“Lots of people out here, huh?” I say dumbly. The sentence is out of my mouth before I can filter it through any system that might tell me it was foolish.
“Too many for my liking. But it’s been that way for a while,” he nods his head toward the front of the general store out across the desert land that leads up to Tom’s ranch.
“People don’t like Revelation Ranch?” I inquire innocently.
He whistles.
“That’s an understatement.”
“What about the guy that lives next to him? Starts with a ‘B,’ I think.”
“Bower,” the man says. “He can’t stand it. That should be obvious,” he chuckles, referencing my friend’s gunshot wound. I bristle. “But you should know that, shouldn’t you? You a journalist?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Well, go find someone else to talk to,” he ends the conversation by turning to unload an ancient dishwasher. I hover at the counter for a moment, not content with the pitiful amount of information.
“You won’t get anything else out of him,” a male voice says from beside me. I turn to see a dorky looking guy—pocket protector and horn-rimmed glasses part of his outfit—and he greets me. “Jerry Houston,” he says.
He sticks out his hand and I return the gesture.
“Ione Larsen,” I say.
“Hey, you wrote that death book, didn’t you?” he asks excitedly.
“That would be me,” I say.
“Well, you came to the right place,” he looks around. “I’ve never been anywhere that death felt a more appropriate motif. I think I’ve seen less bones in museums,” he gestures to the collections of articulated skeletons on the opposite wall.
“I see that,” I say.
“You writing an article about this whole shit show?”
“Something like that,” I say.
“Same here. The San Antonio paper sent me up here to get the goods on this whack job and his harem of concubines.”
The turn of phrase makes me smile, though a little sadly. I hate to think of Birdie that way, but I’m afraid that’s how she’ll be reduced in any news coverage. It’s such a simplification of the woman I knew.
“It’s quite the story,” I hope that he’ll continue to jabber at me.
“Hey,” he pulls me to the side, away from the crowd. “I wouldn’t normally say anything about this, but your book—I’m a fan—anyway, there’s a place down by the creek at the edge of the Bower place where a lot of guys have been able to get the best shots of Revelation Ranch.”
I listen intently, marking the directions in a mental map.
“You go northwest up the creek bed and you can see right into the heart of the compound from one of the bluffs over there, or so I’m told,” he pushes up his glasses on the bridge of his nose. The gesture makes it crystal clear that this is secondhand information. Still, it’s the best I’ve got.
“Thank you,” I say. “I could use some shots for the piece I’m working on.”
“I may head over there myself,” he says. “Maybe I’ll catch you later,” he adds with a smile.
I smile weakly back at him.
“Maybe so.”
But I know he won’t. No one is going to catch me.
IONE
7 YEARS AGO
After the party where I learned that Vanessa was pregnant, I avoided Tom for a couple of weeks. Seeing him in class wrenched my guts. Eye contact was impossible. The impending implosion of our relationship held the weight of a collapsing star. I had finally reconciled myself to it when I went to see him for the final time.
I’d made up my mind to end things like an adult. My palms were sweaty as I grabbed ahold of the handle that led into the writing building. Sun had set and I’d skipped class. I’d watched as the usual crowd poured out of the building, some of them making their way to the library to study for other courses and others headed towards campus corner to celebrate the end of yet another week of torture.
Inside, the building was deserted. The last class of the day—and the week—left the place an echo chamber housing the remnants of shattered dreams. You could practically put a finger on the pulse of the angst felt by the students that called this place home.
I wiped my palms on my jeans, hoping that Tom wouldn’t reach for one of them, lest they betray my anxiety. Inside the office, I wandered to his door for the last time. He sat inside, reading. Avoiding going home, I thought.
Our relationship was strained under the weight of unanswered calls and texts. Like a rubber band pulled past its breaking point, our connection had begun to rip and tear, little bits of whitened rubber coming apart as the band threatened to snap entirely.
“Dr. Wolsieffer?”
He looked up from the book he was reading, marking his place with a finger and setting it down on the desk, cracked at the spine.
“Dr. Wolsieffer?” he chuckled. “Has it come to that then?”
My eyes darted around the room, looking for purchase but finding none. They landed back on him.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Tom.”
“What brings you by this evening?” his tone was cool, icy even. His eyes didn’t stray from mine, though.
“How’s Vanessa?” I asked pointedly, regretting it immediately.
He sighed slightly, betraying the stress he usually hid expertly. An irritation flared with his nostrils. He looked down at the book and then back at me.
“Fine,” he said. “Why do you ask?” He was tense.
I paused a moment. I thought briefly about dropping the whole thing, yanking him across the desk and kissing him. I imagined the way his lips felt on mine. The thought was almost intoxicating enough to derail me entirely.
“I heard,” I said. The two words enough to bridge the gap that had formed between us in the previous weeks. Enough for him to understand why I’d come.
“I guess you’re here to give me an ultimatum,” he smiled sourly.
I cringed.
“Hardly,” I said, prickling at his suggestion. But there was a part of me that wondered if I had, would he have taken it?
“Then why are you here?”
