Page 99 of The Woman with the Target on her Back (Grassi Family)

My only friend.

“Sheryl,” August repeated, mind rolling through the names of people I may have mentioned over our time together. “The farmer?” he asked.

“Yes.”

But… Stan andSheryl?

They made no sense.

Sheryl with all of her loud, colorful, and gaudy ways. Stan with all of his black and neutral, all of his understated and carefully curated ways.

They didn’t work.

But here it was.

Her bracelet.

Proof that she had been here.

Right?

Wait… no.

It didn’tproveanything, did it?

Just that Stan was in possession of it.

Stan who was clearly more in someone’s pocket than my father could have realized. Stan who was maybe sick of Sheryl sticking her nose in his business, causing problems.

Did Stan have Sheryl too?

Or was she in danger?

“We have to go,” I said, jumping up fast enough that I almost knocked August on his ass before he could react and stand as well.

“Wait, okay,” he said, following behind me as I charged into the hall. “Go where, Trav?” he asked as I stormed through the apartment, then out into the hall.

I didn’t have the patience to wait for the elevator. I took off down the stairs at a dead run.

“To Sheryl’s,” I said, all but rolling my eyes at him. “She might be in danger too,” I told him.

“Let’s stop and think—“

“No,” I said, voice tight. “No. There’s no time to stop and think about anything. My dad is out there. Bleeding. Sheryl clearly has the attention of Stan. We need to bedoingsomething, not thinking.”

I threw myself into the car, slamming the door to cut off any more objections.

I was rattling off Sheryl’s address as August and Aurelio climbed into their seats, and Milo took off, seeming not to understand that there was any debate about where we were going.

Anything August might have been thinking right then, he kept to himself, and we drove in painful silence back across town, almost to the shop.

Where Sheryl’s farmhouse was located on a roomy corner lot with a tall fence to keep anyone from throwing garbage or peeing into her carefully tended flower beds.

I’d been to her farm more times than I could count, had walked the rows of tomato plants that would have been hanging over with the weight of their ripe fruit if not for the pole system she’d set up to keep them upright.

I’d run my hands over the tops of the herb beds, my hand coming away smelling of dill and basil and rosemary.

I’d knelt down beside her at night with headlamps on, both of us picking off hornworms before they destroyed her crop. I’d pulled weeds and picked beans and helped her haul dirt after she’d come into the shop with an elastic bandage wrapped around her head from some mishap or another.

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