Grizzly looked at Samantha.
“You okay?”
She considered.
“Yes.”
Then corrected herself.
“No.”
Grizzly nodded.
“Better answer.”
The investigation widened.
Samantha was not involved in every part of it.
She did not need to be.
That became another form of recovery.
For years, Reuben had made himself the center of her emotional life even when he was absent.
Now things could happen to him without requiring her attention.
She went to work.
She met Elena.
She attended a support group twice a month.
She replaced the prepaid phone with a normal one.
She bought groceries without checking the parking lot three times.
Some nights she still woke convinced she heard Reuben’s key in the old front door.
Then she remembered there was no old front door.
There was June’s apartment.
Radiator clicking.
Cat sleeping at her feet.
Her life.
One evening, about four months after Reuben walked into the Devil’s Keep, Samantha found Wyatt replacing a lock on the stockroom door.
“You know that’s the third lock since I started?”
Wyatt kept working.
“First one was bad.”
“Second?”
“Also bad.”
“And this one?”