LITMIR.BIZ

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that fueled Priss’s flight from the bad side of Vegas, from the “slut spawn” taunts of her classmates, from her mother’s assurances that with this man things would be better.

      And her mother’s record for losers stood unbroken, since it seemed he was now in prison. She rolled up the windows and cranked the heat.

      Nacho wouldn’t have the luxury of driving away. She wondered where they had taken him.

      Not your problem. He’ll be fine. They’ll take care of him.

      Wherever they put him would be safer than being alone on the rough side of town at night, while his mother worked as a barmaid in an area likely even rougher.

      “He’s better off.” She ignored the shiver that ran through her like ice water, and put the car in Reverse.

      He’d stood there, waiting for her to make some kind of decision. A decision that told him he didn’t matter any more than the trash blowing around their feet.

      She knew that feeling. She’d lived that feeling.

      After checking for oncoming traffic, she hit the gas and pulled onto the open road. It wasn’t her job to save orphans. At eighteen, she’d left that fouled nest back in Vegas, spread her wings and flown, never looking back.

      And she wasn’t starting now. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

      She drove south on PCH, planning to pick up Highway 15 out of L.A., driving on autopilot. The spectacular vistas of bluffs tumbling to meet the ocean barely registered.

      Those eyes.

      He’d looked right into her, seen that she knew. Knew about lying in the dark alone as your mom left for work. When she leaned over to give a kiss goodnight, he’d begged, just like Priss had begged.

      Don’t leave me. I’m afraid.

      Yet she’d always left. And with the closing door, the shadows would shift. The space would change from something warm and safe to a place that hid bad things and held scary sounds, just on the other side of the flimsy walls. A kid’s imagination was worse than reality. Most of the time.

      Again she pictured him lying in the dark, alone. Night after night. For years. Waiting for Mom to come home, bringing the smell of cheap perfume and menthol “smokes” with her.

      “Goddamn it!” She pulled off at a scenic overlook. Below, crashing waves drove the spray up a cliff face with the same relentless battering of her conscience.

      She knew nothing about taking care of a kid. After all, her mother hadn’t been a shining example. And she had no interest in learning.

      But she also knew what could happen to a kid in foster care. She shuddered.

      Why would you even consider this? It’s not like you can save yourself retroactively.

      Maybe not, but she might be able to save another kid. Her half brother.

      “I am not my mother.” She put the car in Park, picked up her phone and with shaking fingers, dialed.

      Shouting in the background. “Damn sketchy trick but he nailed that pop shove-it, didn’t he? It’s gonna make epic film. Hang on. Hello?”

      “Hi, Ryan. I’m—”

      “Hang on, babe, I can’t hear you.” The background noise faded, then a door banged.

      “Okay, I’m outside, but it’s like ten degrees. If I stay here long they’ll use my balls to chill some loser’s drink. How’s it going?”

      “Well, Mona broke down for a couple hours in Arizona, so I missed the funeral.”

      “Oh, hell, I’m sorry.”

      “It’s okay. Hey, listen, when are you coming home?”

      “We’re filming at one more indoor park, in Albany. I’m planning on being back by next Tuesday. You’ll be back by then, right?”

      “Yeah, no problem. But Ryan?”

      “Damned wind is brutal. Yeah?”

      “Um. I ran into my half brother. He’s like ten. They’re putting him in foster care.”

      “That sucks. What’s it got to do with you?”

      “Well, I was thinking...what would you think if I brought him with me?”

      “To Boulder?” His voice rose higher at the end than the question warranted. “Why would you want the baggage? You always said you were a free bird.”

      “I know. I am.” She pulled at the roots of her hair as memories chewed at her with wolf-size bites. “Damn, Ryan, I told you what those places are like. Believe me, I don’t want the hassle. But I’m not sure I can leave a kid to that.”

      “Um, Priss, I don’t mean to sound all evil, but I didn’t sign up for that gig, you know? We got a good thing, just you and I.” She heard his teeth chatter. “Listen, I’ve gotta go, or they’re gonna find me freeze-dried like that guy in that Stephen King movie. But I gotta tell you, Priss, three’s a crowd that I’m not interested in hanging with. See what I’m saying? I mean...”

      She let her head fall on the back of the seat, suddenly weary down to her DNA. “Yeah, I hear you. Listen, I’ll call you later, okay?”

      He must have walked back into the bar, because Rihanna wailed in her ear. “Yeah. Later, babe.”

      Click.

      Talking to Ryan only solidified what she’d almost known before the call. She was done with Boulder. But of the zillions of flight paths she had, was one of them taking custody of her half brother?

      She hadn’t realized until she stepped into that apartment how much the past weighted her. The fact that she hadn’t made it ten miles out of town was proof that today her wings had been clipped.

      “Shitshitshitshit!”

      Leaning her head on the cool plastic of the steering wheel, she waited until her breath stopped hitching. Then she sat motionless for a long time, poised between past and present, between facts and emotions, between flight and landing.

      Her stomach pitched with the rapid altitude change.

      Maybe doing this would be the last payment, the final stamp that said “paid in full” on the chit she owed her mother for giving Priss life.

      Then she could fly off, unencumbered. Karma balanced.

      But don’t think you’re forgiven, Mother, for leaving this mess for me to clean up.

      She sat up, pulled the county social worker’s card out of her back pocket and after staring at it for a while, called the phone number listed.

      * * *

      “MOTHER, BE LOGICAL.” Adam Preston lifted a box of dishes and carried it to the hallway to add to the rest of his mother’s carefully selected household goods. “If you’d look at this unemotionally, you’d see I’m right.”

      She stumped behind him, one wheel of her walker squeaking. “Don’t you ‘Mother’ me. I’m allowed to be emotional. This is the house your father and I bought when we married. Leaving it isn’t easy, you know.”

      Olivia Preston wouldn’t let a little thing like recovering from a broken hip keep her from looking presentable—from her beauty-shopped silver hair to the soft loafers on her petite feet.

      “That’s my point. You don’t have to leave. We could set you up in the downstairs bedroom, and have a ramp put in so you don’t have to navigate the porch steps. And I can take the bedroom upstairs.” Thank God his mother was healthy, but at seventy-nine, brittle bones and balance issues were an accident that hadn’t waited to happen.

      “Ruining the facade of this cottage with an ugly, old-lady ramp would be criminal.” She straightened to all of her five feet. “And you are not moving in

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