It was Evan’s closing-time tradition to head out back behind the shop to admire the Big D for a few minutes while he vaped. He maintained this tradition even in wintertime, despite the cold and the snow and the wind off the river. It made him feel like a settler of old, surveying the land before him with a mind to make it his own.
All the same, he thought tonight as he watched the chill river flow, lucky for Corinne to be down in Texas in the heat; it really was cold out here tonight. Her sudden departure had been a shock to everyone at the shop and had necessitated a decent amount of schedule rearranging to cover her shift, but good for her if that was what she needed. He’d texted her, obviously, but hadn’t gotten a response. Neither had Molly, a crime deserving of capital punishment, to
