A college kid I've never seen before takes a photo of me behind the bar when he thinks I'm not looking. I see the phone angle, and the flash he forgot to turn off.
Beats, who's been nursing a Coke at his table all night, stands up and walks over to the kid. I can't hear what he says, but the kid deletes the photo, leaves cash on the table, and is gone in under a minute.
Tildie appears at my elbow after the college kid leaves. She doesn't say anything about what happened. She doesn't need to.
She picks up a rag and starts wiping the bar beside me, close enough that our arms brush.
"Ellie threw a man out of this bar for calling Vanna a junkie last year," Tildie says it to the counter, not to me. "Picked up his beer and poured it in the trash in front of him."
I glance at her.
"She doesn't protect people because she likes them." Tildie rinses the rag, wringing it with both fists. "She protects people because she knows what it costs when nobody does."
The words settle into my chest and stay there.
Rookie calls me on my break. I step into the back hallway and press the phone against my ear.
"The club identified the guy from the parking lot." His voice is controlled, stripped down to facts. "His name is Dale Creedy."
Dale.
The name hits like a brick through a window.
My legs stop working. I lean against the wall and press my free palm flat against the concrete.
Dale. A mentor named Dale who's been helping him process his anger.
My father's letter. The second paragraph. The progress report, the therapy, the clarity.
He wrote about Dale like the man was a gift. A guide. A sign of change.
Dale Creedy was his cellmate.
Rookie runs down Dale’s charges with me.
My father's mentor is a man who beats women.
The clarity he found in prison came from a man who understood his violence because he shared it. Two predators in a cell, sharpening each other, and my father called it growth.
He called it healing.
He wrote about it in a letter he sent to the daughter he lost, and he expected me to be proud of him for it.
"Saylor?" Rookie's voice sharpens. "You there?"
I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the floor. "Dale. My father wrote about him in the letter."
My voice cracks. "He called him a mentor. Said Dale was helping him work through his anger."
Silence on his end. I can hear him breathing. I can hear the exact moment the information hits him.
"I thought it was a counselor. A therapist." I press the heel of my palm against my forehead. "It was his cellmate the whole damn time. The man my father said was helping him get better is the same man who showed up at my mother's door."
I pull my knees to my chest on the break room floor. The fluorescent light hums above me.
I press my cheek against my kneecap. "My father sent him to us and called it love."
When Rookie speaks again, his voice is different. The warmth is gone. What's left is metal. "Don't go anywhere alone tonight. I'll be at Backroads before your shift ends."