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Sherry glares at me through wet eyes. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I turn.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I throw back at her.

“Excuse me?” she asks, sneering at me.

I cross the room. She tries to scramble away, but is ultimately too slow, getting the full force of the hit as my palm catches the side of her face. Her head snaps sideways, then her hand flies to her cheek.

“You fucking—”

“That’s for him.” I slap her again, the other side this time. “And that’s for my boy.”

She backs into the counter, her hip knocking one of the bottles; it rolls, and I catch it before it goes over, set it back without looking at her.

“Are you fucking insane?” she yells.

“Probably.” I look around. “Where is it?”

“What? Where is what?”

“John’s things. Kamden’s things. Documents. Pictures. Whatever you didn’t sell, throw out, drink through, or let one of your boyfriends destroy.”

Her face changes, turning calculating.

She knows who I’m here for now.

“Where’s Kamden?” she asks.

My jaw tightens. I can feel my pulse in my back teeth. “Funny. I bet that’s the first time you’ve even asked that question. I know you didn’t bother going to the police.”

She glares at me. “He ran away. That’s not my problem.”

I scoff. “No, you hoped he ran away.” I smile without humor, without warmth. “He didn’t.”

Something nervous moves behind her eyes. “Did you…?”

She recoils, hitting the cupboard and rattling the glasses inside as I take another step closer.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t deserve answers to.”

She searches my face like she’s pricing me out, and that’s when I see the calculation start again.

Different one this time—fear mixed with something else she can’t quite hide, something that moves across her face like light on water.

Opportunism.

It takes less than thirty seconds. That’s how long people like Sherry need to decide which way the wind blows and stand in it accordingly.

“If you know John, then you know he left me with that kid,” she says, voice hoarse from my hand around her throat earlier. “I did everything by myself. Everything. John got to go play soldier while I got stuck raising his whiny little fa—”

My hand hits the wall beside her head. Drywall dust comes down in a fine white sprinkle onto her shoulder.

“Finish that sentence,” I challenge.

She doesn’t. Her lips press together and stay there, sealed by the dent in the wall an inch from her ear.

I step away before I do something I came here specifically not to do.