“Something tells me Brenda wouldn’t mind.”
Is she flirting? The rain falls faster now, and I put up a hand as cover. Evie opens her umbrella and holds it high, inviting me underneath, but I shake my head at her. “Brenda might not, but you will…mind. Trust me, you don’t want to get too close.”
“At least let me give you a ride back. You’ll get soaked.”
“It’s probably for the best.” But I’m dreading the walk. The cold that will seep straight through my bones, soggy clothes clinging to me like a second skin. My feet sloshing around in my brand-new work boots, a welcome gift from Mr. Vinetti. And worst of all, knowing I passed up a ride from Evie. Because I’m too chicken to be completely alone with a woman.
“C’mon. It’s really coming down now.” She’s right. And the wind is picking up too, mercilessly splattering drops against my pant legs.
“If you insist.”
I run for the passenger side. It’s warm and dry and still inside, and I sit there, dripping like a drowned rat. Evie reaches for the door, but I can barely see her through the foggy window. Only the shock of her blood-red umbrella, eerie against the dark sky, like a child’s balloon floating through a graveyard. The rain beats against the roof—hard and hostile—like the beanbag rounds the CO gunners fire in a riot. The rat-tat-tat insistent as the pattering of my heart. It’s doing its usual thing—straight up panic.
I’m in Evie’s car.
What am I doing here?
What did Sebastian tell her?
I feel trapped. By the weight of my lies. My guilt. My shame. It’s a goddamn elephant sitting on my chest. And I think of making a break for it until Evie gasps, sharp and sudden. The thwack of her palm against the glass sends a shot right up my spine.
“Oh my God. It’s him.” Her words—the fear in them—is unmistakable, even muffled by the rain and the window between us. “It’s Danny.”
I open the door into the pouring rain and follow her shaky hand to a truck idling in the corner of the lot. Not the black jeep Danny tore out in like a bat out of hell. Its lights come on, and I squint into the brightness trying to make out a face. But it’s all blur and shadow.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
As she nods her head at me, the truck’s wipers start to swish against the rain, building to a frenzied beating. I wonder if she’s seeing things, getting paranoid the way I did in the joint. Because seeing J-Cat Jimmy go over the rails with a splat was just the beginning.
“Okay. Get in the car. I’ll check it out.”
I wait until she’s tucked inside, safe with her red umbrella, before I slog toward the truck, fully expecting to find a hipster early for his acupuncture appointment. But I don’t get more than a few steps before the engine revs and it rolls out of the lot, sending a spray of water into the air.
“He’s gone,” I tell Evie, hurrying back inside the car, wet and breathless. Her wide eyes find mine. There’s worry there but something else too. Determination. And I can guess at what she’s thinking. “Should we follow him?”
She answers with a turn of the ignition, a jerk of the gearshift. And I remember something I read once. Locked in Folsom with a thousand of my own kind, it always rang true. Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Evie
January 17, 2017
Tuesday
“He took a right out of the lot. That way.” Butch’s voice comes out flat and steady—calmer than mine—but he fastens his seat belt and grips tight to the door.
I smash the accelerator, jolting us forward, and my stomach nose-dives. Half of me thinks I’ve lost my mind. That I’d dreamed the shadowy face in the truck’s rain-streaked window. That I’d imagined the familiar feeling of dread cold as a blade to my throat. It isn’t Danny. It couldn’t be. But the other half is amped up on fear and adrenaline, running with laser focus toward the truck’s rear lights. They stare back, taunting us, like the eyes of a demon.
The hanging tree’s more fun if you’re drunk. The words come from the past, from the tree itself, taunting me as I leave it in my rearview, where the smaller branches look like kite tails whipping about in the wind. I wonder how many will be strewn about by morning. Sometimes, I imagine the whole trunk uprooted—lying on its side like a beached whale. Dead. I’d like to take an axe to it. Chop it into blocks and send it through the mulcher. But it wouldn’t bring me peace.
Up ahead, the truck makes a right and coasts down the hill toward five o’clock traffic, and I follow.
“I forgot to charge it last night,” Butch says, frowning at his phone. “But we should probably call the police.”
I nod at him, wondering when an ex-con became more sensible than me. Probably when you started hitchhiking, Evie. But really, who can trace the crooked path back to the beginning, to that first flawed decision? Long before I’d snuck out to meet Cassie, I’d sealed our fates, paved our road with bad intentions. I’d lived up to my nickname. Evil Evie.
This road is just as treacherous, I remind myself. I have to stay alert. Keeping my eyes fixed on it, I point Butch to my purse at his feet. “Get my phone. It’s in the side pocket.”
He slips it out and stares at it, tinkering and tapping, then banging, before setting it onto his lap with a sigh.
“It’s locked,” I explain. “Let’s be sure it’s him first. The cops already think I’m crazy.” And a liar. “With the hitchhiking and all.”
Butch doesn’t disagree. Or agree, thankfully. He’s too busy rummaging through my bag. When he finally looks up, his mouth turns into a rueful smile. “Do people still use pens? Paper? Or am I a total caveman?”
“Zipper pocket, Mr. Flintstone.” And I let myself smile back at him, feel the muscles in my shoulders unknot. My hands unclench the wheel.
“Watch out!” Butch yells. I slam the brakes as a wet mass of black fur darts across the road and vanishes into a storm drain. I speed up to catch the truck, already two blocks ahead. “Sorry,” he says, head hanging. “You get kind of skittish when you haven’t ridden in a car in twenty-something years.”
I wave off his apology with the truck back in my sight. “Was that a rat?”
“Biggest rat I ever saw outside of Folsom.” He jots the license number onto an old receipt. “I don’t think he’s made us yet. Try to pull up alongside if you can.”
Three blocks down, a stoplight flashes green. To yellow. To red. Casting its colors on the soaked pavement.
The rain hasn’t let up, doesn’t slow down, as the drops pound themselves against my windshield in a sacrificial fury. My wipers are working double time, pushing sheets of water so fast, too fast to get a clear view of the truck or the driver. I zero in on his lights and floor it, moving past him and into the left-hand turn lane at the last second.
Now that he’s so close—a head’s turn away—I have to force myself to look. Beyond Butch, with his tousled hair still dripping in rivulets down the back of his neck. Beyond my passenger’s window, where he’s wiped away the fog for a clearer view. Beyond the chaos of the rain and the charcoal sky. And when my eyes finally get there—to him—my body knows first. A sickening shiver works its way up my spine.
Danny stares straight ahead, waiting for the light to change. Oblivious it seems. Then he reaches toward the floorboard, searching its innards, and spits into a cup he holds to his lips. My neck prickles.
“Unbelievable,” Butch mutters. “You were right. That’s the guy.” He tosses the phone to me and moves toward the door. “I’m getting out.”
I grab his arm—wait! caught in my throat like a burr—and time does its trick. Slows to a creep. To a crawl. To a stop. And Danny’s eyes, cold as a dead fire, meet mine through the streaked window. A sound comes out of me, somewhere between a yelp and a scream, and the spell shatters. The world spins ahead. Flying. At breakneck
speed.
Danny zooms straight through the intersection—red light be damned—swerving left, then right, dodging a taxi and a minivan. I grit my teeth at the high-pitched screams of brakes screeching against the pavement. The grate of metal on metal.
One crash, then another. Somehow, Danny slips through unscathed.
And I’m frozen in my seat, helpless and staggered.
The stoplight turns an urgent green. Go! But there’s nowhere to go and nothing moves. Except Danny—he takes a hard right at the next block and disappears—and the rain. Slowing as suddenly as it started, it matches the beat of my heart.
I wait for Butch to speak. The silence between us becomes uncomfortable, thick and heavy as a wet blanket. I cast it off as if my life depends on it. “Are you okay?”
Butch expels a breath that it sounds like he’s been holding. And I realize I’m still latched to his arm. As if my hand had a mind of its own, wrapping tight to him, clinging like a dismembered claw.
“Holy shit,” he says, finally. Returning from wherever he was. A million miles from here. “How the hell did that guy find you?”
I release my grip, avoiding his eyes, and return the offending hand back to its place on the wheel. “My license. Remember?”
“Oh yeah. I forgot. He took it, but…” His voice trails, and his gaze follows. Out the window to the stoplight. To the aftermath of Danny, where a small crowd has gathered. “How did he find your office?”
“Google, I guess. He must’ve looked me up.” Like Violet.
“Why?”
To finish what he started. I can’t say it out loud, so the question settles between us, unanswered, until I shrug.
“You should go,” I say. “The cops will be here any minute, and it’ll just be a hassle for you. Again.”
“No way. I can’t leave you here alone. This is my fault anyway.” He lowers his head like he really means it.
“Your fault?”
“I told you to pull alongside him, didn’t I? I spooked him. And I—”
“Seriously, Calder. This whole thing was my idea. And a stupid one at that. I should’ve just taken you home and called the police. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. But I’ll be okay. I don’t have a parole agent to answer to. Just my former mother-in-law and an old tomcat.”
There’s a laugh, but I have to strain to hear it. It’s more of a snuffle. “Alright. You win.”
“Good,” I tell him, passing him my umbrella and forcing the most reassuring smile I’ve got. “You might need this.” He opens the door and climbs out, pausing to look at me just before he shuts it. If eyes are a window, Butch’s are shuddered tight. “And, Calder…thank you.”
The shutters fly open. The windows crack. “Stop saying that. Stop thanking me.”
“Uh—”
“I mean, I haven’t done anything worthy of thanks. That’s all.”
“Okay. I’ll never thank you again.” I mean it as a joke, but it’s serious business to him. I can tell in the set of his jaw. His teeth are clenched. “I promise I’ll fill you in tomorrow morning. 7:30. Does Brenda do breakfast?”
“It’s her specialty.” Finally, he grins, and his face softens. But his fists stay balled up tight even when he answers. “As long as you don’t mind your coffee with a side of arsenic.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Butch
January 17, 2017
Tuesday
I fling open the door to my room at the halfway house and charge in like a bat out of hell. “Get out.”
There are things you learn in prison, things you can’t learn anywhere else. When to take a man seriously. To follow orders even when you don’t want to. Even when you don’t understand. Even when you’re a smart-ass like Sebastian. He leaves without a word, shutting the door softly behind him.
I toss Evie’s red umbrella on the bed, cursing myself. Real gentlemanly, Butch. Take the girl’s umbrella and leave her there. But I’d had to get out. I was losing it. She’d been so shaken herself—grabbing onto me like that. So I hoped like hell she hadn’t noticed.
I pull out the bottom dresser drawer. Reach in the back under a stack of clean boxers and find the plastic bag they’d given me when I’d left Folsom State Prison nearly five months ago. In it, the relics of a lost civilization. The personal property I’d had on me the night I’d been arrested. The night I killed Gwen. It’s not much, but it seems precious. Like a touchstone or a talisman. And I need to see it. Now.
I open the bag and lay out the contents on my bed.
One Zippo lighter. Black. I flick the wheel a few times until the flame comes to life. Twenty-three years later, the damn thing still works.
One leather wallet. Five pennies and a condom inside.
And a blue box the color of a robin’s egg. I remove the lid and drop the necklace in my palm, the sterling chain so delicate I could snap it without even trying. That chain had been meant for Gwen. For the neck I’d squeezed the life from with my own hands. I curl my fingers around the tiny music note and collapse on the bed, my wet clothes dampening the sheets.
It takes me a minute before the tears come. Hot and heavy and aching in my chest. Like I’d been storing them up for twenty-three years. Which isn’t far from the truth. You can’t cry in prison. Scratch that. There’s a time and a place for tears. Take the parole board, for example. They expect you to cry on cue. No matter how many goddamned times you’ve said sorry, it can’t sound rehearsed. And a dry eye won’t help you plead your case. But real tears? Those will get you killed. You show the soft spots, the mushy underbelly, and somebody’s bound to stick a shiv in it.
I give myself five minutes. Then I wipe my face on my shirtsleeve and sit up. Think it through. Don’t judge your feelings. Understand them. These are the kinds of things they teach men in prison. And I’d programmed with the best of them. So I use my deep breathing and my positive self-talk—and replay the drive with Evie to find the exact moment when I’d lost it. When I’d checked out completely.
Danny exploding off the line when the light turned, like a maniacal drag racer. That was it. And hearing the crunch of metal he’d left in his wake. It had brought me right back there. All the way back. To that last week with Gwen. And the lying. Jesus. I was lying again. Too much and too easily. Because Evie didn’t know I’d had the license the whole time—well, at least until my weaselly roommate snatched it. Which meant Danny had found her on his own. Or worse, he’d known her all along.
My body feels heavy. Too exhausted for a shower. So I gather the remnants of Young Butch, return them to the drawer, and slip into my pajamas. I am officially a forty-one-year-old grandpa, getting ready for bed at 7:30. But that’s what happens when you work eight hours, tail a psychopath, and dive head first into a flashback. All while you’re riding shotgun with—and completely deceiving—the only person in the world who seems to give a damn about you. Being a free man is exhausting.
I lay back against the pillow, anticipating Sebastian. Because I’m getting that license back tonight. Whatever it takes. I let my eyes close—just for a minute—and I’m eighteen again.
I know it by the way she looks at me like I’m a hot rod racing down the freeway. But everything is different. My hands are life worn, my left thumbnail blue from the strike of a hammer. The neck is lovely, porcelain, but it’s not Gwen’s. And yet, I can’t stop myself from touching it. Soft at first, as tender as making love, but it builds and builds and builds. Because everything is different, but I’m still the same. My thumbs root into the small hollow above her clavicle, and I squeeze.
It could be the sound of my own breathing that wakes me. Because I feel like I’m drowning. Like I’ve been underwater all night. But the clock on my phone says 7:37, and it’s still dark outside. I turn on my side and see it. What woke me. Sebastian’s precious book is lying on the floor beneath his night
stand, duct tape around the edges where he must’ve tried to secure it underneath for safekeeping.
I listen for a beat then scramble to it and waste no time flinging it open. My heart is still thwacking away like it has a life of its own outside of my body, and it wants out. And the photo doesn’t help. It’s dated on the back. June 22, 1991. Our new family. Sebastian, Sasha, Mom, and Dad. There’s a girl in it. A vivacious girl with freckles and shiny auburn hair pinned into a fancy updo. Her eyes look just past the camera, bored. Like she’s got better things to do. There’s a boy too. A young Sebastian, paling next to her with his pimpled skin, wiry glasses, and headgear. A tux hangs loosely on his awkward frame. Damn. Teen Sebastian must’ve had it rough. Behind them, the middle-aged bride and groom. Is this what he’s been looking at?
But not just looking. Because the groom’s face is marked through. Obliterated, more like it. With strokes so intense, the paper is nearly worn away.
I want to be rid of it, so I slip it between the book’s end pages, where the heathen boys are rescued from the island, and turn my attention to the other thing he’s been hiding. This I recognize. Alcoholic that I am. Was. Am. It’s an urge card. Like a to-do list for addicts. Except Sebastian’s is still blank and I’m guessing his habit has nothing to do with booze or pills. And everything to do with sex, in some twisted form, since he’s wearing that GPS bracelet on his ankle.
I flip through the rest of the book, looking for Evie’s license, but no luck.
My ears prick at the sound of anxious voices outside the room, and I hold my breath to listen. “…cops…downstairs…everybody…” Anticipating Sebastian’s return, I drop to my knees to hide the book, pressing the tape against the underside of the nightstand until it holds its secret from prying eyes like mine.
I open the door to find Sebastian standing outside, flush to the wall, his breathing shallow. A backpack rests between his feet. “The cops are here to talk to the house.” He slinks inside and paces, agitated, like a caged animal.
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