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little bag in. It went, but there weren’t many days left of that. And I had a phone call to make. I trudged back in and sat in my chair like a pouting child. That’s what I felt like.

    What happened to my Duncan joy?

    Ian, that’s what. Eleven years earlier, he’d turned my life upside down by taking my heart and my trust and my crumbled walls and steamrolling right over them. He was my best friend. I never saw it coming.

    My fingers automatically reached into the bowl of skeleton keys I kept on my desk. In my line of work, they showed up here and there, and I kept every single one I found. They were sad. A weird thing to say about an object, I realized, but there was something sad about their usefulness running out. That they were cast aside and forgotten, their purpose gone. It was soothing to me in a way, to keep them, as if I were giving them a new life.

    I picked one out of the bowl and rolled it between my fingers. The last time I’d seen Ian was the day he drove out of town on his motorcycle. A backpack containing all he cared to take with him was strapped behind him where I would normally sit. Four days before that, I’d found him underneath a pretty redhead, her riding him like a prized bull. Two days before that, we’d used the L word. You can see how well the dominos fell from there.

    My trust shattered, I gave it to no one after that. I saw everyone and everything for what they put out into the world, and what they’d want from me. Even Duncan, who made my heart race a little for once, wasn’t immune to my pessimism. He looked like he couldn’t harm a fly with those gorgeous blue eyes and disarming smile, but I still didn’t trust him. Appearances were deceiving.

    Maybe Ian was fat and bald now.

    Not likely. His brother was still hot, and all he did was chop up meat for a living. Ian was supposedly a scuba instructor and divemaster and owner of a dive shop in Key West, rumored to still personally operate one of his three boats. That much physical activity out in the sun, well, maybe he would be all weathered and wrinkled. Hey, a girl could dream.

    “Savi, honey?” my dad’s voice resonated from the rafters. “You here?”

    “Office,” I called back, taking a deep breath and putting my game face on.

    I heard the wood creaking overhead as he descended the steps from the loft. That was Dad’s area up there now, complete with a mini-fridge and a TV and a confiscated foosball table. He also enjoyed piddling around with restoration, especially clocks, so all that ended up there with him as he watched the Discovery Channel.

    He came around the corner through my doorway with his trademark wink, his now white hair combed perfectly into place, neatly dressed as usual in slacks and a button-down polo shirt. It never mattered to him that we dealt in dirty merchandise and worked in a barn, Theo Barnes believed in dressing for success. On Saturdays, he sometimes downgraded to nice jeans and a denim polo shirt. Only if he was feeling particularly rebellious.

    I, however, believed in not having to dry clean anything, and in the power of climbing through occasional piles of garbage without the hindrance of skirts or heels. Men had it easier on the dress-up scale. I just had to make jeans and sensible shoes look successful.

    “They didn’t empty the Dumpster again,” he said, pulling up the extra chair to have a seat.

    I grabbed a fresh trash bag out of a drawer and arranged it in the can.

    “I noticed,” I said. “I’ll call again.”

    “You realize what he’s doing.”

    “I know,” I said. “But I refuse to be bullied over a bunch of signs.”

    The Copper Falls Water & Sewer Department had a beef with me. Or the guy over garbage pickup did, I should say. Terrence Hebert. His wife had some huge rusty old advertising signs that she thought she was going to hit the jackpot with, but they were worthless. Not only were they so badly oxidized you couldn’t read half the words, but what