“Where have you been these eight months?”

She glanced nervously at the heavy alley door as a dishwasher tossed out a plastic bucket of ice.

“Garrett put me out,” she said.

I took half a step closer.

“What do you mean, he threw you out?”

“He changed the deadbolts on the house one Tuesday morning while I was at the grocery store,” Rebecca said.

“When I got back, my key wouldn’t turn.”

A delivery truck idled down the alley, its exhaust smelling of burnt diesel.