“Do you realize we just spent an entire hour together and didn’t yell or hurl insults at each other?”

Lanie looked up at her mom and caught a glimpse of wistfulness on her face before she schooled her expression back to her usual implacable, unruffled calm. “Yeah,” Lanie said slowly. “You’re right. Should we go at it just for old times’ sake?”

Her mom shrugged. “Why feel emotions when we don’t have to?”

Yeah. That made perfect sense, but at the same time it squeezed Lanie’s heart a little, making it hurt. Because for once, for damn once in her life, it’d have been really nice to have someone want to feel emotions when it came to her.

Chapter 22

Is it the anxiety or the two double espressos?

Fifteen minutes later Lanie ordered a Lyft and stood on the sidewalk, waiting. She’d chosen to wait outside instead of pushing her luck and the relatively decent visit karma.

Fifteen minutes later, her Lyft pulled up and she slid into the back of . . .

Uncle Jack’s car.

He grinned at her via the rearview mirror. “Hey, cutie.”

She gaped at him. “What are you doing here?”

“You requested a Lyft. I’m a Lyft driver.” He looked very proud of this. “It’s great side money. Plus I get to talk to people. Something wrong with your car?”

“No, I’m sort of toasted.”

“Ah,” he said, and with absolutely zero judgment drove her toward the address she’d requested—the Whiskey River—driving like a complete madman.

“Um . . . there’s no rush,” Lanie said, holding on to the “oh shit” bar above the window as they took a turn on two wheels.

“I’m not in a rush,” Uncle Jack said and pulled into the lot, where he was honked at—loudly and repeatedly—by the car behind him.

Uncle Jack’s response was to flip the guy off.

“Maybe if you used your blinker to signal you’re turning,” Lanie suggested.

“Hey, it’s no one’s business but mine where I’m going,” he said and then handed her a card with his phone number on it. “Call me direct when you’re ready for a ride back.”

“Why would you do that for me?”

His smile went a little sad. “Because not every human who has a dick is a dick. Have one on me, cutie.”

She thought about that as she headed inside and straight to the bar.

Boomer the bartender recognized her and smiled. “Your usual?”

“I’ve only been here once before.”

“I remember all the pretty faces.”

“Do you flirt with all of them?” she asked.

“Nasty habit.” He leaned on the bar, his smile harmless. “But it’s not going anywhere. I’m taken.”

“Good, because that’s the only kind of man I can handle right now,” she said. “Vodka and lemonade, please. Heavy on the vodka, light on the lemonade. Ice cubes optional.”

He served her drink just how she liked it and kept them coming. Apparently she’d been deep in denial, because it’d taken her a whole week to lose her shit. But it was official now. Her shit was lost. She was mad. And hurt.

Not a pretty combo for her.

Boomer made another drive-by and with a sympathetic smile, left her the bottle. “Been a rough week, I hear.”

With a sigh, she reached for the bottle. She didn’t even particularly like vodka but she hated that people knew how screwed up her life was. When her vision was pleasantly blurry and she could no longer feel pain in the region where her heart usually sat, she stood up.

And only weaved very slightly.

Proud of herself, she made her way outside. In the very front parking spot was her silver Honda. Even though she still wouldn’t drive, it’d been sweet of Uncle Jack to somehow get her car to her. Incredibly sweet. Maybe she’d reduce her Capriotti ban for him.

But only him.

She located her key pod in the bottom of her purse and beeped her car unlocked. Only it wouldn’t unlock. No matter how many times she pushed the button, nothing happened. So she carefully set it on the ground and used one of her heels to stomp on it.

Still nothing.

Rude.

She kicked off her high-heeled boot, picked it up, and hit the driver’s side door with it. “I hate you,” she said. The car was the one thing Kyle had bought for her with his own money. She’d forgotten that until right this very minute, but suddenly she couldn’t stand the sight of the car, as it was the very manifestation of everything wrong in her life.

So she hit it with her boot again.

And again.

And on the fourth hit, the window smashed in. It was incredibly satisfying and she stopped hitting the car and stared at the broken window. “Ha!” She pointed at it. “That’s on you.”

The whoop of a siren, accompanied by a flash of red and blue lights, had her holding up a hand in front of her eyes.

“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to step away from the car and put down your weapon.”

“Me?” she squeaked.

“Put the weapon down, ma’am.”

“I don’t have a weapon.”

In the next beat, her boot was wrenched from her hand and she was turned and pushed up against her car.

And cuffed.

Which is when, cheek down on the hood of the Honda, she realized something.

It wasn’t her car.

Well, crap. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think I made a mistake—”

“Ma’am, we need you to answer a few questions.”

“No, you don’t understand. I thought this was my car, the one my dickwad of a dead husband gave me—”

“Dead?”

“Hey, it’s not like I killed him. I mean, I really wish I had, I really, really, really wish that, but it wasn’t my bad.”

Which was when she took a ride in the back of a squad car to the station.

Chapter 23

Brain: I see you’re trying to sleep. Can I offer a selection of your worst memories from the last ten years of your life?

Mark sat at the desk on the other side of the locked cell, his gaze on the woman asleep on the narrow bench. She was missing a boot, smelled like a bottle of vodka, and half of her hair had escaped its twist, giving her the overall appearance of a fallen Hollywood starlet.

He sipped at the soda he’d gotten from the vending machine. The rest of his cash had gone to the three Snickers bars in front of him, one of which was nothing but wrapper since he’d consumed it and called it a late dinner.

Late, late dinner.

It was midnight, and he stayed where he was as in the cell Lanie stirred, moaned, and sat up holding her head like it was in danger of rolling off her shoulders.

“Ouch,” she said.

Then she focused with what looked like difficulty and leveled bloodshot eyes on him. “You,” she said, looking pissed off.

“How you feeling?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Why is the sun so loud?” She blinked. “Wait—” She looked around her. “What the hell?”

Standing up, he went to the cell. “What’s the last thing you remember?”