Seemingly satisfied that no one was after us, Chandler turned back to the house and wrinkled her nose. “The reviews didn’t mention the ick factor.”

  I shrugged. “Reviews are fake. Bots generating text. Or click farms in some poor country.”

  “Glad to see the years haven’t made you even more cynical, Jack.”

  “Dibs on the bedroom not infested with bugs or squirrels.”

  We climbed out of the rental and I stretched my arms skyward and leaned back, listening to my sore vertebrae crackle like a bag of chips. I considered going to the tailgate and grabbing my suitcase, but instead watched as Chandler beelined for the front porch and stuck her hand in a concrete planter, rooting around the wilting honeysuckle and finding the property key.

  She eyed the lock. “We don’t even need a key. A five-year-old could pick this open.”

  “Should I go find a five-year-old?”

  Chandler sniffed. “Find a fumigator. This place smells like it’s filled with dead bodies.”

  Knowing my history, it probably was. But I was so travel-bushed I really wouldn’t mind.

  The drive from the airport in Madison to this middle-of-nowhere spot in North Central Wisconsin had taken four hours and change. But before Chandler had picked me up, I’d flown the red-eye from Destiny, Colorado, and endured two delays, so the two-and-a-half-hour flight took four, half of it stuck on the tarmac waiting to taxi to a terminal because why should the airline be held accountable for figuring out something as complicated as deboarding?

  Even if my bed was a nest of spiders, I was definitely crashing there.

  But I probably should be the first inside so Chandler got the nest of spiders, not me.

  As my younger acquaintance picked the old door lock even though she had a key, I took in a fuller, panoramic view of the rental property.

  The large ranch-style house needed some repairs; crooked gutters, green moss on the shingles, a crack in one of the bay windows overlooking an overgrown garden, chunks of missing concrete on the walk-up. But taking a step back proved worthy of an awe moment. The forest around the house—seventeen acres of hard maple, oak, hickories, poplar, and dogwood—had just begun preparing for the oncoming winter and the fall colors were nothing short of spectacular in the evening light.

  Six shades of yellow.

  Pops of red and purple.

  Bronze and gold, orange and mocha, softly waving everywhere I looked.

  I watched one deep crimson rogue daredevil detach and do a gentle ballet as it fluttered to the driveway landing next to my right foot.

  When Val Ryker had called me for a girls’ trip and insisted on going up north to see the leaves change, I wondered if the woman I used to do tequila shooters with after a shitty day of police work had somehow gone into full-on doddering mode, complete with a suction shower grab bar, a handrail next to the toilet, and a growing cat collection.

  Only old people traveled to see trees, right?

  But as I stared at the maple leaf nature had gifted, it clicked with me. A feeling as pure and rich as viewing a rare work of art.

  Life can be gorgeous.

  “Stinks like old man diapers,” Chandler said, nose crinkled and staring into the door she’d picked open in less than three seconds. “And dead mice.”

  Life can also be stanky.

  “I voted for a Pinot Noir tour of Napa Valley,” I told her. “We would have stayed in a vintner’s chateau overlooking a brook, and they bring you wine with breakfast. Masseuse on premises. Up the road was a famous chocolatier.”

  “Why the hell didn’t we go there?”

  “It cost more. Dibs on the bedroom that doesn’t smell like diaper mice.”

  I left my suitcase in the Ford and briskly walked to the threshold, not joking when I said I wanted first dibs on the bedrooms. While I didn’t suffer from insomnia as badly as I did in my younger years, I still had specific requirements to get a good night’s sleep. The absence of foul odors was high on the list.

  The fallen leaves rustled as I blazed my trail, and something on the driveway crunched underfoot, likely gravel. I made it to the doorway and took a tentative sniff.

  Not too bad. But something else was off.

  I paused in the great room, taking it in, tuning into my feelings.

  The house looked a lot nicer on the inside. High ceiling, soft lighting provided by an obligatory Wisconsin antler chandelier and half a dozen brass and glass floor lamps that varied in styles but all looked antique. There was a mud carpet on a scarred-up hardwood floor, a cast-iron hat rack, and an open floor concept allowing a view of the kitchen, the living room with a wooden rocking chair and huge stone fireplace, and the mouth of a hallway.

  “This place is a dump,” Chandler said. She ran her hand across a wall, next to a framed portrait of a severe-looking elderly woman with a bun that seemed too tight. “Lead paint. It flakes off to the touch.”

  “Try to resist licking the walls.”

  “Now I want to do it. Does that make me weird?”

  “Yes. Wanting to eat toxic paint chips makes you weird.”

  Chandler held a large fleck of paint and scrutinized it. “Lead has a sweet taste. That’s why so many children ate it and got sick. Accrues in your bones, stays there for decades. Leads to irreversible brain damage. Developmental delay. Learning disabilities. Psychosis.”

  “You’re just a treasure trove of delightful trivia.”

  She reached for an ancient light switch that fit right in with the vintage lamps, and when she flicked it up and down they all turned on with a noticeable flicker. “Bad wiring. Likely a fire hazard.”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I’ve been to a hundred and seventeen countries and all fifty states. Do you know where I rank Wisconsin? Ninety-seventh.”

  “You invited yourself to this outing and now you want to whine about it?”

  She shrugged. “My therapist said I keep too much bottled up. I need to express my feelings.”

  “And what are you feeling right now?”

  “I feel I want to dig up the dead guy who built this shitty house, so I can punch his teeth out.”

  “See how healthy sharing is?”

  I strolled past her and noticed things on the walls. Lots of things. Framed black-and-white photos of lush landscapes and unhappy people who grew up in a time when things were harder. Old beer signs and pop signs (I’m from Chicago and we call it pop, not soda), some postcards, shelves of old ceramic and glass insulators, shadow boxes with old fishing tackle, and lots of taxidermy. Antlers. Deer heads. A bear paw. A decent-sized northern pike. Two ducks posed in faux flight, wings spread and stuck to a hanging piece of driftwood.

  “Eclectic,” Chandler said.

  Sure. In a quaint, Norman Bates sort of way that made my cop sense tingle slightly.

  “Floor needs a sweep,” I said, kicking some white pebbles across the hardwood.

  “Rock salt,” Chandler said.

  “Does it snow this soon up north?”

  “Welcome to the Northwoods. It snows an average of a hundred and twenty-five inches a year. That’s three hundred seventy-five point five centimeters converting to metric.”

  “I bet you’re good at Jeopardy.”

  “I don’t watch TV.”

  “What do you do to distract yourself?” I asked.

  “I do push-ups until my nose starts to bleed.”

  Yeah, she was going to be a real hoot to spend a few days with.

  I forged ahead down the hall, the wooden floor creaking underfoot. I liked a creaky floor. It meant people couldn’t sneak up on you.

  I checked the first door, saw a small bedroom with a thin-looking twin mattress and a tiny jail-cell window.

  No thanks.

  Second door was a tiled half-bath with a white ceramic sink and a toilet that hadn’t been updated since Nixon was elected.

  It wasn’t looking promising.

  Third door was some sort of game room with a card table, an unplugged mechanical pinball machine, an unplugged, ramshackle Wurlitzer jukebox, and an old merry-go-round horse on a brass pole stuck into the floor. The wooden horse was shedding blue paint, and had huge bulging white eyes that made it seem terrified, and truth told I was a little terrified of it. Behind the horse, a big shelf of board games next to a pegboard filled with odd items.

  I pressed on, hoping to find the room featured in the B and B website so I could claim it before Chandler did.

  Fourth door, jackpot. The main bedroom, spacious and bright with a puffy king-size four-poster bed that had one of those princess-ish sheer white mosquito nets hanging over it, a sliding patio door that opened up to a porch, and another door that revealed a full bath with an old cast-iron tub.

  “Dibs on this one,” I called to Chandler.

  “Does the tub in the app look like the pics?” she yelled back. “Or is it ass?”

  “Ass,” I said, wanting the bathtub to myself. It was smaller than my tub in Colorado, made during a time when people were smaller, but curling up in a cozy antique tub seemed particularly inviting.

  “How’s my room?” She answered her own question a moment later as she took a peek. “My room sucks.”

  I passed her, offering a commiserating pat on the shoulder. “It seems fine.”

  “I’ve been in Karachi jail cells nicer than this.” Her lips pressed together so hard they became a thin, colorless line. “And bigger.”

  “I’ll let you have one of my quilts. My giant bed has three of them.”

  I went back to the truck to get my carry-on suitcase and my smaller checked bag, and as I wheeled it down the hall I saw Chandler on all fours, peeking under her tiny bed.

  “I found the dead mouse smell,” she said. “You know they can spread hantavirus. Causes hemorrhagic fever. Bad way to die. Every hole in your body sheds blood. Even bloody tears and sweat. I’ve seen something similar. Awful.”

  “A large part of being friends is not constantly bringing up ways to die,” I suggested.

  “Maybe I can share your room.”

  “Restless sleeper. I’d just kick you all night.”

  “I’ve been kicked before. Lots of times.”

  “I also fart,” I said. “Like an outboard motor, Phin tells me.”

  Chandler’s expression became even more sour. “I’ll give you twenty gold Krugerrands to switch rooms.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t be bribed. I used to be a cop. Many have tried. I have an incorruptible moral center.”

  “Anyone can be corrupted. It just depends on the incentive. How about a kilo of DMT?”

  “Pass. Isn’t DMT that hallucination stuff?”

  Chandler nodded. “Fleming makes it so she can explore the interconnectedness of Jungian universal consciousness allowing her to interface with subjective reality.”

  “Sounds deep.”

  “I think that’s just an excuse to trip balls. I did it once, saw Buddha.”

  “How’d that go?”

  She shrugged. “I kicked his ass.”

  “How very Zen of you.”

  Chandler shrugged. “Not my fault he wouldn’t fight back.”

  When she wasn’t applying herself, Chandler came up short at the gentle art of conversation. During the drive up she answered most of my questions monosyllabically, only becoming animated when discussing something she hated, or someone she gruesomely killed. She didn’t ask me for the advice she alluded to on our earlier phone call, and I didn’t bring it up. I was fine with waiting to find out.

  “How is your sister, other than a drug kingpin?” I asked, attempting an effort to make this friendship thing work.

  “Still dating that basic nerd guy whose cherry she popped. Still in a wheelchair. Currently studying classic dynamics Laplace-Runge-Lenz vectors.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “It’s not rocket science. Well, technically, it is rocket science. Did you learn Cartesian coordinate systems in middle school?”

  “We had multiplication flash cards,” I said. “And I think you just made all those words up.”

  Chandler shrugged. “Unconventional education. How about we trade rooms or I’ll break three of your ribs?”

  “Is that how your shrink tells you to act around female friends?”

  “Point taken. Rock paper scissors?”

  “We’ll discuss the room situation after shots of Cuervo and a bottle of wine. Let’s unpack.”

  “Fine. Whatever. I like the dead mouse smell anyway.”

  I made a gun with my thumb and index finger, fired off a shot, and went to unpack and bounce on my awesome gigantic bed.

  It only took five minutes to get everything squared away, including the item in my checked luggage; a 9mm Smith & Wesson 986 revolver and two seven-round moon clips with a box of ammo. I swung out the cylinder and loaded the clip, which took longer than it would have with a normal revolver but was worth it because my husband had a G17 Gen 4 Glock. We liked being a one caliber power couple when it came to our sidearms. Trying to load the wrong size ammo during a firefight was a recipe for death.

  I placed the gun and ammunition in the nightstand next to the bed and went back to the car to see Chandler unloading the groceries we’d picked up at the Lake Flathead Supe Market. I assumed its actual name was Super Market, but the R had fallen off the marquee.

  The pickings had been slim at the tiny corner store, but we managed to secure some fresh produce, eggs and bacon, bread and lunchmeat, and most importantly coffee and booze. As we unpacked in the kitchen, Chandler stuffed things into the fridge while I found glassware in the form of old mason jars. Très redneck chic. Or maybe just plain old redneck.

  “What do you want to start with, Cuervo or wino?” I asked, holding a bottle in each hand.

  “Doesn’t matter. All comes out looking the same.”

  “We could just mix them both in a bowl and lap it up like dogs,” I suggested.

  “Tempting. Let’s start with tequila.”

  “I also brought some gummies.”

  “THC?”

  I nodded. Wisconsin hadn’t legalized marijuana, but I came from Colorado where they sold weed on every street corner.

  “Maybe it’ll help me unwind,” Chandler said. “Do I seem tense to you?”

  “You seem like you’re ready to jump out of your skin and then go on a skeleton rampage.”

  “Some pot would be great.”

  I went back to my room, dug into the hidden zippered pocket in my luggage, and took out a plastic bag of gummies.

  Back in the kitchen, Chandler had poured us each a generous shot of tequila, and we sat across from each other at a mid-century modern Formica dinette set, each with a view of the cracked bay window.

  “Cheers.” I raised my glass.

  “Here’s to acting like normal people.”

  We toasted and drank, and once the liquor hit my gut I felt myself relaxing for the first time since my panic the day before.

  “So how strong are these?” Chandler had opened the edibles and gave the candy a tentative sniff.

  “They’ll get you there. Four milligrams each. They take the edge off but you don’t get stuck to the couch for three hours.”

  “How many do we need to start enjoying life?”

  “We should start with one and work our way up.”

  Chandler divvied out doses and I found the silverware drawer and a plate and sliced up a Granny Smith apple and a block of sharp cheddar. I saw she’d bought some Ritz crackers and took a sleeve of those to our table.

  We ate our gummies and nibbled at the snacks, and we each did another tequila shooter, and then we poured some wine and sat in semi-comfortable silence and stared at the picturesque autumn scene outside. Pretty as a postcard.

  Maybe traveling to see fall colors was a good idea after all.

  Chandler broke the silence by cackling like a hysterical witch.

  “I’m watching the leaves fall and realized that’s why fall is called fall.”

  I laughed along. “Maybe you should have started with half a gummy.”

  “Naw. I feel good. You feeling good, Jack?”

  “I am.” And I was.

  “So what do normal people talk about?”

  “Families. Feelings. Worries.”

  “And that helps?”

  “What’s the saying? Joy shared is joy multiplied. Pain shared is pain divided.”

  “My saying is secrets shared will get you killed.”

  “No one is getting killed this weekend,” I said.

  Hopefully.

  After a moment of silence, Chandler confided, “I have concerns that I’m not normal.”

  “I was sensing that.”

  “I get night terrors. Soak the mattress with sweat.”

  “Then we definitely aren’t sharing a bed,” I said, raising my wine glass.

  We clinked and drank. The booze and THC worked their magic.

  “You still seeing that spy guy?” I asked. “Heath?”

  “We have this on-again off-again thing where one minute we’re passionately fucking and then the next minute we’re passionately trying to kill each other.”

  With Chandler that likely wasn’t a euphemism. “What is it now? Sex or death?”

  “We’re doing okay at the moment. Which means we’ll be shooting at each other in a month or two.”

  Outside I heard some motored something. Chainsaw or tractor or truck. I couldn’t tell how close or far away it was.

  Eventually I asked Chandler, “Do you have any relationships that aren’t volatile?”

  “It’s more adversarial than volatile. I get along okay with Fleming.”

  “How about your other sister?”

  Chandler snorted. “She’s a psychotic megalomaniac who wants to kill everyone on the planet.”

  “Sounds like a lot of fun at Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “I’ve never celebrated Thanksgiving. Or any holiday.”

  “Do you ever celebrate anything?” I asked.

  Chandler seemed to consider it. “I celebrate after a mission, since I didn’t die.”

  “Here’s to not dying.” I raised my glass and drained it.

  Chandler poured more wine. “So do I ask you a question now?”

  “That’s how it usually works.”

  “Do you have any worries, Jack?”