Chapter One


Seven years earlier . . .

Jenner Redwine’s cell phone rang as she was ?trudg?ing across the parking lot to her car. That would be Dylan, she thought with a flash of annoyance as she fished the phone from the bottom of her denim purse; she’d had the phone for just five weeks, and already he’d developed a pattern. She bet she knew what he wanted, too. She thumbed the Talk button, said “Hello,” and waited to see if she’d won the bet with herself.

“Hey, babe,” he said, as he always did.

“Hey.” If he’d had an ounce of sensitivity he’d have noticed the distinct lack of welcome in her voice, but “sensitivity” and “Dylan” were direct opposites.

“You off work yet?”

As if he hadn’t been watching the clock, she thought, but didn’t say it. “Yeah.”

“How about stopping at the Seven-Eleven and picking up a six-pack, okay? I’ll pay you for it.”

He hadn’t yet, she thought grumpily, and she was getting tired of it. His dead-end job paid more than hers, but he was mooching his beer off her. Last time, Jenner promised herself as she said “Okay,” and hung up. If he didn’t pay her this time, this was her last beer run.

She had just clocked out at the end of second shift at Harvest Meat Packing Company, she was exhausted, and the bottoms of her feet throbbed from standing on the concrete floor for the past eight hours. Dylan’s job at a machine shop was first shift, which meant he’d been off work for roughly those same eight hours, but he hadn’t bothered to get his own beer. I...