He was led back to the hospital by the guard named Everett, whom John hadn’t seen since his first day in lockup.

“Here he is,” Everett told Richard, stepping back against the wall to give the man some space. “You got ten minutes.”

Richard stood at the foot of John’s bed. He just stared, for a long time not saying anything.

John stared back, feeling relieved and ashamed at the same time. He wanted to reach out to his dad, to tell him he loved him and that he was sorry for all he had done and that Richard was right, John was worthless. He didn’t deserve anything his dad could offer but he wanted it, he needed it so bad that his heart felt like it was on fire.

Richard spoke with some effort. “Are you in pain?”

John could only nod.

“Good,” his father said, sounding as if some justice had been done. “Now you know how Mary Alice felt.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OCTOBER 25, 2005

John didn’t want to think about his first night in prison, but it kept coming back to him like a waking nightmare. Someone walked behind him at work and he would flinch. A loud noise from the street sent his heart into his throat. He would bend over to get the sponge out of the bucket, put some shine on the wheels of a truck or a sedan, and it would flood into his brain.

After Zebra had passed him around, John had spent a full month in the hospital wing at Coastal, learning how to shit again. When he got out, he found that he’d been transferred into the protective ward with all the serious sex offenders. Maybe they had thought Ben Carver would have a field day with John, finish the work that Zebra had started, but the older man had taken one look at the scrawny sixteen-year-old boy and said with great disappointment, “A brunette! I asked for a blonde!”

John didn’t know who was responsible for transferring him into protective custody, but even if he did, John wouldn’t know how to thank him. Sometimes he thought it was Everett, the guard, but then sometimes he would be lying in his bunk at night and let his mind play out this fantasy story where it was his dad who had rescued him. Richard stormed into the warden’s office. Richard wrote an angry letter to his state senator. Richard demanded fair treatment for his son.

John laughed at his foolish boyhood dreams as he slid his card into the time clock, waiting for the loud chu-chunk as he signed himself out of the car wash for the day. The weather had been good for several weeks, and holiday shoppers had been out getting their cars washed. John hadn’t had time to go to Ben’s mother’s house and pick up the car until yesterday afternoon. He had been working on his learner’s permit when Mary Alice had died, but that was a long time ago and he had sweated like a whore in church at the prospect of getting behind the wheel. If he got caught in the car, Martha Lam would throw his ass back in jail. Of course, if he didn’t use the car, he might end up back there anyway.

Over the telephone, Ben’s elderly mother had been open and friendly, “pleased to talk to a friend of Ben’s.” When asked, she assured him that the insurance was paid on the car. Mrs. Carver had further explained to John that her Mr. Propson was taking her to a church social over in Warm Springs on Sunday, but could he please remember to return the car with a full tank of gas. John had agreed to everything, but she had kept him on the phone for another fifteen minutes to tell him about her sciatica. Both sets of John’s grandparents had died while he was in prison, none of them ever bothering to visit. He had listened intently to her woes, making the right noises at the right times until the pedophile from across the hallway had glared at him and demanded to use the phone.

John had found the dark blue Ford Fairlane parked in the carport as promised. The key was tucked into the visor along with the title and insurance card. What mattered to John most at that moment was that it cranked on the first try. He put the car in gear and rolled into the street, his foot stuttering between the gas and the brake as he practiced up and down the one-lane road running outside Mrs. Carver’s house. Praise Jesus it wasn’t a manual transmission or he would have left the car where he found it. John had spent most of the afternoon figuring out how to drive the Fairlane and by the time he pulled out onto the two-lane highway his hands were hurting from clutching the wheel.

He could do it, he kept saying, teeth gritted as he drove down I-20 back toward Atlanta. All he needed to do was make sure he looked like he knew what he was doing. Not too slow, not too fast, confidence high, arm out the window. That’s all the cops ever looked for: somebody who looked guilty. Their little cop radar went up and they could feel indecision coming off you like a pulse.

John had told himself that he was getting in some more practice when he got into the Fairlane around midnight last night. He couldn’t fool himself for long when the car ended up parked across the street from the liquor store on Cheshire Bridge Road. He waited for thirty minutes, but Robin obviously wasn’t working. Driving back home, he figured if he’d had a tail it would’ve been hanging between his legs.

Since gas was another luxury he couldn’t afford, John left the car wash on foot, walking up Piedmont, crossing the intersection to Cheshire Bridge. He pretended he was going for a stroll at first, but then decided self-delusion was as stupid as what he had planned for later that night. Ben had finally come through. John had gotten two postcards in the mail this week—the only mail he’d ever gotten at the boardinghouse. The first one was postmarked in Alabama and listed a series of numbers: 185430032. The second card was from Florida and read, On our way to Piney Grove. See you when we get back!!!

John hated puzzles, but he knew enough to go to the library and sit down with the atlas again. After a couple of hours of staring aimlessly out the window, he got it. 30032 was the zip code for Avondale Estates. 1854 Piney Grove Circle bordered Memorial Drive on the edge of Decatur.

“Hey, baby!”

The hookers were out at the liquor store, including the older woman John had rescued at the car wash. He should probably learn her name, but he knew it would only make him sad if he did. Giving her a name meant she had a family somewhere. She had been a kid at some point, gone to school, had hopes and dreams. And now…nothing.

One of the women asked, “You wanna date?”

He shook his head, keeping his distance. “I’m looking for Robin.”

“She’s at the theater,” the hooker said, jerking her chin toward the road. “Star Wars is playing. She figures the last time any’a them guys saw a pussy was when they was being born out of one.”

The girls laughed good-naturedly at the joke.

“Thanks,” John said, tossing them a wave before they could offer him more of their wares.

The theater was a pretty good distance from the liquor store, but John had time. He let himself concentrate on breathing the air, even the exhaust from the cars. You couldn’t do this in prison. You had to find other ways to get lung cancer.

His hamstrings were aching by the time he reached the movie theater. Star Wars. He had seen that when he was a kid, probably six or seven times. Every weekend his mother had driven him and his friends to the theater, dropping them off and coming back a few hours later. This was before the drugs, before John was cool. He had loved that movie, relished the escape.