ONE

Normal people cried at times like these. But Adelia Winters hadn’t cried in fourteen years, and today wasn’t looking any different.

She tossed her key ring from hand to hand as the backhoe dropped rich, dark earth into the grave. It was against the rules for her to be there after the cemetery closed, but she’d bribed the groundskeeper. She wanted to watch that casket disappear.

Her phone, snug in the back pocket of her jeans, shouted the opening riff of “So What?” The superior Metallica cover, of course. Not that tinny original by Anti-Nowhere League. She let the call go to voicemail. It was the third time her manager, EJ, had called and the third time she’d ignored it. He was the last person she wanted to think about.

Her gaze dropped to the grave. Maybe second to last.

Come to think of it, he was third if she counted Con—nope. She didn’t want his name rattling around in her head either.

Man, she was up to her eyeballs in shit she didn’t want to think about.

The backhoe driver finished and gave her a nod as the machine lumbered away. She adjusted her baseball cap and pushed her sunglasses high on her nose. How were you supposed to say goodbye to someone who was already dead? In movies people cried and picked up dirt to pat on the grave, a last loving gesture to the person they lost.

Whatever. She kicked a wad of dirt and grass onto the rectangle of freshly turned soil. “There you go, asshole.”

Welp, that was all the wailing and gnashing of teeth she had in her.

A musky-sweet scent drifted along with the breeze, promising a heavy evening storm. The cemetery was silent as she wove between the headstones. The quiet—so different from the constant buzz of L.A.—grated on her nerves. There wasn’t enough noise. There wasn’t enough anything in Cherry Lake.

At the gate, something tugged at the back of her hooded sweater. “Motherf—” She spun with her fist raised, forgetting that she was in a tiny Michigan tourist town. There were no fans or photographers grabbing at her. It was just an Angel of Grief, resting a heavy head on one arm as the other dangled over the edge of a tomb, the back of her sweater caught in its outstretched hand. She pulled the fabric free and skimmed the cool granite with her palm. There was no name on the tomb. No dates. Just an angel, stained and green, mourning every soul buried there. Whether they deserved it or not.

Beyond the slope of the hill, she could still make out the mound of soil and the empty place where her father’s headstone would go once the ground settled. She clutched the hand of the statue and tried to remember what it felt like to cry. Her grip tightened until it hurt so much she had to let go. She rubbed at the angry red tents on her palm and gave the grave one last glare.

What a waste of good dirt.

She threw herself into her ‘67 GTO and jammed the key into the ignition. “Come on, baby,” she whispered. The engine screeched but refused to turn over.

Dammit, she really should have taken it in for that overhaul before driving across the country, but after what she did, getting out of L.A. as soon as possible seemed like a better idea.

Whispering a plea to the universe, she pulled the key out and slid it back in. The car had been a dumb idea. One of many. The purple beast weighed a ton and ate more gasoline than all the other cars in the U.S. combined. The steering wheel vibrated. The front end clunked. Everything under the hood was rusted and worn, waiting for her to give it the restoration it deserved.

She twisted the key again. Finally, the car roared to life, the radio blasting the tail-end of some cock-rock song she already hated without hearing the words.

“Thanks for tuning into Saturday Rock Magic,” the DJ said. “Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last few days, you’ve probably heard about Lia Frost assaulting the president of Gyroscope Records. I’ve been hearing some crazy stories about what happened. And now Lia’s MIA.”

Adelia flexed her bruised knuckles. Punch one CEO of a major record label in the face and no one would let you forget it.

“Don’t know about you, but I don’t mind old, rich guys getting knocked out.” The DJ laughed. “Anyhow, we got a bunch of tweets requesting this gem, so Lia, wherever you are, this is for you. Here’s rock’s favorite bad girl with ‘Two Hits’.”

She snorted. “Oh, you’re funny.”

The song howled into existence. It was a basic drop D with some palm-muting, a few bends and a shitload of thrash. It was inspired by a little Skid Row and a lot of Megadeth. She listened closely, still unhappy with some of the production. The studio’s jackoff music producer hated the song and hadn’t wanted it on the album. She’d fought him and mostly won, but his greasy fingerprints were still all over it.

Tapping her palm to the beat, she backed out onto Livia Lake road and hit the gas, putting the cemetery in her rearview. A week in Cherry Lake, maybe two, to screw her head on straight. That’s all she needed. Then she’d be ready to put the past behind her, drive back to California and deal with whatever was left of her career.

“Throw enough punches at shadows,” her voice growled from the radio, “you’re bound to hit something that deserves it.”

***

It took a long time to get anywhere in a town that had more water and trees than people. Beyond the dreary woods, Adelia passed rows of lakefront mini-mansions and crossed the covered bridge to the town center. She pulled up to Keys Market and went around the back. Only down-staters, the forever-underfoot tourists, went through the front.

The run-down seventies vibe of the shop was gone now, along with the ugly yellow linoleum that she used to make fun of.

She wandered around the shop, grabbing handfuls of junk food off of the whitewashed wooden shelves. A gossip rag on the magazine rack caught her eye. Her picture was in the sidebar, above a headline shouting, Rocker Lia Loses Control!

She checked her sunglasses and the zipper on her sweater.

Should have worn a scarf, too.

“Hey, Mister Keys!” a girl shouted. The back door slammed against the wall, rattling the beer coolers.

Mister Keys? As in Old Curtis Keys? Adelia grabbed a packet of beef jerky from the shelf and peered around the corner for a better view. How the hell was he still alive? He’d been ancient when she was a kid and that hadn’t changed. He was a grinning wrinkle of an old man, with bony shoulders and blue eyes so sincere it made her itch to look at him.

“You look like you’re in a hurry,” Old Curtis said to the girl, his voice still as creaky as an old porch swing. “What do you need?”

The girl—maybe a teenager, Adelia sucked at guessing that stuff—shifted a cheap, pink camouflage backpack from her shoulder to her back. “Fountain pop thing broke again,” she said. “Mom needs two-liters. She said to put it on the tab.”

 “Go right ahead.” Beneath the buzzing fluorescent light, Old Curtis nodded and went back to counting the cash spread out on the counter. He glanced up at Adelia and smiled.

She turned to the shelf beside her, studying jars of dilly beans, cherry jams, and canned peaches from the farms out on Lakeland Drive. It’d been years since she had to shove food in her pockets and sneak out the back door of the market, but her stomach ached as if the gnawing hunger of her childhood had never left.

Along with the guilt.

Needing to get the hell out of there, she spun toward the door. But a blur of black hair, sharp elbows and dirty sneakers slammed into her side, flinging the shopping basket out of her hands.

“Oh, damn, I’m sorry,” the kid said, as she scrambled for the two-liter bottles rolling all over the floor.

Adelia rubbed at her sore side. “It’s cool. You okay?”

Little Miss Cyclone nodded and dropped to her knees, picking up fallen junk food. “Yeah, I’m fine. Happens a lot.”

Old Curtis shuffled slowly from behind the counter. “Everyone all right?”

Kneeling beside the kid, she grabbed the wayward bottles of pop and sat them upright. “We’re good.”

The girl blinked huge eyeliner-caked eyes at her and brushed a chunk of ratted black hair away from her face. Adelia had never seen hair dyed like that. It was so uniform and matte it absorbed all the fluorescent lighting. Like a black hole. She had to give the kid credit for being committed to looking that awful.

“Sorry again.” The girl held up a couple squashed candy bars. “I gotta go pay for the ones I wrecked.”

“No need, I’ve got it.” She snatched them away and headed for the cash register before the human cyclone could argue.

“How ya doing today?” Old Curtis asked.

 “Fine.” She stared at the scratched-up counter.

He sifted through her junk food. “Looks like you’ve got a sweet tooth. Do you like pie?” From the display, he grabbed a plastic box with a slice of drippy, glistening cherry pie in it. “This is the best I’ve had. Just don’t tell my missus I said so.”

Was this never going to end? “Sure. I’ll take it.”

He slid it into a bag. “Oh, you’re in for a treat, my dear.” Moving slower than any human possibly could, he bent, disappearing beneath the counter, and reappeared with a plastic fork and a napkin. “Here. In case you can’t wait to get home to dig into it.” He squinted at the cash register. “Okay, that’ll be twenty-four—”

“Thanks” she interrupted. “Keep the change.” Tossing a couple twenties on the counter, she grabbed her bags and rushed out.

Patters of rain plinked onto the windshield of her muscle car as it sputtered to start yet again. The girl with the black hole hair emerged from the market, hefting a cardboard box full of two-liters. She adjusted the box and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the car.

“Comeoncomeoncomeon,” Adelia said. Finally, the car gave a delicious growl and started. “Good job.” She patted the dashboard and pulled out of the parking lot.

In the rearview mirror, the girl, who’d been so frenetic before, was there, still as that Angel of Grief, before vanishing behind the blur of rain and the people rushing to their hotel rooms to escape the sudden storm.