"Yeah, I have to come into the city anyway tomorrow to pick up a load of parts."

"Okay, great, Mr. Henshaw. I'll meet you at Josie's, then."

"Sounds good, Miss Hart."

Karen hung up her phone and walked up to the bar. "Hey hon," Josie said. "What can I do for you?"

"Can I use the back room tomorrow night?" Karen asked. "I have someone I need to meet in private.

"Thanks again for meeting me, Mr. Henshaw. I know you're probably really busy."

"It's no problem at all," he said, sipping from his glass of scotch. The short man was around sixty, his white t-shirt grimy and tight over his round tummy. Karen was glad there were only chairs and tables in Josie's back room, because this man might not fit into a booth seat. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and looked questioningly at Karen.

"Go ahead," she said.

He lit one and spoke again with the cigarette between his fingers throwing a thin stream of smoke into the orange overhead light. "I only read our local newspaper, but if one of these big fancy New York papers wants to hear about a boring small town story, who am I to say no?"

"Well, it's not exactly the New York Post, but our readers will still appreciate it. So, I was wondering if you could start by telling me about the accident on Holly Lane. You picked up the car after the investigation, right?"

"Yep. What was left of it."

"And did you see any evidence of foul play?"

"Well," he said, glancing conspicuously at her notebook on the table in front of him, "I'm just a mechanic, not a cop, so I wasn't in charge of any evidence or anything."

"I understand, Mr. Henshaw. I was just wondering if you noticed anything off, anything strange about the car."

"No, can't say I did. Just a bad accident." Karen nodded.

"I read in the paper that the driver was drunk. Do you know how he crashed the car?"

"I don't remember much, but I think he sped too fast around the curve. Poor kid probably didn't even see the tree trunk he hit."

"Did you know him?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Heard he was a good kid, but… I never met him."

"Were there rumors around town at the time?" she asked. "Did you hear about him before he was killed?"

"Not before, only after. Just normal stuff. Everybody talking about what a damn tragedy it was."

"And, after you towed the car, what happened to it?"

"I towed it to the junk yard, but I believe they destroyed it there. It was so wrecked that nothing was salvageable."

Convenient, Karen thought. "I see."

"Sorry I can't tell you anything more interesting about it," he said. "But like I said, I don't think there's anything there to tell."

"I understand. Thank you for your time Mr. Henshaw. I appreciate you coming out of your way to talk to me."

"That it, then?" he asked, his shoulders falling an inch as he relaxed visibly. Karen noticed a light sheen of sweat on his forehead in the dingy light. As they both stood to leave, Karen took her chance.

"Do you come into the city often, Mr. Henshaw?"

"Once a month, usually," he said. "I haul my load of parts back home because its cheaper to buy here and ship myself."

"Ever stop anywhere else? Or bring your family in?"

"Nah." He put his hands in his pockets and looked quizzically at Karen. "Sometimes I take some things home for the wife. She likes the salami from this deli in Hell's Kitchen."

"Do you ever take your wife flowers?" Karen asked. "There's a florist nearby here too that sells wildflowers."

Henshaw's face slipped into a red mask. "Why are you asking me about flowers? Don't think I didn't recognize that towhead the moment I saw you, Page. Are you the bitch who sent those damn flowers? Like I need a reminder?"

"I didn't send any flowers, Mr. Henshaw."

"Well you sure as hell look like the kind of stuck up, high and mighty, spoiled kid who would send a man a threat in a bouquet."

"What threat? What did the note with the flowers say?" But the man acted like he didn't hear her. He pulled the dangling cigarette from his lip and pointed it at her.

"Just like your brother with the superiority complex, stomping around like he's better than everyone. People like you, they get what they deserve. He did." And he flicked the cigarette toward her, making her jump back a little.

"You knew my brother?" she hissed. "How did you know him?" He turned and started to walk toward the door, and Karen jerked into motion, following at his elbow. "The newspaper story is bullshit, and you know that. Mr. Henshaw, do you know the truth or are you too comfortable in the lie to even want to figure it out?"

"Stop with these god damn questions!" he roared, turning toward her with his arms thrown up in exasperation, smacking across her collarbone. She reared back a few feet, but could tell he hadn't meant to hit her. They stood a few feet apart, panting as they glared at each other.

"I won't stop until I have answers."

"You'll be better off without them, believe me." He wiped his nose on his wrist and left.

Karen collected her things, glad she hadn't needed to use most of them: the gun in her purse, the pepper spray in the pocket of her pleated skirt, the knife taped under the only chair in the room… spending time with Frank had given her new ideas and paranoia that left her imagining every possible situation that she might need to get out of. She sat down for a moment on the chair, tallying up their conversation in her head.

He had rehearsed the information from the newspaper because he knew something about the truth, but didn't trust himself enough to keep it from slipping out. Either he was guilty of something or scared, but Karen got the feeling that he wasn't trying to get away with something. Instead he was nervous. A pawn in the grand scheme of it all. There was someone he was afraid of.

Buy why had the flowers come from his shop's number if he hadn't sent them? Surely this man was not the criminal mastermind who could feign surprise and fear so easily, lying to Karen about receiving flowers himself. But his flowers contained an outright threat, by the sounds of it. Unless the note with his flowers was as ambiguous as Karen's, and his fear or guilt drew him to a sinister conclusion.

Karen stood up and brushed dust from her skirt, chewing on the side of her cheek as she entered the street once more. Drizzling rain just barely visible beneath the orange street lamp, the night felt cooler now than it had when Karen had got here. Planning her route to a main street to catch a cab as she walked intently down the sidewalk, a scuffling sound interrupted her thoughts.

Ahead a dark alleyway echoed quietly with increasing noise. Karen quieted her footsteps and approached, slipping a hand into her purse. She stopped for a moment just before she reached the alleyway, a big steady breath travelling quietly through her pursed lips, before peeking around the corner.

By the white t-shirt and bald head she could make out Henshaw, pinned against the concrete wall of the next building by a hulking figure in black. The two men were struggling, although was the only one panting. Karen hid herself behind the corner.

"Let me go, you son of a bitch," he rasped. Karen heard the way his voice twisted at the end, as though he'd been choked. She could not hear what the other man said, but Henshaw spoke louder this time. She wondered if she should turn the other way and just call the cops. "Fuck you. And fuck that other bitch, too." He wheezed in pain, perhaps from a punch.

"I'm not telling you shit. I got nothing to tell!"

"Keep your voice down," growled the other man. As Karen realized this was no mugging, she froze with her back against the wall and her hand gripping the gun in her purse.

"Terrible accident. Drunk driver. Kid had all this potential and the whole town cried about it. That's all I know."

"That's not all you know, Henshaw! You towed the car away after they took the kids body out on a stretcher. You changed the oil in it two days before that. You took the car to the dump and had it destroyed. You, Henshaw. Tell me what nobody else knows. What'd you see when you took it away?"

"Nothin'!" he yelled, but his voice cracked just a little.

"What did you do to it to make the kid crash?"

"I didn't do nothin'," he cried. "I didn't do nothing. I just did my job. I-"

"Horseshit!"

Karen snapped out of her trance as she recognized the second voice, just before she heard a horrible crack rip through the alley, followed swiftly by Henshaw's pitiful groaning.

"Frank!"

Karen barreled around the corner to see Frank's head whip toward her. "Let him go," she ordered. Frank held Henshaw against the wall with one hand as he faced her. Henshaw's head lolled forward, chin against his chest.

"Karen, this guy has information."

"I know who the hell he is, Frank. But he didn't send the flowers."

"You really think he doesn't know anything?"

"I don't want to find out this way!" Karen said. "Let him go. Now, Frank."

"You sure?" he asked, but Karen's steely eyes betrayed no uncertainty. Frank took his hand from the man's shoulder and stepped out of his way as he stumbled forward. Henshaw didn't look at Karen as he shuffled quickly out into the street.

"Did you follow me here?" Karen asked.

"Are you mad at me?" Frank raised his eyebrows at Karen and then chuckled to himself. "You're mad at me, when you're the one out here running around like the only sheriff in town."

"I can take care of myself!"

"Yeah, okay. I know you can. But don't you know that a woman walking around alone in a neighborhood like this is like a walking target for trouble?"

"Well if you didn't follow me here, then you what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you!"

"But it might've hurt you! Karen, I chased three guys away from here who saw you out that bar's window and followed you to the building."

Karen's eyebrows wrinkled briefly, betraying that she hadn't noticed them.

"And Henshaw's no angel, either. You know he did time in the can for assault and battery?"

"Yeah, thirty years ago," Karen said defensively. "I knew that, and I was prepared, and I judged correctly that he wasn't dangerous."

"Perfect, well, I judged correctly that he knows something that he doesn't want to divulge, and you lost your own primary source by making me let him go!"

"I told you I don't want to know anything that I have to get through violence. I was prepared to defend myself if I had to but I want to do this the right way. And I want to do it alone."

"I thought I could help," Frank said, a note of apology in his voice that Karen ignored.

"Did I ask for your help? Consider that he'll never talk to me again now that you've broken his nose! I could have tried to talk to him again once I know more but… damn it, Frank."

"Alright, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ruined what you were brewing here but you should have let me in on it! I could help you! And, Karen…You know I have to keep you safe… I have to."

"And why is that, Frank?" she asks, venom dripping from her words.

"Karen, I-"

"Why? Because we kissed? Because we're… we're seeing each other? Or because you have a savior complex now? You couldn't save your family so you have to save me even when I don't need it! Or want it!"

The man in front of her shrunk, his silhouette crumpling against the low light behind him. "You're… the only thing left in my life to… to hold onto."

"Well I'm not a thing, Frank! Not a thing to hold on to, not a thing to protect, not a thing to use or put on a shelf."

Some small spark of fight came back into him. "I know that! That's not what I meant, okay? God damn it—I mean, I know that, Karen."

"Great, glad we're on the same page. But we're not getting in the same cab." Karen turned around and hailed a taxi, getting in without looking back.

He didn't like himself like this. Frank liked to go toe to toe, to yell and bang around the house and let his wife do the same when they were together. But ever since she had died, and after everything he had done after, he couldn't stand to fight anymore. He was tired. And Karen was right. He wondered when he would go back to normal. He knew Karen was like him—or like he used to be. She needed a partner who would give back everything she dished out. Karen was a force of nature, and Frank… well, Frank felt like nothing he did or said was natural anymore. He wondered if he would ever go back to his old normal, if he ever even could. He pulled his hood over his head and walked home.