McGlade put his hand on the keys, but they didn’t press.

  “Fake,” he said.

  “Is your organ fake, Dad?” Harry Junior asked.

  “I’d tell you,” Harry said, “but you’d get pianist envy.”

  “Sounds like the dad joke-off is back on,” said Phin, abandoning his daughter at the creepy statue and walking to the altar. “I bought some of that Oklahoma Trail cereal, but it was practically empty.” He paused for effect. “It said on the box that some settling may occur.”

  Wow. That one really hurt.

  “Too complicated for kids,” McGlade said.

  “The Oklahoma Trail was used by settlers to go West,” Sam told him.

  “Too complicated for my dumb kid,” McGlade said.

  “I’m not dumb,” Harry Junior insisted. “I’m average for my intelligence.”

  No one corrected him. Whether that was wise or not would be revealed sometime in his future.

  “Did you know that making a round table is easier than making a square one?” McGlade asked. “It’s always faster when you cut corners.”

  Wow.

  “Can we not do this and instead try to solve whatever puzzle we need to solve?” I suggested, hoping the dads would listen.

  The dads didn’t listen.

  “I once thought I had turned into a flashlight,” Phin said, then did the required pause. “I wasn’t very bright.”

  Sam glanced up from her examination of the praying statue. “Dad, I’m going to wind up in therapy if you keep telling these dad jokes.”

  “Just like me,” McGlade said. “Because my dick is so large.” Pause. “I had to see a shrink.”

  Sam and Harry Junior both laughed.

  “I win!” McGlade declared.

  “They didn’t laugh at your joke,” Phin said. “They laughed at the word dick.”

  They both giggled again, proving my husband was correct.

  Harry stuck out his lower lip and nodded. “Fair enough. The dad joke-off continues. When I was a kid, my pants were too loose and kept falling down.” He paused. “So my father belted me.”

  “I thought you never knew your father,” Harry Junior said.

  “You got it wrong,” Harry replied. “I said you never knew your father. We’re still waiting for the DNA test.”

  “Thank god,” said Harry Junior.

  Those two were going to be a comedy act someday. Maybe not a good one, but one for sure.

  I walked over to Sam at the statue, still a little apprehensive about it. She sat in the pew, next to the kneeling woman, who appeared to be completely made out of high-grade fiberglass, or maybe resin. The detailing was good, almost photo realistic, from the shine in her fake brown eyes to the fake wrinkles in her Sunday dress. Her hands were forever attached to a fake hymn book which was part of the same mold that made her, and she permanently perched on a padded kneeler, held there with large bolts through her calves.

  “I’m writing a story about Jell-O,” Phin said. Pause. “But I’m worried about the setting.”

  Ugh. I leaned over to Sam and whispered. “I’ll give you ten bucks to laugh at one of your father’s jokes.”

  “No way.”

  “Oh, I’m sure the story will gel pretty soon,” Harry responded. “You have to think outside of the box.”

  That one really hurt.

  “They’ll keep doing this forever,” I said.

  “They have to stop eventually, Mom.”

  “They’re boys. They won’t stop. They won’t listen to reason. They won’t read the room or pay attention to social cues. They’ll just keep doing this until one of them wins. Or runs out of jokes. And I think their dad joke stockpiles might be infinite.”

  “This Jell-O story has to break the mold,” Phin said. “I’m calling it Hard Knox.”

  I really needed the dad joke-off to end so we could all concentrate on this escape room puzzle.

  “Twenty bucks,” I whispered.

  “Nope.”

  Tough negotiator.

  I glanced down at the hymn book the fake woman had in her hands. It had five lines of musical notation, with printed song lyrics underneath the notes.

  AMAzING GRACE HOW SWEeT THE SOUND THAT SAVED A WRETCH LIKE ME

  Sam immediately pointed to the z in AMAzING and the second e in SWEeT. “They’re the only lowercase letters,” she said.

  A clue? Or a misprint?

  “Someone took my thesaurus,” Harry said. Pause. “I don’t know what to say.”

  I winced. “Thirty bucks,” I told Sam.

  “I think I’m starting to like dad jokes.”

  “How about laugh at your father, or you’re grounded for two months.”

  “You can’t threaten me, Mom. I was stuck at home for four months because of Covid lockdowns. An irretrievable section of my childhood, stolen from me.”

  A tragedy. Maybe if she’d been at school they could have taught her the art of compromise.

  “My wife makes terrible coffee,” Phin said. Pause. “It could be grounds for divorce.”

  I needed this to end.

  “Ok, you little extortionist. Name your price.”

  “I don’t want money,” Sam said. “I want a favor.”

  “I like that joke,” Harry said. Pause. “I like it a latte.”

  Make it stop.

  “What kind of favor?” I asked.

  “I’m glad you could spill the beans,” Phin said.

  “I’m glad you let me espresso my feelings,” Harry said.

  “You clean up Duffy’s poop for a week,” Sam said.

  Maybe she knew the art of compromise after all.

  “Deal,” I told her. “Just laugh at the next thing your father says.”

  “A man once told me he almost died in a cattle stampede,” Phin said. Pause. “I told him that’s a lot of bull.”

  Sam cackled, the fakest laugh I’ve ever heard.

  Phin didn’t notice, or didn’t care. He threw up both of his fists in victory and declared, “Ha! I win! In your face, McGlade!”

  Harry scoffed. “She just laughed to get us to stop. Harry Junior, why didn’t you laugh at any of my jokes?”

  “Mom told me not to encourage you,” Harry Junior said.

  “Conspired against on all sides,” McGlade said. “Just like Julius Caesar. Who wants to toss my Caesar salad?”

  Didn’t Harry recently use a tossed salad joke?

  Where did I hear him say that?

  What in the actual hell was wrong with my memory? It was more than irritating. Sometimes it was downright scary. So much of who I was depended on my past, and if I couldn’t recall my past, then who the heck was I?

  I got up and went to the church organ, to see if it had a hymn book on the music stand. McGlade met me there.

  “Tell me you bribed Sam,” he whined. “I can’t live with an honest defeat.”

  “I’ll take that information to the grave.”

  “Hmm. Maybe we both will.”

  I glanced at him, a question on my face. Harry leaned in close.

  “I have a crazy idea why neither of us remember how the trip to Lake Flathead ended,” Harry said under his breath.

  “Hit me with it.”

  “What if the trip never ended?” he asked. “What if we’re still there? Locked up in those concrete graves?”

  That seemed far-fetched. “And this is what… a shared hallucination?”

  Harry nodded. “Maybe we’re still in Wisconsin, but we’re hallucinating about the escape room. Or… maybe we’re in the escape room, and hallucinating about Wisconsin.”

  I countered. “Or both memories are real, and we’re just having cognitive problems.”

  After all, we’d both been drugged.

  “Or both memories are imaginary, and nothing is real.”

  I made a face. “How could that even be possible?”

  “Maybe you’re not here.”

  “So who are you talking to?”

  “No one. Because I’m dead.”

  He didn’t seem to be joking. This was preposterous.

  Right?

  “I’m experiencing this moment,” I said. “So I can’t be dead.”

  “Maybe you’re dying. Or we’re both dying.” He looked around the fake church in a way that appeared much too serious for Harrison Harold McGlade. “We’re in a church. And there is a statue praying. Isn’t that a little too coincidental?”

  “In what way?”

  “If we’re dying in Lake Flathead,” Harry said, “we might want to take this opportunity to pray for our immortal souls…”

  JACK

  After going over everything I could recall, I told Val I really didn’t want to think about it anymore. Or talk about it anymore.

  “I can respect that. So when are you doing that escape room thing Chandler mentioned?” Val asked.

  I stared at my tablet screen and for a moment I was confused because I thought I’d already done the escape room.

  Must be déjà vu. The escape room was in the future. The trip to the Northwoods was in my past. I had no idea why I kept getting so confused.

  “It’s coming up.”

  Val frowned and shook her head. “I’m really sorry I missed Lake Flathead, Jack.”

  “Again, no worries. I was glad you weren’t there.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  I quickly followed-up with, “I meant I’m glad you weren’t there because you might have gotten hurt.”

  “I could have helped.”

  “Probably. But I was a complete failure up there. I can’t even remember most of it.”

  I think maybe Chandler saved me. Or Harry did. Someone must have.

  “It was my fault you went. I booked the B and B.”

  “It was your fault. You should have used your psychic abilities to predict what was going to happen. Also, give me the lottery numbers.”

  Val smiled, then her face pinched.

  “How’s Lund?” I asked.

  “He’s a quick healer.”

  “What was it you wanted to talk about?” I prodded. “The reason you booked that trip?”

  Val hesitated.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.” I paused. “Are you dying?”

  “What? No!”

  “Is someone else dying?” Jack asked. “I know you lost your friend, Oneida.”

  “Everyone I care about is fine.”

  “Lund is leaving you?”

  “No. Jack…”

  “You’re going to leave Lund? You always try to push good things away from yourself, Val.”

  “No one is leaving anyone. And I don’t push good things away.”

  “You’re pushing me away right now. Am I the issue? You want to dissolve the friendship?”

  “Of course not, Jack. Stop guessing.”

  “Will you tell me if I stop guessing?”

  Val sighed. “You know I’ve been consulting with the sheriff’s department.”

  I didn’t like where this was going. “Yeah…”

  “The sheriff… he’s not going to run for another term, and he—”

  I shook my head. “Oh, hell no.”

  “—asked me if I’d consider it.”

  I was at a loss. “Val. Really? Sheriff?”

  “This is why I didn’t want to talk about it, Jack.”

  “Because you knew I wouldn’t support this.”

  “So that’s what you think? Don’t do it?”

  “It’s not what I think,” I said. “It’s what I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “You already know what I know.”

  “Which is…?”

  “I know that you want to be sheriff.”

  Val frowned, and demurred. “Actually, I’m not sure. I’d have to run for election, and I’m not a politician. And then there’s the job itself. A lot of it is running the jail.”

  “What does Lund say?”

  “You know Lund. He wants to encase me in bubble wrap and take care of me the rest of my life.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What a dick. You must hate him.”

  “You know what I mean. He’s the best, but…”

  “But you don’t want to listen to him. Or to me.”

  “I do. That’s why I want your advice.”

  “Stress can’t be good for you. I don’t know a lot about multiple sclerosis, but isn’t stress one of the main triggers?”

  “Stress is bad… but the drugs I’m on are pretty good. I haven’t had a flare-up in over a year. And the other guy… he’d be awful for the county.”

  “And your duty is to the county. Instead of to yourself. Or your fiancé. Or your niece.”

  Val crossed her arms across her chest. “So I shouldn’t do it.”

  “You don’t need my permission, Val.”

  “And I’m not asking for it. I want your opinion.”

  “I gave you my opinion.”

  “So maybe I want you to talk me out of it.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not bullshitting you.”

  “I call bullshit.”

  Val laughed. “Maybe it was bullshit.”

  “And what does Grace say?”

  “I haven’t told her.”

  “You won’t talk to your niece because you know she’ll tell you not to do it. Lund says don’t do it. As your friend, and former superior, I say don’t do it. I ran away from that life. I can’t imagine becoming a cop again. And I don’t have a medical condition like you do. And your history…”

  My voice trailed off, and Val’s position went from defensive to overtly irritated.

  “What about my history?”

  “You’re a good cop. You’ve saved lives. But you’ve had some bad run-ins with some bad people.”

  “So have you.”

  “Exactly,” I nodded. “And I quit.”

  “But trouble still follows you,” Val said.

  “Maybe trouble follows all of us.”

  “If there’s trouble, I’d rather have trouble as a county sheriff with a police force behind me than as a civilian.”

  “I’ll make my position crystal clear so there is zero confusion; don’t do this.”

  “So this is reverse psychology. You want me to run for sheriff.”

  I sighed. “You have the mind for it and the skills for it and the experience for it. But what happens if you have an attack during a bank robbery, or a hostage negotiation? What happens if you have some kind of neurological dysfunction when lives hang in the balance?”

  “Right now, at this moment, I can do the job. The day is coming when I won’t be able to.”

  “That day comes for all of us, Val.”

  More silence, before Val eventually asked, “When you got shot in the back… do you remember how that made you feel, not being able to do everything you used to do?”

  I winced at the memory. I still hadn’t recovered fully, psychologically or physically.

  In fact, my back was really acting up lately. I felt, at that moment, like I was lying on a concrete block. I pushed away the pain and tried to give better, more reasoned advice.

  “I remember playing poker with a rookie, a thousand years ago. You won a pretty decent pot with a queen high.”

  Val raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying play the hand you’re dealt.”

  “Play the hell out of it. A shitty hand doesn’t mean you automatically lose.”

  “I’m supposed to run for sheriff on a bluff?”

  “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do. But, as you said, at this moment you get to make a choice. A choice you won’t have in the future.”

  “Thanks, Jack.”

  “Did I help?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  We both had a good laugh at that.

  “How are things with you? Since all the craziness up north?”

  “Fine,” I lied.

  “You’re lying.”

  “My back aches. And I’m having some cognitive issues. I’m sure it will pass.”

  “If you need a good neurologist…”

  “Thanks. But I’m okay. It’s mostly a memory thing.”

  We stared at each other.

  “Tell me what’s going on with you, Jack. Mostly your memory? Or more than that?”

  “I told you everything. I was drugged. In Lake Flathead. Before I was bricked up in that concrete tomb. The memories are all hazy, and I think I lost touch with reality.”

  “That’s completely understandable. With all you went through.”

  I nodded. “But… I’m not sure that I’m over it. Sometimes it feels like it’s still happening.”

  I rubbed my back, where I felt the brick pressing in.

  “Are you having difficulty determining what’s real?” Val asked.

  I didn’t reply, because I was afraid of what I might say.

  “Loot? Are you having trouble with reality right now?”

  I winced and said, “Yeah.”

  “Do you know that this video chat is real?”

  “It feels real. But…”

  “You’re not okay, Jack,” Val said.

  “I’m not okay,” I agreed. “Give me your neurologist’s number. I might be going a little crazy.”

  JACK

  I was definitely going crazy.

  My thoughts no longer felt like they were mine. Time no longer existed. Reality had fled with sanity, leaving my body to die.

  If I died, walled up in concrete blocks, what then?

  Would my body ever be found?

  People were almost certainly looking for me. Harry. And Chandler.

  Assuming Chandler was still alive. Or free. She might have been sealed in a concrete coffin, like I was.

  Phin. He wouldn’t quit until he found me. Others would come up to Lake Flathead, and turn the whole town upside down to get to the bottom of what happened. My old partner, Herb Benedict. Val Ryker. Other friends I’ve made, both personal and professional.

  They would search.

  But would they find me?

  If I were mummified in a statue and left in the woods, would anyone figure it out?

  I pushed against the blocks above my head, pushed until my back felt ready to snap in half, pushed until I saw stars.

  I didn’t mind seeing stars, after so long in the dark.