hours away from the barndominium each day might prevent her from making quite so much of a mess.

Jena had never lived with anyone so determined to treat ordinary domestic courtesy as an intolerable burden.

Even in college, her worst experience with disorderly neighbors had been temporary.

Two older residents in the adjoining dormitory room had turned their quarters into a perpetual party, supplying alcohol to underage students until a fight brought the police and resulted in their expulsion.

Thallea, by contrast, seemed likely to remain a problem until someone physically removed her.

Jena wondered how the job was going.

Perhaps Thallea had discovered that employment offered more satisfaction than sitting around complaining about everyone else's possessions.

Perhaps she had even made a few friends.

Jena knew better than to expect a dramatic transformation.

But hope, she was discovering, could be remarkably persistent even when experience offered it little encouragement.

Her phone connected to the car's Bluetooth as reception returned.

A call came through.

Beau.

Jena smiled.

"Hey! How's it going?"

Her brother answered in a flat voice.

"Oh, you know. Just working. Calling to check up on things."

The smile faded.

Something was wrong.

"Really? What's up?"

She immediately thought of the boys and their mother.

Beau hesitated.

"Well, Jena, I appreciate you letting Thallea stay with you."

Jena waited.

"But I'm hearing you've been pretty hard on her, and I'm worried all that stress isn't good for her or the babies."

Jena stared at the road.

She was suddenly grateful they were not speaking face-to-face.

Beau would have seen her roll her eyes.

She had done almost nothing to address Thallea's behavior.

She had tolerated the messes, the late-night noise, the unreasonable demands, and the casual destruction of household boundaries.

Apparently, even that had not been sufficient.

"Beau," she said carefully, "I'm not sure what she's been telling you, but you ought to know she's been smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish."

A voice erupted through the connection.

"See what I've been dealing with, Beau?"

Thallea.

Jena stiffened.

"She never stops badgering me about every little thing!"

Jena felt ambushed.

Her brother had not called privately to ask about the situation.

He had apparently arranged a confrontation with Thallea listening.

For several seconds, Jena said nothing.

She considered ending the call.

Then Beau spoke.

"Hold on, baby. I've got this."

His voice softened noticeably when addressing Thallea.

He returned to Jena with a firmer tone.

"Look, she says you've been micromanaging her and criticizing her ever since she got there."

"Beau—"

"I'm not taking sides. But I know you, Jena. You can be pretty Type A sometimes. You don't always understand people who are a little more relaxed than you."

Jena gripped the steering wheel.

He was not taking sides.

Yet he had already accepted Thallea's account as fact.

She wondered whether Beau recognized the contradiction.

Probably not.

He had spent so long defending Thallea that doing so seemed to have become an automatic response.

Jena remembered how he had spoken of their future together.

Once he saved enough money, they would have a proper house.

Once they had a proper house, Thallea would be happier.

Once the baby arrived, they would become a family.

Every sacrifice brought him closer to the life he imagined.

Every disappointment merely meant he had not sacrificed enough.

Jena felt a sudden, profound sadness for her brother.

She had once admired his devotion to the people he loved.

Now she was beginning to fear what that devotion might cost everyone else.

She considered telling him to come collect Thallea immediately.

But then Thallea would almost certainly return to Sue's overcrowded cabin, where the boys would once again bear the brunt of her temper.

Jena could not bring herself to do that to them.

"All right, Beau," she said wearily. "What do you think I should do?"

Thallea answered before he could.

"You could treat me like the adult that I am, maybe."

Her voice carried the exaggerated sarcasm of a teenager reprimanding an authority figure.

Jena closed her eyes for a brief instant.

"Sure, Thallea. I hear you loud and clear."

Beau sounded relieved.

"See, baby? She's not so bad. You two don't have anything to fight about."

Jena said nothing.

"Thanks, Jena. I'll catch up with you later. I'm still on the road."

They exchanged brief goodbyes.

The call ended.

Jena drove on in silence.

She was beginning to lose respect for the brother she had once idolized.

What troubled her was not merely his willingness to believe Thallea.

It was his apparent conviction that protecting Thallea required him to dismiss everyone else's experience.

He seemed to believe that love meant accepting her version of reality without question.

Jena wondered how far he would go in defending it.

By the time she reached the barndominium, Jena was exhausted.

She had dozed intermittently in a chair beside Nate's hospital bed the previous night, but the unfamiliar surroundings and constant mechanical noises had prevented her from sleeping deeply.

All she wanted was to collect Tiki from Mrs. Flossie and go to bed.

Then she remembered the phone call.

The prospect of spending another night beneath the same roof as Thallea filled her with dread.

Jena sat in the driveway for a moment, staring at the house.

She had reached a point where returning home felt less like entering a place of refuge than crossing the threshold of a punishment she had somehow agreed to endure.

Finally, she went inside.

Thallea was waiting just beyond the double entry doors.

"Well?"

Jena stopped.

Thallea stood with her arms loosely folded, wearing the expectant expression of someone awaiting an apology.

Jena understood immediately.

The phone call had been intended to produce a particular result.

Thallea wanted acknowledgment that she had won.

Jena was too tired to argue.

"Yep," she said brightly. "You got me."

Thallea looked pleased.

Jena continued in the cheerful voice she used with difficult children at the childcare center.

"Let me make it up to you with a little present."

Thallea's expression changed.

"A present?"

"Sure. Go into the kitchen and close your eyes. I'll be right back."

Thallea hesitated only briefly.

Then she hurried toward the kitchen.

The promise of receiving something had accomplished what ordinary courtesy never seemed able to do.

Jena waited until she was out of sight.

Then she went downstairs to the wine cellar.

The cellar was cool and dimly lit.

Rows of bottles stood in carefully arranged racks, many of them expensive purchases Nate had made during his various excursions into collecting.

Jena moved toward the false wall concealed between the wine racks.

She checked behind her before opening it.

The hidden safe was exactly as Nate had left it.

She entered the combination and opened the heavy door.

Inside were several valuable items, including the gaudy replica Super Bowl ring.

There were also unregistered firearms and bricks of cocaine.

Jena looked at them without much surprise.

She had known about the contents for some time.

Nate had treated the safe as another private kingdom within the house, a place where his possessions remained beyond the reach of ordinary scrutiny.

Jena had never approved.

But disapproval had not prevented her from knowing the combination, retrieving his car keys, or keeping quiet about what else he stored there.

She wondered briefly how the police had missed it during their investigation of Amber's death.

Then she dismissed the thought.

The false wall was well concealed.

Besides, the investigators had apparently found what they needed elsewhere.

She took the ring and slipped it into her pocket.

Then she closed the safe and carefully restored the panel.

The last thing she wanted was for Thallea to discover it.

The young woman had already demonstrated a remarkable willingness to help herself to anything she found desirable.

Jena had no intention of allowing her access to weapons, narcotics, or valuables worth more than Thallea had probably earned in several years.

There had already been one overdose too many beneath that roof.

She selected a bottle of inexpensive wine from the racks and went upstairs.

As she climbed the steps, a thought occurred to her.

She had spent years telling herself that Nate's secrets were his responsibility.

Yet she had just concealed a safe full of illegal possessions in a house where a young woman had died from a drug overdose.

She had not reported it.

She had not demanded that the contents be removed.

She had simply closed the door and walked away.

The realization troubled her.

But she was exhausted, and the thought of involving the police in another investigation was unbearable.

She pushed the discomfort aside.

There would be time to deal with it later.

Thallea was waiting in the kitchen.

Her eyes were closed, although she had one hand extended expectantly.

"All right," Jena announced. "You can look."

She presented the bottle.

Thallea squealed.

"Oh, my God! Thank you!"

Her delight was immediate.

She took the wine with both hands and examined the label.

Jena smiled.

"Here. Let me get you a corkscrew."

She turned toward a drawer.

Thallea thanked her enthusiastically.

It was perhaps the most genuine gratitude Jena had received from her since she arrived.

The irony was not lost on her.

Weeks of free accommodation, groceries, transportation, and favors had produced little more than complaints.

A bottle of wine had transformed her into a delighted guest.

Jena retrieved the corkscrew.

Then she glanced at her phone and pretended to notice an urgent message.

Her expression changed.

"Oh, no."

Thallea looked up.

"What?"

"Something's going on with Nate. I've got to go."

Jena made a show of reading the screen.

Thallea's concern was brief.

"Oh."

Jena picked up her keys.

"You're all right here by yourself, aren't you?"

Thallea took the corkscrew from her.

"Of course. You go. I'm good here."

She began working the cork loose.

"Take all the time you need."

Jena almost laughed.

There was no need to ask twice.

She had offered Thallea something she wanted, and the young woman was perfectly content to be left alone with it.

"Thanks, Thallea. I knew you'd understand."

Jena walked toward the door.

She did not risk going upstairs to collect an overnight bag.

She did not even stop to retrieve a change of clothes.

She was afraid that any delay might give Thallea time to invent another demand.

Outside, the hood of her car was still warm from the seven-hour journey she had just completed.

Jena climbed behind the wheel.

She started the engine.

For a moment, she sat there, looking at the illuminated windows of her own home.

Inside, Thallea was probably already pouring herself a glass of wine, pleased with the outcome of a confrontation she had orchestrated through Beau.

Jena had rewarded her for it.

The thought was humiliating.

Yet she had accomplished what she wanted.

She was free to leave.

She could return to Colorado, deliver Nate's ridiculous ring to Ivy-Mae, and spend the night in a hotel where nobody would demand anything from her.

Perhaps, for a few hours, she could sleep.

She backed out of the driveway.

As the barndominium disappeared behind her, Jena realized she had once again resorted to deception to obtain something that ought to have been hers without negotiation.

First she had lied to secure Thallea a job.

Now she had invented a medical emergency to escape her own house.

Neither falsehood seemed particularly wicked.

Both had been committed in pursuit of a little peace.

That was what made them so easy to justify.

Jena thought of the hidden safe, the expensive ring in her pocket, and the young woman whose death had been settled with a check.

She had become accustomed to living among secrets.

Some belonged to Nate.

Some belonged to Turner and Roman.

And a few, she was beginning to understand, belonged to her.

She turned onto the highway.

The road stretched westward beneath the darkening sky.

Jena missed her old life.

She missed the days when she could come home, close the door, and believe that whatever waited outside would remain there.

Now every refuge seemed to contain another obligation, another deception, another person demanding something she could no longer afford to give.

She wanted to believe that she was driving away from the worst of it.

But the trouble with Hell was that its gates did not always close behind those who escaped.

Sometimes they remained open.

Sometimes the damned were permitted to wander freely, carrying a little of the fire with them wherever they went.

And sometimes a person became so accustomed to making bargains for relief that she no longer noticed what each bargain cost.

Jena drove through the darkness toward Colorado.

Behind her, in the house she had fled, Thallea enjoyed the wine.

And in Jena's pocket, Nate's extravagant ring pressed against her leg like a small, cold reminder of everything people were willing to worship.