Chapter 5

Born and raised right across the river, from a main street in Minneapolis, Derrick probably would have been able to find his way at least to the highway. Once he was on track to St. Paul, the drive to his mom’s house was more about muscle memory than about paying any kind of attention. But he was wholly unfamiliar with Chuck’s rundown, outskirt neighborhood, and Lee really had given terrible directions—he’d made so many U-turns and gone around Louise Burrell’s block so many times he didn’t know if he was ten miles from the highway or ten feet, and so the Twin Cities native found himself entering the address of the house he grew up in into his phone’s map app. He knew his brothers would rain merciless mocking down on him if he copped to being lost this close to home, so the text message he sent to his brother Chad was short and sweet: Dropping off a friend. Almost there.

His phone chirped back almost immediately. Hurry up. Chad advised. I want eggnog.