Page 77 of Good Half Gone

I tell her about the three items tucked into my backpack,wrapped in produce bags. She’s quiet for a full minute while she thinks.

“I know a lab,” she says finally. “What you’re doing is illegal.”

“So what?” I say. “Kidnapping is illegal, rape is illegal, murder is illegal. All three happened to my sister.”

Poley doesn’t have to help me, but I know she will; guilt is a powerful driving force.

“When can you get it to me?”

“Now?”

“Great.”

She hangs up. Her exit is two past mine. I get off on Union and cut off a Subaru driver who throws me the finger. When I pull up to her building, she’s standing on the curb with a purple blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair is dark this time, cut shorter than I’ve ever seen it. She’s wearing slippers and has one of those sleep strips on her nose that stops you from snoring. When she leans down to the passenger side window, I get a whiff of what her condo smells like. I hand her the bags.

“You gotta stop this. This is unhealthy.”

“Oh yeah?” I look back at the road, where a few lonesome snowflakes are starting to fall. It hardly snows in Seattle, but when it does, everything goes to shit—the hills slicked over and vehicles skidding around like bumper cars.

“I guess if looking for my sister is unhealthy, I’ll take it.”

She stares at me, anime eyes disproving. “You know what I mean.” She shifts her blanket, and I catch a glimpse of what’s underneath. A nice-sized belly—she’s pregnant.

“Congratulations,” I say. “I didn’t know…”

How would I? It’s not like we were friends. Still, I’d known her long enough to care.

She shrugs. A guy walks out of Poley’s building and gives me a look like I shouldn’t be parked there. I want to give him the finger,but she’ll get pissed. Poley has two slices of dark exhaustion beneath her eyes. They match her hair.

The sky is about to burst open with a zillion snowflakes. I don’t have time to get into it with her. Besides, Poley has shit instincts, but she works hard. Beneath her makeup, she is perpetually exhausted.

“You’re obsessed with your sister’s case in a completely insane way.”

I shrug. “You’re obsessed with changing your hair; we all have something don’t we?”

She rolls her eyes.

I liked to ride Poley’s guilt. She knows she fucked up my sister’s case.

“This is the last favor I’ll ever ask. I swear. If this man is not Cal’s father, I’ll drop it. I’ll move on with my life and let it go.”

“I could get in trouble.”

“Right,” I say, making a face. She blushes; we both know she was fucking her boss when Piper went missing.

“I know you’re a little bit crooked, Amanda. Just do this one thing for me…please.”

“All right.”

“Thank you!” I say. “You’ll let me know?”

She sighs before saying, “Yeah.”

She knocks twice on the roof of my car before turning away.

“Hey!” I call out the window. “Do you know what you’re having?”

I watch her turn around, hand on her belly, soft white flakes landing in her hair.

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