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funds to move to some place on the coast, so long as it wasn’t anywhere near his father.
    During their stint in the city Ann had learned to push her fear down, knowing that James would have worried about her if he’d known how terrified she’d felt. She’d been through so much, having to deal with her mother’s disappearance and seeing her stepdad sent to prison for holding up a string of liquor stores and community banks. But on the night James was mugged in front of their apartment, it was Ann who’d quietly packed and loaded up his pickup with only their suitcases while James lay on the bathroom floor moaning. She’d insisted on driving the hundred-some miles west, worried that he might lose an eye if they didn’t get to a hospital soon. They’d arrived at the Buoy City clinic just after the morning shift change. By then he was really out of it and she’d had to half- carry him inside.
    He was kept overnight for observation. So out of it that Ann doubted if he’d even heard her talking to him. Her aunt came and took her home, and the next morning James’ mother and younger brother did the same for him. While James recovered, they saw little of one another and soon it felt as if their year in Portland had never happened and they were back in the exact same places they were before they’d left. There were numerous attempts to revive what they’d shared, but it was never the same after that. New tensions never let up and they’d begun to argue. After a while Ann couldn’t help imagining that a foul spirit from the city had followed them back to torment them. James’ mother, who’d always been fond of Ann, had changed the most. She seemed to believe that Ann had been responsible for the idea of moving to the city and almost getting her son killed. As Ann began to feel less welcome in James’ home, she gradually stopped visiting altogether. A few weeks later they found themselves dating other people.
    She left the joint untouched, closed the ashtray and started her car. A dark shadow had swallowed the bay. Rain rumbled over the metal above her like a stampede of well-fed mice. The wind reached below her and lifted up the car so that for a second the front wheels spun with no road below them. They weren’t kidding; this is going to be a serious one.

 
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
     
    The 101 café was open at all hours and drew a steady flow of long haul truckers and local deliverymen. Town regulars camped in the booths toward the back so they could keep an eye on the action at the counter where unlikely folk were sometimes forced to interact. A trucker who’d been awake for two days straight, for instance, might offer a compliment to a tourist’s wife before realizing he’d crossed a line. And depending on the subjects involved, such collisions of civility or lack thereof were known to restage themselves in the back parking lot. But as each troublemaker who walked into the 101 had gotten an opportunity to spend some time with the sheriff, such excitement was rare anymore. Word had spread quickly. You either agreed to play by Dawkin’s rules or stayed clear of his county. It was that simple.
    Ann took a booth near the front where she could keep an eye on people coming in. She rarely went out to places where a lot of people gathered. It was hard to keep track of them all, and sooner or later she’d make a fool of herself. People she was supposed to know would think she was ignoring them. Or worse, she might not recognize some guy she once went out with and begin a conversation with him. Things could get awkward very fast.
    When a doctor told Ann she had face-blindness it had made perfect sense. She’d gone through a period of chronic headaches and undergone all kinds of tests. Physically they couldn’t find anything wrong with her, no signs of trauma. She simply couldn’t recognize faces. They all looked the same to her in memory, smudges of skin and tooth and shadow, as differentiated as a beach of gray