1
The city was sullen in the last of the light. The clouds—rolling in on a raw wind that whipped the waters of the Des Moines River into peaks—had swallowed the gold dome of the capitol and were engulfing the tops of the skyscrapers downtown. Here and there lights still glowed, winking through the murk.
Hayley Abbot wrapped her arms around herself as she waited by her car, frowning at the sky. The weather forecaster had said it wouldn’t snow today, but she could feel the threat of it in the air that sliced through her thermals and tore tears from her eyes.
A black pickup streaked with dirt pulled into the lot. The vehicle jolted through puddles, ice splintering beneath snow chains. A man climbed out. He looked over at her standing there alone, shivering in her windbreaker.
Hayley pulled her cell phone from her pocket. No messages. She’d tugged off a glove with her teeth and was scrolling through her contacts, fingers clumsy with cold, when she heard a shout behind her. Something slammed into her back, knocking the phone from her hand. She stumbled against the door of her car as something thrust intrusively between her legs.
“Banjo! Goddamn!”
Hayley straightened to find an Irish setter bounding around her. She pushed the dog’s eager nose away.
The man from the pickup came over, hood held up against the wind. “Banjo, get here!”
Hayley bent to pick up her fallen glove, reeling from the dog’s tongue as it curled toward her face. Meaty breath moistened her cheek. She snatched her phone from a puddle. The dog jumped up as she stood, planting muddy paws on her leggings.
The man grabbed the animal’s collar. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, glancing sideways at her.
He should be on a leash, she wanted to say. “No problem,” she said instead.
As the man hauled Banjo toward the dog park, Hayley brushed the mud from her thighs. Her phone rang and she exhaled as she saw the name. “Tara! Where are you?”
“Hayley, don’t hate me. My sitter’s gone and canceled on me again.”
“What? You’re not coming?”
“I can’t!” A child was screaming in the background. “Look, I’ll speak to you tomorrow, OK? I’m sorry!”
The call cut off.
Hayley swore at the screen. Turning, she scanned the riverside path that curved out of sight beneath an overpass. A man was sprinting along it alone. He was overtaken by a couple of cyclists racing past in RAGBRAI jerseys. There were a few people in the dog park, swaddled in winter coats. Banjo was streaking circles around a lumbering pit bull. In the distance, cars streamed along the Grand Avenue and Locust Street bridges, headlights tracing through the gloom.
Scenes from the recent press conferences flashed in her mind. The cops grim-faced on the evening news.
Be vigilant.
But she’d left work early, driven all the way across town. It wasn’t late—the darkness just storm.
Stuffing her phone into her pocket with a curse for Tara’s useless babysitter, Hayley left the parking lot and set off at a jog along the path, skirting icy puddles that looked like cracked glass. Her muscles were stiff, but she quickened her pace as she entered the dank shadows beneath the interstate bridge, filled with the muffled thunder of trucks.
The squat concrete piers of the overpass were swirled with manic loops of graffiti—MAGA shouted scarlet among faded scrawls. There was a poster from the recent presidential campaign, peeling in the damp. On it, the president-elect’s mouth had been sprayed with a wide black slash. A mask or a muzzle.
Emerging into the dim daylight, Hayley headed for the pale arch of the Iowa Women of Achievement Bridge. Built in honor of female civil rights leaders, scientists, and war veterans, it pinched the east and west sides of Des Moines together like a delicate brooch. The wind picked up, unsettling the river.
She ran faster, past the Wells Fargo Arena, fronted with a billboard for the Iowa Wolves. HOWL ALL SEASON LONG! The air filled with a freezing mist of drizzle. She tugged her pink beanie over her ears, nodding to the few joggers and walkers she passed who’d braved the wild evening. Her annoyance at being stood up by Tara dropped away, along with other worries and frustrations of the day: her mom’s frantic call about her dad, who might need his operation sooner than expected, her boss’s demand she work this weekend. Yards became miles.
Copyright © 2024 by Erin Young