Glynis straightened in her chair when Jo walked in.

“What are you still doing here?”

“I knew you’d be by.”

Jo kept her cool, looked around the empty station. “Anything I need to know about?”

She shook her head. “Nothing you haven’t been told. Been a little quiet ever since . . . well . . .”

Jo didn’t let Glynis stumble over her words. “I appreciate your attention. Go home. I have it from here.”

Glynis stood, pulled her purse from behind the desk. “How is Zoe?”

“Upset. But she’s tough.”

“I have no doubt. Good night, Jo.”

“Good night, Glynis.”

Jo sat down at the radio and dialed in to Emery. “I’m back. What’s your twenty?”

“Enjoying a little downtime on a back country road, Sheriff. Wouldn’t mind a break.”

She read between those lines. Before leaving the station, she’d packed up all the files she had on Ziggy Brown and planned on learning everything she could about the man she never thought would step foot in River Bend again.

Chapter Sixteen

It was late when Zoe and Luke drove into town. The later flight, coupled with a flight delay, meant they weren’t going to confront anyone that evening.

Not that she knew what she was going to say.

The thought of coming face-to-face with her father had her hyperventilating and scratching her skin like a crack addict in need of a fix.

She hadn’t seen the man since her mother had originally dragged them to the penitentiary after he was sent away. It didn’t take long for Ziggy to move from the medium state lockup to a maximum state penitentiary. When that happened, they shipped him closer to Portland and too far for her mom to swing the gas and time to drive up.

Or so Zoe thought.

Luke and Zoe were about a half hour outside of River Bend when some of the questions swimming in her head started to come out. “Do you think she ever divorced him?”

Luke drove his dad’s truck, which they had left at the long-term airport parking while they were in Vegas.

“She never remarried.”

“I don’t think she ever dated either. I always thought it was because she was afraid of men. But now I wonder.”

“I never knew your dad.”

“He’s mean. And yet so few people saw that about him until right before he was arrested the last time. I remember him telling my mom about all the women who wanted him . . . how he could be with anyone, and she needed to remember that.” The memories of him in the trailer growing up had filtered in and out of her thoughts all day. “I was just about to go into junior high . . . Zane was in third grade, and Zanya was in what, first grade?” She asked the question to herself, searching for the data she knew was in her head. “He’d lost his job at the plant outside Waterville.”

“The one that builds RVs?”

“Yeah. He worked there for about a year. I remember thinking how great it was that we had enough money to turn on the heat in the winter.”

“Jesus.”

“Money was tight. As aware as I was about how tight it was, I was also aware that most of the kids at school had no idea that heat cost money.”

“My dad would bitch about leaving a window open and tell me I wasn’t born in a barn,” Luke said.

“This was different. He’d come in the house, tell us he wasn’t made of money, and turn it off. Didn’t matter if it was twenty degrees and snowing. He’d drink himself into a sweat while we huddled under a pile of blankets. My mom would turn on the heat when he left the house, just enough to pull the chill out of the air, and turn it back off before he came home. I’d pin up an extra blanket over the window to try and keep the cold out of our room. Most the time it didn’t work, but sometimes it did. One night he came home and knew the heater had been on. He forced all of us to sit outside so we ‘knew what cold was.’ It was raining. The next week we were all sent to school with the flu. Mom wasn’t about to take time off of work when we were ill.” Zoe had all but forgotten that memory. It was probably best buried. Then again, Zanya and Blaze lived in that house . . . even Zane, although Zoe was certain he had a few options that her little sister didn’t. The thought of Ziggy forcing Blaze into the cold made her angry.

“Once your dad was in prison, did your mom turn on the heat?”

“Not at first. I think she was afraid he’d walk in the door. While he sent us out in the cold, he wasn’t opposed to hitting her to make her understand.” How she hated the word understand.

You don’t understand, I’m doing this for your own good.

You’ll understand when you’re a parent.

If I don’t discipline you now, you won’t understand the rules.

And all that was when he was on his good behavior. If he’d been drinking, or just didn’t care, he’d come in yelling, throwing stuff . . . swinging his fists.

“I know he battered your mom around . . . did he . . . ?”

Zoe noticed Luke gripping the steering wheel. “All the time,” she said without shame. It wasn’t her fault the man was abusive. “He was smart about it. Made sure the marks he left weren’t visible in normal clothes. I always thought he wouldn’t get away with it if we lived in a warmer state.” Once again, she felt herself drifting into her own thoughts and memories. “He always had a line . . . why we were sick . . . why we were bruised. Slipped and fell. Rope on the swing broke. Ice on the drive . . . I don’t think anyone ever noticed that our drive was gravel.” She leaned her head back and kept talking. She hadn’t thought about all of this or wanted to talk about it for years.