Deep Wood

Setting my backpack on the floor at my feet, I let my knees splay to either side. I’ve rolled my shorts up so that they’re practically kissing my thigh crease. The man stares straight ahead, like he's intentionally trying not to look at me. That's going to be a problem if I hope to get what I'm after.

"If you didn't do it for me,” I ask, “then who'd you do it for?"

"An old friend.” He turns the fan system up, though the windows are already open. His gaze flickers to my inner thigh.

Now we're in business.

I unzip my backpack and pull out a package of beef jerky. He shakes his head when I offer him a piece. It was nice of him to pay for my groceries. So nice, that I couldn’t pass up the chance to expedite my journey. I wasn’t lying when I told him my feet felt like ground beef, or when I said he didn’t have to pay for my groceries. I’d already slipped a bunch of food and supplies into my backpack in the minutes before he got there. The pile on the counter was just a decoy to frustrate the clerk so she’d be glad to get rid of me.

For the record, I don’t like stealing. But sometimes you have to do what’s necessary to survive. I just happen to be really good at it. For that, I can thank my ex-boyfriend, Brody.

The nice man’s truck smells like stale coffee and new leather, and the lack of dust and stains makes me think it might be new. That, or he’s one of those anal types who likes to keep their cars spotless. But judging by his messy hair and five o’clock shadow, I don’t think that’s the case.

When I first saw him, my heart literally stopped. Tall as a mountain, legs like two towering pines, messy blond hair, and a chiseled jaw, he looked like no one I’d ever seen in real life. Dressed in khakis and a pale, blue button-down, he could’ve been any corporate stooge, but something about the no-bullshit look in his eye gave me pause. This is a guy who isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty, I thought. I bet his bosses don’t even realize they’ve let a lumberjack into the boardroom.

From the moment his storm-cloud eyes locked on mine, I was his willing hostage. It was almost as though his gaze held the power to reach inside me and gather my sins like a deck of playing cards, laying them out one by one—here’s the time you took fifty bucks from your mom’s purse, and the time your boyfriend talked you into smuggling drugs across the state border. And who can forget the day your boyfriend conned you into staging a robbery at the bank you worked for?

The same day he shot your father...

I had just graduated from high school a few weeks before it happened. Unemployed and still living at my parents’ house, my mom and I fought constantly about everything, from me coming home late to the pills she’d found in my purse—Brody’s drugs, but I didn’t tell her that; my parents already hated him enough. My dad stuck up for me. He believed I could change because he'd changed, supposedly. But I was tired of being treated like a problem child.

I wanted to move out and get a place with Brody, who was living with his cousin in a one-bedroom apartment. I got a job as a bank teller at a branch near my house and started saving. The money I was making was barely enough to cover a third of what landlords in our area were asking for. Then Brody got the idea that we should just rob the bank, since I knew where all the cameras were, and how long it would take for the cops to reach us.

I didn’t want to do it, and I told him so.

Brody said we’d be stupid not to take advantage of a golden opportunity. Once we had the money, we could move anywhere, he’d said. Anyway, he reminded me, it wasn’t my decision. I was his girl. I belonged to him, which meant I had to do whatever he said. That’s how it was with us. He tried to get me to call him Daddy a few times, but the word never tasted right. Not for Brody. Considering what happened next, I’m grateful the title never stuck.

The morning of the robbery, my hands shook so bad, I spilled a quart of milk all over th

e kitchen counter. My dad made a dumb joke about butterfingers, and I laughed. He even helped me clean up the mess.

I was sure everyone at work could tell I was waiting for something to happen. When Brody and his sleazy friends stepped through the door wearing ski masks, I thought I was going to vomit. They pulled out their guns. Brody ordered me out from behind the counter, and held a gun to my temple, just like we’d rehearsed. He told my co-workers to empty all the registers, while two of his friends ran to my manager’s office to make him open the safe.

My heart leapt into my throat. Everything was going according to plan, and for a second, I thought we might actually walk away from this without anyone getting hurt. Then my dad stepped through the door, and our eyes locked.

He saw the gun pressed to my temple, and charged.

Brody must’ve recognized him, but that didn’t stop him from pulling the trigger. The blast was deafening. I watched my father crumple to the ground. Time slowed to a crawl. I didn’t notice the purple lunch tote in his hand until after he’d fallen. I must’ve forgotten it at home, and being the helpful man that he was, he’d stopped in to bring it to me on his way to the office.

As the ringing in my ears subsided, all I could hear were the screams—my own, and others’.

Then came the sirens.

“We’ve gotta go,” Brody shouted, pitching me to the ground. He and his friends made a break for the exit. By the time the police reached the bank, Brody and his team were long gone.

The paramedics rushed my dad to the hospital, but he was already dead on arrival. My mom and I held each other in the waiting room. The next day, the police questioned me for three hours, but Brody had trained me well. In the end, they simply apologized for my loss, and vowed to do whatever it took to catch the guys responsible.

I’m the one responsible, I wanted to shout. Brody may have pulled the trigger, but my father was dead because of me.

I pinch my eyes shut at the wave of remorse that rises into my throat. Now’s not the time for waterworks, I tell myself. I have to get what I need from this man and then get out of his truck before he realizes what I’ve stolen from him. I have some food, but I need a plan, and a plan is going to require more money.

“Do you live around here?” I ask, then cringe at how cliché the question sounds.

A few seconds tick by before the man responds. “I have a hunting cabin.”

“Cool. So do I.” Technically, it was my dad’s cabin, passed down to him by his father. And if you want to get really technical, he didn’t exactly to leave it to me.

According to my dad’s lawyer, the cabin where I spent every summer since I was born now belongs to some guy named Silas Walker. I’ve never met this man, never even heard his name. I can only assume my dad knew him before I was born and just never got around to correcting his will.