"He pushed me down!" she yelled. "I'm not going to just stand there like you and—"
"Allison—" Miranda's voice was only slightly more in control. "You should look at yourself, girl."
I opened the door.
They were both standing by the bed. Miranda looked like a young square dancer in her fulllength denim skirt and white blouse and bandanna around her neck. She wore no makeup, but the colour in her face looked healthier than usual because she was angry.
Her eyes were bright brown.
She picked a twig out of Allison's hair. She had plenty to choose from. Allison had smudges of dirt on her face and dust all down her side. Her red blouse had come untucked from her jeans. She had the same murderous look I'd seen in her eyes that afternoon, but now her eyelids were swollen and red, a few tears smeared in with the dirt.
Miranda saw me before Allison did. The singer's shoulders relaxed just slightly. She said nothing but her posture invited me in. If I'd been alone in a room with Allison right then, I would've welcomed company too.
"What happened?" I asked.
Allison started. She had a little trouble bringing me into focus. She took a shaky breath before she could answer me with something besides a scream.
"Sheck."
"He pushed you. So you figured you'd just brain him with a horseshoe?"
Allison splayed her fingers and brought them up to her ears. "He moved too fast. I swear to God the next time—"
Her voice broke. However violent a show she was used to staging, however much she normally got away with, this time she'd surprised herself. The muscles in her face had started loosening up.
"There can't be any next time," Miranda said.
"You could've succeeded in killing him, Allison," I said. "Easily."
Allison managed to refocus on me. "You're the one who slammed Cam's head into a beer keg, Tres. What— it's okay for you to act that way?"
Miranda gave me a look I couldn't quite read. She seemed to be willing me to say something.
I'm not sure why, but just then the room we were standing in came into clearer focus. I realized it must be Miranda's. The burgundy and blue quilt on the bed, the miniature wooden horse on the desk, the dried arrangements of sage and lavender along the windowsill all seemed right for her. A tiny blond Martin guitar was propped in the corner. A few Daniels family photographs were framed in silver on the nightstand. It was a strange room—sparse and orderly but also cozy, definitely feminine. Normally I would've guessed it belonged to a little girl with a tidy mother, or perhaps to somebody's grandmother.
Miranda kept giving me a silent request.
I looked at Allison. "Why don't I drive you home? You need to get out of here."
Wrong answer. Miranda tightened her lips, but she said, "That's a good idea."
Allison collected herself. She was just about to agree, I think, when Tilden Sheckly barged into the room.
He moved like he was still groggy, but he managed a pretty hideous facsimile of his regular grin. The left side of his face was still mostly blood and dirt. His unruly graybrown hair was flattened on top by sweat in the shape of his missing hat.
"Allison SaintPierre," he croaked. "I think we need to talk."
Sheck walked toward her. I made the mistake of trying to stop him, figuring that he was still dazed.
The next thing I knew I was sitting on the rug with my jaw feeling like it had just been branded. There was either blood in my mouth or dark beer—Guinness, maybe. I don't remember Sheckly's upper cut at all. I certainly didn't have time to block it.
"I'll talk to you in a minute, son," Sheckly said unevenly. He was focusing a little to the left of my eyes. "We'll have some words about trespassing in people's offices. Right now, stay out of my way."
He grabbed Allison by the wrist.
Allison managed to break Sheckly's grip and rake the bad side of his face with her fingernails, but Sheck looked like he'd expected that. He winced and swayed backward and then smiled, like he'd just been given permission to try again with a little more force.
"Sheckly," Miranda said, soft but insistent.
"Miranda, darlin'." He kept trying to get his mouth to work right, to have that normal smooth tone to it. "This ain't your fault, honey. I know that. But you understand what your friend here did? At your Daddy's party? You think I'm gonna let her walk away from that—would that be right?"
Allison tried for another slap and got her wrist intercepted. The back of Sheck's other hand struck her across the mouth with a sound like a leather belt snapping.
Miranda stood frozen, staring at Sheckly's fingers around Allison's wrist. I had no luck trying to get off the floor.
Sheck was raising his hand to strike again when Brent Daniels stepped into the doorway and cocked the hammer of his shotgun.
Brent didn't need to say anything. Sheck knew the sound of a doubleaughtsix just fine. Sheck's hand froze next to his shoulder, like he was saying the Pledge of Allegiance. He turned around.
When he saw it was only Brent he tried to reconstruct his smile. A little bead of blood dripped off his chin.
"Aw, Christ, son, put that damn thing down. You know I ain't—"
"You step away," Brent insisted.
Brent's voice was even and deadly serious. His eyes were still bloodshot but there was no alcoholic glaze to them. No hesitation and no uneasiness. Brent's eyes were alert and dangerous and I couldn't quite remember why I'd ever thought of him as dimwitted.