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when he was twenty feet away, within what police called the “kill zone,” that space in which a police officer’s life was in danger, though maybe not from a drunk with a dull bread knife. Alone at night, Caroline sat up staring at the walls, trying to remember if she’d made a conscious effort to shoot the man. In the end, it was Dupree’s insistence that she had done the right thing that kept her from quitting. The other officers said all the right things and were overtly supportive, but she could feel their doubt. The best attribute a police officer had was the knack for defusing potential trouble. She had made a situation worse, possibly even panicked, and shot a drunk man who was too far away to really do her any harm. No cop would ever say as much, but she knew what they were thinking.
    Caroline started the car and began driving, figuring she’d know where to go once she got there. She started with the Longbotham Pub, where Joel worked. The bar covered the main floor of an old miners’ hotel in downtown Spokane, converted into the kind of young professionals’ pub that serves micros and Guinness black-and-tans to junior law partners and sweet martini derivations to fifth-year college students.
    And cops. Younger cops found their way to the Longbotham, and that was how she’d met Joel. He was tending bar when she’d come in with some other detectives after a particularly adrenaline-filled drug raid eighteen months ago.
    For her, the attraction had been simple, basic. He was twelve years younger, six feet three inches tall, with the round, muscular shoulders and flat stomach of a swimmer, short black hair, and green eyes with black borders. When she was insecure about his fidelity, which was more often lately, it was those eyes that scared her.
    On their first date, they talked about leaving Spokane; she was waiting to hear from law school, he from an Alaskan fishing boat. That conversation had taken place on almost every date Caroline had in Spokane. Everyone was either in the process of leaving orapologizing for not leaving yet. Caroline found herself hoping it was the same in other mid-sized cities, that there were some places that could only be left, cities just barely boldfaced on road maps—Dayton, Des Moines, and Decatur; Springfield, Stockton, and any city with “Fort” in its name—places that spark none of that romantic quality that young people believe will keep them from growing old.
    It wore on Caroline. Everyone dragged around heavy suitcases filled with excuses for staying in Spokane, and her own sounded no more convincing than any others she’d heard. “I was planning to leave, but I met this guy…” “I would’ve left months ago, but my mother is ill.” She was thirty-six. What was her excuse before she met Joel? Before her mother got sick? Before she shot the wife beater? Before Dupree?
    She stood outside the Longbotham, which was fronted on the street by big picture windows. She watched from outside as Joel pulled the taps and served up beers to a couple of young men in baseball caps. She ran her eyes along the bar until she found the girl who worried her: thin, blond, faded jeans cinched around a rubber-band waist. The girl leaned across the bar and yelled over the music into Joel’s ear as Caroline tried to imagine a drink that took that long to order.
    From the street, Caroline watched the college girl shrug demurely. Joel began mixing her a margarita, never looking away from the girl, drawing her in, making her think stupid thoughts. Caroline thought about warning her: Get out of town while you still can. It’s not real, the thing you see in those eyes.
    She stepped away from the window, looked up and down the street, and then started back for her car.
    She drove through downtown and up the first crest of the South Hill, parked in the lot of Sacred Heart Hospital, and walked inside. She showed her badge to the security guard, who waved her inside. She took the elevator to the