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his eyes. The off-timing blat and throb of the Chief rattled his brains. The mirror vibrated so badly it turned the rear-view into a disturbed puddle of colors. After Ian’s mother killed herself his dad had found his own way to check out of Ian’s life. The old man spent two years restoring the basket case Chief and ignoring him. At least, that’s how it felt. After Ian graduated from high school, his dad moved to Phoenix with a twenty-five-year-old redhead. On his way out he bestowed upon his son the antique motorcycle. Like Ian wanted the damn thing. Maybe he did, since he was still riding it four years later. When he could get it to start.
     
     
    Z ACH’S VW ANGLED into the curb across from XXX GIRLZ. In the middle of the street Ian straddled the Indian. He studied the sloppy turf-claiming gang tags. It wasn’t his shit to know, but he should have at least recognized one or two. All he could think was: You dumbshit. Meaning Zach, for coming back here alone.

 
    CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    OAKDALE, WA., 2013
     
     
    F OR A MOMENT Billy’s face went blank. Then what Kylie had said about Father Jim being outside sank in. Billy lurched to his feet, knocking over a few beer bottles.
    “What do you mean, he’s outside?”
    “I saw him at the bedroom window, when I woke up a few minutes ago. Only I wasn’t really awake yet. I think he was there before, too. I had a feeling about it.”
    “He was watching? Jesus Christ. Was he alone?”
    “I don’t know. I think so.”
    Billy crossed the room and pulled out the middle drawer of his father’s roll top desk. He reached in and came up with a revolver, a big one, with a long barrel. He hefted the weapon, seemed to reconsider, then put it back and took out a much smaller gun, an automatic.
    “What’s that for?” Kylie said.
    Somebody knocked on the front door.
    They looked at the door then at each other. Billy dropped the magazine out of the automatic’s grip, glanced at the little bullets, slapped it back in. The weapon was so small it was almost like a toy.
    Kylie said, “Father Jim didn’t mean to hurt Dr. Lee.”
    “No?”
    “I think Jim was drunk when he hit him. He stopped drinking after that and made everybody else stop, too. Remember? Billy, you get drunk, too. One time when you were drunk you smashed that Pepsi machine with a hammer.”
    “That was different. The Pepsi machine deserved it. The dentist didn’t. Why are you defending him, anyway?”
    “I’m not defending him.” But she knew she was and didn’t even understand it herself.
    “He groomed you and then he raped you. It’s rape whether you let him do it or not, because you were only like sixteen. You have to not romanticize it.”
    Heat rose in Kylie’s cheeks. Billy was right, she knew that, but a piece of her fought against accepting the truth. She had told herself that what she had with Jim was a relationship – a forbidden one, but a relationship, anyway. Romeo and Juliet were forbidden, too. Society was always forbidding relationships that didn’t look normal from the outside. Kylie didn’t have to give up anything for this interpretation of what had gone on between her and Father Jim. How sick to think of herself as a kid raped by a pedophile. Sick, but there it was.
    Somebody knocked on the door again. Louder
    “Don’t shoot him,” Kylie said. Now she was mad at Billy for saying the truth so meanly when before they had always talked around the edges of it.
    “I don’t plan to.” Billy lifted his shirt and tucked the automatic under the waist of his jeans. He pulled his shirt back over it, but the handle stuck out of the gap where the buttons were missing. Adjusting the gun didn’t help. Even when the grip didn’t stick out in the open, his stomach was too big and the gun bulged obviously under the stretched shirt. He ended up switching it to his back pocket.
    Kylie bit her lip, watching Billy anxiously. Despite it all, she wanted to believe everybody, including Father