Jake Randolph in "The Naked Beat" Pt. 21

I knew the story well: she'd fallen in with the wrong crowd at school; her grades began slipping; she started being defiant; staying out past her curfew, sometimes not coming home until morning. Then one morning she didn't come home at all.

The man broke down sobbing when he got to the part about her not coming home at all. I really felt bad for him. I reached down under the bar and got a glass of bourbon that I keep there as a deterrent for me wanting to blow my brains out some nights.

He drank it down quickly...