"I was scared of you," she said. "For one second. I have never been scared of you in eleven years."
"I know," he said again, very quietly, and she believed that he knew, and it did not help.
"What's the number with no name?"
"Glenn. My sponsor."
"And he knew."
"He knew I was carrying something I couldn't put down. He told me to tell you. Every week, he told me to tell you." Brock looked out the window. "Jolene told me to tell you. Glenn told me to tell you. Shelby made me promise not to. I kept thinking, one more week. One more week and she'll be out and it'll be her story to tell, not mine. I kept thinking I was protecting her. I think I was protecting me. I think I liked that she trusted me with it. Nobody in your family ever trusted me with anything. I was the guy who used to be an addict. And then all of a sudden I was the only one who could help."
It was the most honest thing he had said all night, and it was the thing that made her the angriest, and she held onto the steering wheel until her fingers ached and did not say anything at all.
Millbrook was a town of one stoplight and a Dollar General, and Shelby's street was a dead end of small square houses with chain-link fences and trampolines. Shelby's porch light was off. Next door, every light in Jolene Marsh's house was on, as if she had decided that if she could not find Shelby she could at least make sure Shelby could find her.
Kristen sent Opal a thumbs up from the driveway. Three dots appeared immediately, and then a single heart.
Jolene opened the door before they reached it. She was smaller than her photo suggested, wiry, in the mustard cardigan and a pair of men's slippers. Up close, her laugh lines were deeper and her eyes were red. She looked at Kristen for a long moment and then did something Kristen did not expect: she took both of Kristen's hands in her own dry, cool ones and held them.
"You have her chin," Jolene said. "I always thought so, from the pictures."
"Where's Tanner?"
"Kitchen table. He won't go to bed. He's doing a puzzle with no edge pieces because I lost the box years ago. He says it's harder that way and he likes it." She let go of Kristen's hands and looked past her at Brock, and her face did something complicated. "Any luck?"
"Voicemail," Brock said. "Every time."