Triptych2

  She lifted the cup again and he stopped her. "You're going to get sick." He was actually thinking that even if she puked, he would still kiss her.

  "Are you stoned?"

  "No," he lied. He was so nervous he would have smoked a goat's ass if he thought it'd help calm him down.

  She took another swallow and he didn't try to stop her. "I want to get stoned."

  He would have been less shocked if she'd said she wanted to fly to the moon. "Mary Alice, come on. Take it easy on that stuff. You don't want to make yourself sick."

  "It's good enough for you," she said, draining the cup. She turned it upside down to show him it was empty. "I want another one."

  "Let's just stay out here for a while."

  "Why?" she asked. She was swaying a little and he reached out to steady her. "I thought you hated me."

  He could smell her perfume and the hairspray in her hair. Her skin felt hot under his hand. He could hold her, just pull her into his arms and hold her all night. "I don't hate you."

  "You say nasty things to me all the time."

  "I don't," he said with such conviction that he almost believed himself.

  She pulled away from him. "My parents think I'm at home."

  "Mine, too."

  "Did you get suspended from school?" No.

  "They should suspend you," she said. "My dad says you're a total loser.

  "Yeah," he said, wishing she hadn't finished the drink. "My dad, too."

  She said, "He moved out of the house tonight."

  "Your dad?"

  "He just packed his bags and left while I was at the mall. My mom said he was moving in with that woman from work." She hiccupped softly. "She wouldn't stop crying."

  Mary Alice was crying, too, but he was still at a loss as to how to comfort her. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry."

  "I called him at the number he left," she told John. "Some girl answered."

  John's tongue wouldn't move in his mouth. What should he say?

  "He said he'd see me on the weekends. He says Mindy will take me shopping."

  John repeated, "I'm sorry."

  "Why do you hang around with that jerk?" Mary Alice asked.

  "Who?" John turned around, following her gaze to Woody. His cousin practically fell off the back stairs as he walked toward them. He laughed at his lack of coordination, so John laughed, too.

  "Wet your whistle," Woody said, handing John another drink.

  John took a sip, trying to pace himself because his head was already swimming.

  "Hey, girlie," Woody said, leaning against John as he stared at Mary Alice. "What took you so long? I was beginning to think my cousin here made you up."

  John started to make introductions, but something stopped him. He didn't like the way Woody was looking at her, the open lust in his eyes. The guy already had Alicia back in the house ready to do whatever he wanted and now he was going after Mary Alice. It wasn't fair.

  "We were just going," John said, taking Mary Alice's hand as if she belonged to him.

  "So soon?" Woody asked, and John realized he was blocking their way. "Come on back inside with your old cousin Wood. I got something for you."

  "I don't think so." John threw the empty cup into the yard. "I should take her home. Her mom will be looking for her."

  "Just a little hit," Woody insisted. "Or another, I guess I should say." He winked at Mary Alice. "Think you can handle a drink, sweetheart? Might help dry those pretty blue eyes of yours."

  Mary Alice looked odd. She was smiling, almost flirting. "I wasn't crying."

  "Sure, babydoll."

  "Woody," John began, but Woody put his hand over John's mouth to stop him, telling Mary Alice, "This one likes to talk too much."

  She laughed, and John felt his anger spark up. She was laughing with Woody. She was laughing at him.

  Woody asked, "You think you can handle a little drink, little girl?"

  Her lips went into this sexy kind of half-smile. "I can handle it."

  "Mary Alice," John said.

  Woody had taken away his hand and wrapped his arm around Mary Alice's shoulders. He licked his lips as he looked down her shirt, telling John, "Shut up, Cousin."

  Mary Alice laughed. "Yeah, John, shut up."

  Woody pulled her closer in and she tilted up her head. He kept his eyes locked on John's as he pressed his open mouth to Mary Alice's.

  She started to kiss him back and John felt like somebody had ripped his heart out of his chest. He stood helpless as Woody's hand went down Mary Alice's blouse, cupped her breast like groping her was something he did every day. His mouth got wider against Mary Alices and she jerked away, coming to her senses a second later than she should have.

  She yelled, "Stop it!" as she tumbled toward John.

  John caught her, holding her up. The button had ripped off her shirt where Woody's hand had reached inside.

  "You're disgusting," she told Woody, clasping the blouse closed, tears springing into her eyes.

  Woody was smiling. "Come on, baby. Don't be like that."

  "I can't believe you," she cried. "Your tongue is disgusting."

  His smile became more sinister. "Watch it now."

  She curled in closer to John, crying, "Please, take me home."

  John started to lead her away, his eyes on Woody, not liking the way his cousin was staring at them.

  "Get back here," Woody ordered, reaching out for her again.

  "Leave her alone!" John yelled, fists clenched. Woody had about a hundred pounds on him but John firmly believed he could and would kick his ass if he so much as touched another hair on Mary Alice’s head.

  "Whoa." Woody held up his hands, taking a step back. "Didn't know you'd already claimed her, little man. Go on. Take her home to her mommy."

  "Stay away from her," John warned. "I mean it."

  "No hard feelings," Woody said, but he was still leering at Mary Alice like a lion who had been denied its prey. "Best man wins."

  "Damn straight."

  "Here," Woody said, digging into his front pocket. "Parting gift." He tossed a bag of powder to John. "No hard feelings, right, Cousin?"

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  FEBRUARY 6, 2006

  John had found out about the news story by accident. He had been vacu-U uming out the cargo space of a mud-splattered Subaru Forrester. He picked up a stack of newspapers to throw in the trash and the whole pile fell from his hand like playing cards scattered on a table. He bent down to gather up the pages and saw two words he had never noticed before: Local Edition.

  The Subarus owner was from Clayton County, but John knew if there was a special insert for one town, there had to be one for the others.

  He had told Art he was having stomach problems so he could leave work early and headed straight downtown to the main branch of the Fulton County Public Library. The newspaper's online archive required a credit card for access, so instead he requested microfiche of the Gwinnett County local editions going back the last three months. Two hours later, he'd found what he was looking for. The story was dated December 4, 2005.

  SNELLVILLE GIRL ABDUCTED FROM LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD.

  There weren't many details. No name was mentioned, just the age— fourteen—and that she had been walking from her home to visit an aunt down the street. Obviously, the family wasn't talking to the press and there was no mention of suspects or leads the police were following. John scanned the next few weeks and found only one more story. This one added the detail that the girl had been found hiding in a ditch the next day.

  John's heart had been in his throat from the moment he'd found the article. Slowly, he put the pieces of the puzzle together. Ben's game of what-if kept coming back to mind. What if Woody had been using John's identity to cover his tracks for the last six years? What if Woody had assumed John would never get out of prison? What if Woody found out John was walking among the free and had decided to do something about it?

  The car behind beeped its horn and John sped up,
taking the first side street he came to and pulling up behind a parked cable truck. His heart was pounding so hard that he felt dizzy. Vomit swirled in the back of his throat, threatening to come up in a hot rush of panic and fear.

  He put his head on the steering wheel, playing out the night before. Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday. The fucking Falcons were playing that night and John didn't want to watch it on TV, didn't want to hear the game on the radio. He wanted to see what Woody was doing, wanted to watch him like he could stop what had happened from happening again. And again.

  The wife had gone to work and Woody had waited thirty minutes before heading out. He had taken his usual route into Atlanta, but this time he'd turned into Grady Homes. John had followed him, so tense he'd forgotten to keep back, a couple of times thinking for sure Woody had seen him, that he'd been caught.

  A white guy driving a dark blue Ford Fairlane through the projects on a late Sunday afternoon was too conspicuous, but John had followed him in anyway. When Woody had stopped in front of a row of hookers, John had driven past him, thinking he'd be better served keeping an eye on his cousin in the rearview mirror. Nothing ever worked out as planned, though, and when Woody drove with the hooker to the back of the complex, John got out of his car and followed on foot.

  Now, John broke into a cold sweat when he thought about what had happened next, what he had seen. He could still hear it, those piercing screams, the primal fight for life.

  John got out of the car, nodding to the guy in the cable truck. Casual. Cool. He belonged here.

  He tucked his hands into his pockets as he walked down Woody's tree-lined street, trying to convey the image that he was just a normal guy going for a stroll, even though having his hands in his pockets made him uncomfortable; they didn't allow pockets in prison.

  The woman John guessed was the grandmother took the kid to school Monday mornings. She did some shopping after, sometimes had coffee with her friends. She stayed out of the house for at least an hour and that was all John needed.

  He took the same route behind the houses, head up, whistling like he didn't have a care in the world. He trudged through the backyards, keeping a careful eye on the houses, figuring that in a working-class neighborhood like this most people were either at work or too busy to look out their back windows.

  The chain-link fence was still broken. John hopped over it, heading straight for the back door as he slipped on a pair of latex gloves he had stolen from the guys in the detail shop. Woody didn't have a dog, but there was a dog door cut into the bottom panel of the back door. John was too big to fit through, but he reached his arm in, feeling blindly for the lock. His fingers grazed the knob and he twisted the catch.

  He stood back up, looking around to make sure he wasn't being watched, then opened the door. John tensed as he waited for an alarm to go off. He wasn't an experienced burglar, but he assumed Woody was too arrogant to spend money on an alarm system.

  He was a cop, for Chrissakes.

  John bypassed the kitchen and went straight to the family room. He went to the desk in the corner, ignoring the big-screen TV, the digital equipment lying around the house that screamed out that Woody made a good living, that he could afford to buy an expensive pair of shoes or a nice meal whenever he wanted. Hell, he could afford a lot of things, couldn't he? Two identities, to begin with. What else was he up to?

  Woody was too smart to leave anything incriminating in the obvious places. His checkbook with the joint account he shared with his wife was right out in the open, their bills stacked neatly in an in-tray. They owed a lot, but they made what to John seemed like a fortune. Thousands of dollars a month in and out, a brand-new car for the wife, expensive school for the kid. It was almost too much to grasp.

  In the garage, there was every tool you could imagine, though from what John had observed, Woody spent most of his time holding down the couch. There was a kid who came sometimes to mow the yard, so why Woody needed an enormous riding lawn mower with a freaking cup holder was a mystery. What angered John the most was the pool table in the middle of the garage. The thought of Woody out here with his kid, maybe some neighbors or the guys from work, drinking beers and playing pool made John more livid than anything else he had found.

  John went through the drawers of the workbench, careful not to move anything out of place. He found a stack of porn mags under the tray in the toolbox, all the headlines promising "barely legal action" and "cum shots galore." He flipped through the pages one by one, looking for clues, trying not to stare at the young girls—children, some of them—spread out for the world to see. Maybe something inside of John had been turned off in prison, but all he could think about when he saw their soulless gazes was Joyce, and how insecure and vulnerable she had been at that age. He put the magazines back under the tray, wishing he hadn't seen them.

  Woody's bedroom was next, a huge master suite with a king-sized bed where the fucker probably made love to his wife every night. The bathroom was enormous, bigger than John's room back at the hovel. Even the kid's room was large, a racecar for a bed, toys spilling out of the chest under the window. John felt odd being in the kid's room. The little bed would be changed for a big one soon. The kid would start growing up, wanting his privacy more. He'd go to school, meet a girl, take her to the prom. It was just too depressing to be in there, so John backed into the hall again.

  He returned to the master bedroom, certain he had missed something. He tried to think like his parole officer, Ms. Lam, looking for contraband. He checked under the mattress, felt the pillows for hard lumps. He went through the shoes in the closet and the shirts in the drawer.

  Shirts. All designer labels. Soft cottons, some silk. Woody's underwear was Calvin Klein, his pajamas Nautica.

  "Christ," John whispered, so caught up in hating Woody that he couldn't breathe. "Think," he said, like that would make it happen. "Think."

  Two bottles of men's cologne were on the dresser. John wasn't interested in the brands, but what had been placed in front of them. A large folding knife. Woody had carried this same knife when they were teenagers. He said it was because he dealt with some badass motherfuckers in his drug dealings, and John had believed him, imagining tense standoffs and risky drug deals as his cousin brandished the sharp, serrated blade.

  Woody carried a knife. How had he forgotten that?

  "Who are you?"

  John spun around, shocked to see the next-door neighbor standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She was wearing a silky white nightgown with a robe. The outfit hung from her child's body like a wet sack on a pitchfork. Her voice was a little girl's, high-pitched, almost squeaky.

  "What are you doing here?" she demanded, but he could tell she was scared.

  "I might ask you the same thing," he said, palming the knife, trying to call up the authoritative tone adults used when they spoke to kids.

  "This isn't your house."

  "It's not yours, either," John pointed out. "You live next door."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Woody told me."

  She glanced down at his hands, the latex gloves, the knife. "Who's Woody?"

  The question tripped him up, and she must have sensed his hesitation, because she bolted down the hall.

  "Hey!" John called, chasing after her through the living room, the kitchen. "Hold up," he yelled, but she had already flown through the open door and into the yard.

  She chanced a look over her shoulder as she made for the fence. He remembered that he still had Woody's knife in his hand, realized how that must look to her, and stopped. She hesitated again, but her body was still moving. Moving forward.

  He watched her fall in slow motion, her bare foot catching on the broken fence, her head slamming into the ground. John waited. She didn't get up. He waited some more. She still did not move.

  Slowly, he stepped into the backyard, the grass soft under his feet. He remembered how it had felt when he got out of Coastal to walk on grass for the first time in twenty years. His feet w
ere used to solid concrete or red Georgia clay packed hard as brick from thousands of men pacing it every day. The grass in the cemetery had felt so soft, like he was stepping on clouds as he followed his mother's coffin toward her grave.

  Twenty years and he had forgotten what grass felt like. Twenty years of loneliness, of isolation. Twenty years of Emily suffering the bimonthly degradation of visiting her son. Twenty years of Joyce being eaten up inside by the knowledge of what kind of monster her brother was.

  Twenty years of "Woody living on the outside, getting a good job, marrying, having a kid, making a life.