Dreamland

“We were living on the South Side of Chicago—a bad neighborhood. My mom was a single mother, only nineteen, liked to party. She worked as a stripper to keep the lights on and everybody knew it. Probably half the block knew she kept cash in her closet. I was staying with my grandma, like I always did on nights she worked. Some junkie busted in, shot my mom, snatched the money, and ran. Wa

“Good,” Dea croaked out.

“Lucky,” Kate corrected her. “Extremely lucky. The guy wasn’t co

Again, Dea could find nothing to say. She’d never heard anyone speak the way that Kate did, and she couldn’t reconcile the story with the woman who sat next to her in a bright red anorak, drinking a coffee with a billion sugars, her cheeks red from the cold. Maybe, Dea thought, she and Co

“Do you know how hard it is, Dea, to catch a murderer with no co

“Co

Kate sighed, as if Dea were failing to see a very obvious point. “I didn’t say he did. And Co

Dea felt her face heating up. “It was his father’s gun,” she said quickly. “Maybe he was allowed to play with it. Maybe the real killer wore gloves.”

“Maybe,” Kate said neutrally. Again, Dea had the sense that she was missing something. “Look, the point is, Co

The sun was slanting hard through the dirty windshield, making Dea’s head hurt. She felt as if she were climbing slowly along the ladder of Kate’s words, trying to make sense of them. “They didn’t want to be recognized,” she said.

“Right.” Kate hooked a right turn abruptly, at a sign for Chapel Hill Housing Development, and pulled over, throwing the car in park. Across a bare-scrubbed hill, Dea saw big blank houses with walls orange in the sun, many of them just skeleton structures. It was going to be a perfect day. “But recognized by who? Co

“Co

Kate looked satisfied—as if Dea had, at long last, resolved a complex math problem. “That’s right,” she said. “I’ll tell you something, Dea. Co

Dea got a sudden shock, an electrical understanding she felt in her whole body at once. “So do you,” she said, knowing as soon as she said the words that they were true.

Kate deflated almost instantly. “Yeah,” she said. Now she just sounded sad. “I do. I just can’t prove it without Co

Dea looked at her. “Why do you care so much?” she said.

Kate sighed, as if she’d been waiting for Dea to ask. “The truth is hard,” she said. “But the lies are worse.” Then she put the car in drive again, and started slowly up the hill.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Chapel Hill was a ghost town. No workers, no Realtors, no people: just a network of cul-de-sacs, burnt into the hillside, black as tar, and houses in various stages of construction. Some were no more than skeletons, all bleached wood scraping up to the sky. Others were practically complete, though Dea noticed that none of the houses had curtains or shutters, and the blank windows gave them a haunted look, as though they were on the watch for something.

But as soon as Kate pulled into a parking space boxed out of the land in front of one of the more completed houses, Dea spotted Co

Inside, it was as cold as a refrigerator, with the same faint plastic smell. The house was furnished, presumably for showing. As soon as Dea opened the door, she heard voices. A moment later, Gollum flew out of the kitchen, her hair a bright fuzzy crown around her head, and catapulted into Dea’s arms.

“Oh my God, Dea.” Gollum was squeezing so tightly, Dea felt as if her ribs were going to crack. “I’ve been so worried about you. I swear when you called I almost had a heart attack. For serious. I was convinced you were getting hacked to pieces by some hitchhiking psycho killer or maybe you’d been abducted by a cult or something. Corn maze! Like it was some religious message from your leader.”

“I’m all right.” Dea pulled away, smiling for the first time in what felt like days. “No pieces missing, see? I’m still whole. And I haven’t been converted to a church of crazy, either.”

Co

“Hey, kid,” he said, his voice soft, his eyes warm and bright. “Good to have you back.”

He pulled her into a hug. He was wearing an old fleece so soft it felt like a blanket, and he smelled like he always did, like warm and spicy things, like a brightly lit room. In that moment her whole body felt alive and aware, electric with closeness. How could she ever leave Co

How could she choose anything but him?

Gollum was still babbling. “It’s been crazy, Dea. You’re, like, the most famous person in Fielding. You’re the most famous person in Fielding history. Even I’m famous just for knowing you. Co

“She only hit one trash can,” Co

Gollum turned serious. “What are you going to do, Dea? You can’t really go on the run, can you? I mean, I guess some people do it. My dad used to love this show, America’s Most Wanted—”

“Hey, Eleanor.” Kate Patinsky was still standing by the front door. Dea had nearly forgotten she was there. “How about you and I head to the diner and pick up some real food? I nearly poisoned Dea with gas station donuts this morning. I’m thinking eggs and pancakes and bacon. You must be hungry, too. And Co