Page 35 of Smoke and Roses

Close enough. Do you want a red cardigan for Christmas?

I put the phone face down on the floor. I don’t take the glasses off. They work. That’s the worst part.

We’re into the last week of April when Lindsey hisses and jerks her hand back. There’s a thin red line across the pad of her finger where the edge of a carbon caught it.

“Ugh. Paper cut.” She sticks her finger in her mouth. “These things are like razor blades.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s a paper cut, Travis. I’ll live.”

I’m already up. Out front, between the plumbing aisle and the birdseed, there’s a little hook of first-aid stuff. I grab a box of bandages and set it on Gary’s counter with a five.

Gary looks at the bandages, then at the back room, and slides the five back across the counter at me with one finger. “Go on.”

In the back I crouch in front of her bucket and take her hand. I peel a bandage open and wrap it around her finger, snug, and press the ends down flat with my thumb so they won’t catch on the next slip.

“You bought me Band-Aids,” she says. “You could have just asked Gary for one.”

“I wanted to get one for you.”

She hooks her bandaged finger in the collar of my shirt and pulls me in and kisses me, quick, and I’m still wearing Gary’s reading glasses.

“Keep those on,” she whispers. “I’m into it.”

Gary clears his throat in the doorway. “Hate to interrupt, kids. You’re almost to May.”

With a grin, he goes back out front, whistling.

Not long after, Lindsey finds it. “Travis,” she gasps.

She holds it up. A carbon slip, yellowed, the pen strokes faded to blue ghosts. A tow chain. 20 ft., two clevis hooks. $84.99. Paid cash. May 19, 2009.

Four days after Danielle disappeared.

At the bottom, where the customer signs, there are two initials in shaky ballpoint. H.S.

“Gary,” Lindsey calls, her voice unsteady.

He takes the slip and holds it up to the light and squints at it through his reading glasses.

“That’s my handwriting on top,” he says. “May nineteenth. A Tuesday.” He frowns at the initials. “H.S.”

“Do you remember who?” she asks.

“Lindsey, I don’t remember what I had for breakfast.” But he keeps looking at it. His frown gets deeper.

“Cash, though. Folks didn’t pay cash for an eighty-five-dollar chain often. They put it on account.” He taps the slip. “Whoever this was didn’t want it on their account.”

“Can we take this to Gabe?” I ask.

“Take whatever you need.” Gary hands it to Lindsey carefully, with both hands. “Danielle used to come in here with her dad every Saturday. Before he passed. She’d sort the screws for me. Little bitty thing, sorting screws.”

He clears his throat. “You find her, Lindsey.”

“I’m trying.”

“No trying.” He pats her shoulder. “Find her.”