White Space Season 1

appeared behind them, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and her face fresher, like she’d splashed some water on it.
    “I need to get out of the house for a bit. Would you mind looking after Aubrey?”
    “Sure, no problem,” Alex said, standing from the couch and following his mother to the door.
    Katie followed. “How about I make you two dinner when you come back, Mrs. Heller?”
    Alex’s mom smiled, though there was something off about her smile that sent a creeping concern through Alex. She looked somewhere between the borders of anger, and something else Alex couldn’t quite place.
    “Is everything okay?” Alex asked.
    “Yeah, I just need to take a drive and calm my nerves.”
    She kissed Alex on the cheek, said goodbye, and left in a big enough rush that she forgot to kiss Aubrey goodbye.
    Aubrey, seeing her mom race out the front door, started crying.
    Alex ran to his sister, picked her up from the playpen, then went outside to try to catch up with his mom before she left. He was too late. His mom’s car was already halfway down the street, as Aubrey wailed for her mommy.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 5 — Cassidy Hughes

    Hamilton Island, Washington
    Thursday
    September 7
    Morning…

    Cassidy sat alone in Chief Brady’s office, hating the fucker for leaving her alone when she needed help the most. It was like he was doing it just to make her sweat.
    Not like that had never happened before. Asshole cops were always the same. At least every other time she’d been made to beg for water or sit for far too long under harsh fluorescents. Today, she had walked in voluntarily, though. This was bullshit.
    Cassidy hadn’t done anything wrong. She needed help and they were making her feel like a criminal. Like always. Fucking Brady. At least he was better than the former chief, Walter GODDAMN Benson, who had made her life miserable for nearly 10 years before Brady finally took over.
    Cassidy tried to count the number of times Chief Benson had dragged her ass into the station, both legitimate and horse shit, but was embarrassed to realize she had no idea. Might’ve been 15, but it could have easily been 30. There was a stretch, about nine years back, not too long after her short stint at Promises Kept Rehabilitation Center, when it seemed like Cassidy was getting dragged down to the station every other week.
    She stared out the window at the nasty gloom hovering over the island, wondering why in the hell she had ever returned. The island was miserable, always had been. Hamilton Island wasn’t just filled with the haves and have-nots, it was haves and never gonna gets, no matter what.
    She wished she’d stayed in Seattle after she got out of rehab. She’d even been offered a catering gig that would’ve paid the bills. Of course, she had come back to the island for Sarah. Then stayed for Emma.
    Cassidy sucked on her tongue, trying not to cry, knowing she’d be pissed enough to punch walls if Brady came in the room to see her red-faced and swollen.
    She sniffed in the air and swallowed hard, again thinking that at least it wasn’t Benson. Most of the island had hated the previous chief, but that was only because he was a hard-ass. Unfair to Cassidy or not, hauling her in was a part of his job. She was a junkie and he knew it. Junkies did whatever they needed to do to find their next fix, and weren’t exactly model citizens. That was bad enough on the mainland, but it was a fucking cancer on an island, and Cassidy was always smart enough to get it, even if she wasn’t smart enough to steer herself from the wrong side of the road.
    Brady was a kiss-ass, though, which was exactly why most of the island loved him. It was easy enough for Benson to get replaced when the new chief had the Conway’s shit on his nose. Brady had always been soft on the Conways, and had even been a part of Jon’s merry crew of dick heads ever since seventh grade or so. An old memory wrinkled the corner of Cassidy’s mouth – Brady and Jon getting caught making fruit bombs in 7th grade, maybe eighth. Jon got off with a slap. Brady swallowed a three-day suspension.
    Cassidy hadn’t been to the police station a single time since she’d gotten sober again, and it was an Eiffel fucking Tower of irony she’d be in again just one day after she fell off the wagon. All Cassidy wanted was to help Emma, but part of her thought, or feared, the exchange would turn into a sour lesson on recent island history. After all, she had a missing