Page 16 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

I see the orange glow of the bar windows and hear the music spilling out into the parking lot. The warmth and the friends and the laughter—the happiness I can’t imagine ever truly feeling again—my whole body aches with a longing to go back in time and remember what it’s like before I lost myself.

I look over at the box of files I brought just in case Miles acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about so I could show him. I dig around inside one more time, waiting for the damn heat to start blowing through the frozen car vents and the window to deice.

I look at the Oleander file again with such a feeling of shame,even though it wasn’t me who took their money. Then I see one more manila envelope in the box. I pull it out and see paperwork for an account at Northview Bank. There’s a password written on the back.

Holy shit, it has all of his routing and account numbers. With trembling fingers I pull out my phone and find the bank’s website, and go to the log-in page. I use the account number and the scribbled password, and the account opens. All of his activity is right there in front of me.

Blood swooshes between my ears and my head feels light as I try to catch my breath. Tears begin to well behind my eyes when I see it.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I mumble as I shakily scroll through the page. Gus cries upon feeling me panic. I try to catch my breath. The screen blurs through my tears as I take in what I’m seeing.

This is Leo’s secret account. The last withdrawal was yesterday. That son of a bitch is still alive.

8

FLORENCE

I scream bloody murder when Shelby finally opens the door because she has a gun pointed at us. A gun, of all things! I explained that when she didn’t answer the door, Herb went around the side to see if she was in the kitchen, and then we thought we’d try the door once more because she must be home this far past the girls’ bedtime.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Shelby asks breathlessly, holding her heart and sitting herself down on the nearest armchair to breathe.

“The power is out at the Oleander and Heather didn’t know who to call.”

“Well, why didn’t you call me?” she says, and she still seems quite sour with us. She places the gun in a box and locks it, then blows out a long slow breath and tries to be gentler with us.“She should have fucking called me. A first course of action before giving me an actual heart attack.”

“We did, dear,” I tell her. “Call you. Eight times.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“I don’t know, it literally vanished. Okay, wait, what about the generator? You’re telling me the backup generator didn’t come on either?”

“I don’t know much about generators, but it appears not.”

“Louis Gomez in room nine is a wizard with that sort of thing—well, you know that, but he’s still at his daughter’s for the holidays,” Herb adds.

“Okay,” Shelby says. “Damn. Everyone’s okay?” she asks and we nod. “So, we need to get someone over there. Did Heather call anyone else to help?”

“Well, after she couldn’t reach you, Mort suggested trying Evan or maybe Clay to come take a look, but then she just started crying saying everyone was gonna die, so we thought we’d take over. Plus Evan was off shift and lives across town and you mentioned Clay was at work, so we figured this was best,” I say.

“Right,” Shelby says. “Shit. Okay. Wait here a minute and just…make yourselves at home while I set up the portable generator heater in the girls’ room and try to find my damn phone.”

We pull quilts from a pile by the stack of firewood and bundle up as the house gets colder. Everyone around these parts has generator-powered heaters and firewood. We just wait out a power outage in bad storms as a way of life. Shelby pokes her head back around the hall corner and adds…

“In the meantime, please call Willard’s HVAC, will you Florence? Tell them it’s an emergency.” And I do. At least nobody is connected to any medical equipment or anything. It’s not that sort of place. There are a few gas heaters and fireplaces at the Oleander’s too,so the worst of it will be missing aGreat British Bake Offmarathon and a lot of complaining, but they’ll live.

Herb’s the only resident who still has a driver’s license. Bernie has an old Firebird he stores in the back lot and spends summer days trying to restore it, but I’ve never actually seen him drive, so I can only assume Herb is the only one who still does, but that’s not the reason I keep him as a friend, mind you; don’t get the wrong idea about that. He smokes cigars in the car so I earn my rides each time putting up with that filth. I told him it smelled barnyardy and he said actually some cigars are supposed to smell barnyardy and musky but that I was incorrect and his smelled like wood and leather. I told him I just bought a new cherry blossom–scented shampoo and I preferred not to waste my nine dollars on cherry blossom shampoo only to smell like a barnyard or an old book, and could he wait ten minutes until we arrived and smoke it outdoors. The saga is never ending.

“I think she meant sit here and don’t touch anything when she told you to make yourself at home,” I tell Millie as she plucks through the bottles on the rolling bar and holds one up. The flames from the fire are too dim for me to make it out. “Chocolate vodka,” she explains. I didn’t know they made such a thing.

“I think we could all go for a drink,” Herb says, warming his hands in front of the fire. It’s no use telling them that maybe now’s not the time, and let’s deal with getting heat to thirty-five seniors before they freeze to death, but I let them have their fun because I guess there’s not much we can do except get the right people over there to help.

After Shelby sets the girls up in one bed with extra blankets and a heater, and after Willard’s is on the way to the Oleander’s, she joins us by the fire and we huddle in—Shelby on the floor in front of the ottoman, and Herb sitting on the hearth. Me and Millie in armchairs with blankets across our legs. We’re used to whiteouts and power outages up here—we’re built sturdy for it—but right now,knowing there’s some psychopath out there on the loose, it takes a different shape, and I can tell everyone is on edge.

“I gave her a list for emergencies,” Shelby says, taking the Baileys away from Herb who tried to take a swig straight from the bottle, placing it back down on the coffee table.

“I mean what if it were a fire? Would she call me and send you all over town before calling the fire department?” Shelby seethes, and she has every reason to be worked up.

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