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trip.”
    “Well, I wasn’t home by the phone and—”
    “Use your cell phone.”
    “I can never get those things to work. I think mine is broken.” He took it out of his pocket.
    “You have to turn it on,” she said, reaching over and turning it on for him. He looked at it as if the phone had somehow betrayed him. “Oh. I see.” Though his head was inclined toward the small phone in his hands, Madison could see his eyes had already wandered away, lost in thought.
    “Grandpa, are you all right?”
    He looked up. “Hm? Fine. Why do you ask?”
    “You seem unhappy. Did Mom call you about me or something?”
    His look of distraction melted away as a laser focus replaced it, zeroing in on her.
    I had to open my mouth.
    “What happened?” he asked. He seemed to be holding his breath. She thought of a few ways to dodge and dazzle and get out from having to admit to the bet she’d won tonight, but he would probably find out tomorrow anyway.
    She braced herself and said, “Mom showed up.”
    “And?”
    “I was performing.”
    “And?”
    “I was…” she stopped herself, then said, “Inebriated.”
    He stared at her. “You were drunk?”
    “I said inebriated. You said drunk.”
    “Just how inebriated were you?” He sounded incredulous.
    “Honestly?”
    “Yeah. Try that.”
    “Shit-faced.”
    A freeze frame of confusion, the sorting and filing of information that Madison could see going on behind his eyes had not registered yet on his face. One more second.
    His voice getting louder with each word, he asked, “What were you thinking?”
    “Grandpa, it was a bet, I swear! The money—”
    “And in front of your mother!”
    “I didn’t know she would be—”
    “How often do you drink like that?”
    “I don’t! Remember when I got mad and told them I could do it drunk and still do a better job?”
    He closed his eyes and expelled his breath, shaking his head, saying, “Madison.” Resigned, he kissed her forehead but his voice was still stern saying, “We’ll talk tomorrow,” then turned and walked out into the enclosed apartment hallway outside her door. Looking up and down the hallway he said, “Lock your door, sweetheart. Don’t open it for any strangers no matter what they say.”
    She felt a tug at her heart and couldn’t bring herself to close the door as she stood in the doorway, watching him walk past other apartment doors. Something about his demeanor felt familiar. She wanted to run after him and give him a big hug. But instead she called to him as he reached the stairwell at the end of the hallway.
    “Goodnight, Grandpa,” she said.
    He turned around and said, “If Jerry hadn’t made her work late—”
    Interrupting him, she said, “It was my own fault, Grandpa. You can’t blame everything on Jerry.”
    His grip on the edge of the stairwell railing tightened and his jaw grew hard, saying, “Yes I can,” before heading down the stairwell.
    She closed the door and heard Spenser asking, “Who’s Jerry?”
    “You may have seen him a few times at my house when we were kids,” Madison said, walking towards the living room window that overlooked the parking lot down below. “He was kind of a mentor to my mother when she was in high school. She met him at a job fair where he represented the FBI and spoke about careers in law enforcement.” She nudged a few boxes aside with her foot so she could stand closer to the window, mumbling, “Leave it to my mom to find that sort of thing interesting.” She stood at the window waiting for her grandfather to leave the building and head for his car. “She was so inspired she decided to aim all her college efforts towards applying to work at the FBI. I never did understand why Grandma and Grandpa didn’t like him. I thought he was great.”
    She saw her grandfather emerge from the apartment building, heading across the parking lot toward his car. Some inner alarm had been triggered within her and she didn’t believe his story about