His jaw tightened. “With him?”
I looked up.
He looked away first.
That was how I learned my son knew before I did.
The man’s name was Rick Voss. He sold prefab storage buildings, mini-barns, cheap metal garages, and every other version of a box desperate people convince themselves will fix their lives. He drove a silver truck with chrome wheels and wore jeans too clean for western Kansas. Amber had met him at the hardware store two months earlier when we were pricing roofing tar for the trailer. I’d noticed the way she laughed at things that weren’t funny. I’d noticed she’d started wearing lipstick to buy milk. I had noticed enough to be worried and not enough to be ready.
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