Reckoning and Ruin (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

My cousin Billie wasn't convinced that John had fallen upon foul play. “Come on, Tai. Be for real.”

“I am for real!”

It was only the two of us around the kitchen table. Billie had the broad shoulders of my mother's people, but where I was freckled and dirty blond, she was pale-skinned and black-haired. She'd been lean as a whippet last time we'd visited. Now her cheeks bloomed full and rosy, her pregnant belly swollen and round. I'd always seen her in mechanic's coveralls, axle grease under her fingernails. She wore maternity jeans now, and one of her husband's blue work shirts with
Travis
embroidered on the pocket.

“You know John, and you know chances are good he's turned tail because he owed somebody money.”

“John gave Jefferson his Harley. They called it even.”

She waved her hand like she was shooing a fly. “So? The Boone family ain't the only business in town. I bet there's lots of people eager to take out some interest on his hide.”

Billie was my cousin in some manner I didn't understand—my family tree had branches that split and converged in unseemly ways that my mother had erased from the official record. She'd rewritten her life when she married my father, setting her sights on some upwardly mobile future far away from Savannah. My father's first and greatest betrayal, the one she'd never forgiven him for, was taking a professor's job in town instead of moving her to North Carolina, where his people rolled around in tobacco money.

“That's probably true,” I admitted. “But I can't see him leaving Hope behind.”

“She leaves him, he leaves her, you know them two play this game.”

“This time it's not a game. I went to their trailer. I'm telling you, something bad happened there.”

She sighed and stretched her legs out in front of her. She'd offered to put me up for the night, and I'd gratefully accepted. Her house was modest, but it was fresh-paint and sawdust new, a starter home in one of the more affordable Southside subdivisions.

“Did you see Boone?” she said.

“I tried, but the people at Memorial won't even admit he's in the hospital, much less ring me through. And he doesn't carry a cell phone. He's convinced the NSA has them all bugged.”

“Sounds about right.”

I spun my cell phone around on her brand new kitchen table. No word from Trey, not even a text. Of course it was Monday, and he'd had a full day. Still.

“Billie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think people can change? I mean, in real fundamental ways? Or do you think we're stuck being who we've always been?”

“Jesus, girlfriend, what kind of question is that?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Never mind. I've obviously exhausted myself stupid.”

“Then go to bed. That's where I'm headed.” She shoved herself up from the table awkwardly. “The baby's room is made up for you. Don't mess with anything. And no smoking anywhere in the house.”

“I quit, remember?”

“Right. And if you hear footsteps in the hall, don't shoot, it's just me having to pee again. Travis will be in around ten. Don't shoot him either.” She put a hand to the small of her back, regarded me from the doorway. “I'm kidding, you know.”

“I know.”

She nodded. We had years between us, lots of them.

“'Night,” she said.

I watched her waddle her way down the hall, swaying. “'Night.”

***

The baby's room was decorated in ocean colors, blues like deep water, greens like beach glass. A girl, Billie said, although she and Travis were still arguing over what her name would be.

I started to drop my overnight bag at the foot of the twin bed, but the whisper of a rug looked too delicate. Everything in the room smelled like baby powder, like an invisible infant was already swaddled in the vast white pine crib. I felt lumbering, coarse. When my phone vibrated with an incoming text, I snatched it up.

But it wasn't from Trey. It was an unknown number. I thumbed it open even though I already knew what it was going to be.

Sure enough, it was a photograph, this time of a…I peered closer. Was that an oak tree? Hard to tell from the image, though the English ivy wrapped round the trunk was clear. The words, however, were murky and meaningless.

How closely she twineth, how tight she clings.

I shook my head. I never thought I'd regret skipping English class twice in one week.

***

After making sure Billie was in her room, I tiptoed out the back door onto the patio, pulled up one of the plastic chairs, and called Trey. He answered on the first ring.

I tipped my head back and watched the evening clouds scuttle across the sky. “How'd your meeting go today?”

“It was…interesting.”

“And the upshot?”

“Still to be determined. Legal will keep me informed.”

“And you're okay?”

A pause. “I'm okay.”

I told him about visiting Train's shop, checking out the trailer, and filling out a report with the police. I emphasized the part where I kept both gun and cell phone handy at all times, skipped the part about my visit to the prison. He was behaving, and I didn't want him to blow a gasket and come barreling down to Savannah in full guard dog mode.

“What time will you be home tomorrow?” he said.

“Um…about that.”

“Tai—”

“I still have to see Boone. I went out there today, but he's in the hospital again.” I hesitated. “I did talk to Jefferson, though.”

Trey didn't reply, but I felt his hackles rising. He'd decided Boone wasn't a threat, not to me anyway, but he harbored major reservations about Jefferson.

“Stand down, boyfriend. It's not like I went trekking to some Klan outpost in the middle of nowhere. He and his wife and two little girls are staying at the house now.”

“Oh. When did that happen?”

“Probably right after the marina got seized. And I know you don't trust him—I don't either—but I'm reasonably sure he didn't have anything to do with John's disappearance.”

“Why not?”

“Because John gave him his Harley. Wiped the debt clean. I saw the evidence myself.”

Trey didn't interrupt, not even to insert the word “alleged” in there anywhere. I pulled at a tuft of grass, and the crisp green smell hit me with a rush of memory and longing.

“We're still talking foul play, though. If you'd seen that trailer, you'd agree. Plus I suspect Hope is getting some help from somebody on Jasper's side of the fence.”

“What makes you think that?”

I took a deep breath. I had to come clean about this part. “I got another insider tip.”

Trey's voice hardened. “From whom?”

“Probably from the same source who slipped me the photo outside the History Center. Only this time she left it on my front door. Well, sort of. She actually left it at Raymond Junior's, and he brought it over.”

“She? Raymond saw her?”

“No. But it has to be the same person. The handwriting matches and everything.”

Trey digested this piece of news. I could feel his frustration through the line. Every time he thought he had the shop's hatches battened down, some mishap revealed new leaks in his system.

I sifted the grass between my fingers, watched it fall back to the ground. “Also, I got another photo, like, fifteen minutes ago. Not in person, though. On my phone.”

Silence. One of those heavy, edged silences.

“Trey? Are you freaking out?”

“No. What did it say?”

“This is gonna sound ridiculous, but it's a picture of a tree and a snippet of poetry. A live oak, to be specific. And the poem is something about twining and clinging. I've got a text in to Rico to see if he'll translate poet-speak for me.”

“Did you run the geotagging data?”

“The what?”

“Digital images contain data about location. Unless the data profile is deliberately stripped, you can tell where it was taken, when, sometimes even under what conditions and with what kind of camera.”

“How do I do that?”

“Rico can do it quite easily.”

“Of course. I'll ask him.” I dug my toes deeper into the turf. “This is a good thing, right? It means my informant is most likely still in Atlanta. Because this is the first tip that's come by phone and not hand delivery.”

Several seconds passed. “A reasonable assumption, if not certain by any means. Rico's analysis should help in that determination.”

He didn't use the word “stalking,” but I knew he was thinking it. I didn't tell him that was only the half of it. That the more I talked around, the more I understood that something big was winding itself up, getting ready to strike. And whatever it was, it was sneaky and mean and fierce enough to take a chunk out of me.

He stayed quiet. There was expectancy in the silence, and I fought the keen desire to spill the whole of my day, even the prison visit part. He was taking everything more calmly than I'd expected. Maybe Rico was right. Maybe he could maintain that calm better than I'd imagined. I'd opened my mouth, unsure of what might come out, when headlights swung down the driveway, briefly illuminating the backyard. Travis, home from second shift at the docks. Time to get back inside and get ready for the morning.

I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear. “Trey? Are you really okay?”

He didn't answer, and I felt the first prickle of apprehension. He was doing what he always did when an inconvenient truth threatened to fall out of his mouth—clamming up. My imagination provided a suggestive scenario about what that secret might be, and I gritted my teeth. I would kill Gabriella, I would throttle her with my bare hands.

“Whatever it is you're not telling me, spill it.”

A long excruciating pause. “I don't want to talk about it on the phone.”

The night was alive around me—crickets, frogs, nocturnal things. The darkness had texture, like it was woven out of black silk, even in Billie's neighborhood, which had been erected on top of a sinkhole and was surrounded with streetlights and yard lights and porch lights, lights of every kind.

“You really are keeping something from me, aren't you?”

A soft exhale. “Yes.”

“You're not breaking up with me, are you?”

“What?” His voice was tinged with panic. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you're being all weird and evasive.”

“It's something I'd rather discuss in person, that's all.”

“But I don't know when I'll be back.”

He was quiet for almost fifteen seconds, then exhaled. “It will wait. Call me and let me know how your conversation with Boone goes. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And if you need me, for any reason—”

“I'll call you. Without hesitation.”

Another exhale, this one of relief. “Good. Very good.”

Chapter Twenty-six

This time around, the detention center accepted my appointment. The same guard I'd seen the day before told me to cover my cleavage, which meant I had to button the shirt all the way past my larynx, but otherwise I was good to go. One of the benefits of video visitation, I supposed. Jasper and I wouldn't actually be face to face—he'd be on a video monitor, like the world's worst reality television show—which made the security procedures much more streamlined. Easier than flying out of Hartsfield, that was for sure.

I took a seat in the waiting area. People fidgeted in the metal chairs, some in work clothes, some in Sunday dresses. Wives twisted wedding bands, bounced babies.
Visiting
, I thought. What a nice polite word. More like tea cookies and front porches than this place, which was as no-nonsense as the DMV.

At every stage of the process, I felt as if I were going to be shut down and frog-marched back to the parking lot. Which would have been the opposite of useful, but damn, did I want out. I couldn't shake the fear that once I got in that separate room, I wasn't coming back out, and I couldn't decide if it was because I hated places of captivity or hated Jasper.

I needed to have questions ready, I knew this. Goals and objectives. Was he threatening Hope? If so, why was John involved? Had he found a new hate group to take him in? Did he really think he was gonna squeeze several million out of Trey and me or was this part of some larger scheme? And why was he picking fights with skinheads after months of “good” behavior?

I knew Jasper wasn't going to cough up answers, especially not with video cameras running. But I also knew that he was one of the smuggest human beings walking the Lowcountry. If he thought his machinations had me in the corner, he wouldn't be able to resist gloating about it. It would shine on his face like a sheen of sweat.

I twisted in my creaky chair and tugged at my collar. The woman seated down the row from me lowered the fashion magazine she was reading.

“You okay?”

I sent a tight smile her way. “I'm fine. Thank you.”

She looked like Shirley Temple's disreputable older sister, with piercing china-blue eyes and blond bedhead waves. Her skirt was barely long enough to be within the visitation guidelines, and though she exposed not an inch of cleavage, the bright yellow sweater was tight enough to give anybody with half-assed eyesight plenty of ideas about what was going on underneath it.

She leaned closer. “You're here to see Jasper, aren't you?”

I couldn't hide my astonishment. “Well, I…yes.”

“I thought so. They try to keep things like that on the hush-hush, but I heard you say his inmate number.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. It gets ugly here sometimes, girlfriends and wives showing up at the same time. But I know who you are, I've seen your picture.” She tilted her head, assessing. “You're prettier in person.”

I turned in my chair and gave her my full attention. “And you are?”

“Ivy Rae Newberry. Jasper's fiancée.”

She drew out the final word, exaggerating the syllables. Then she held up her left hand and waggled her fingers, showing off a fat hunk of diamond. Nobody at Boone's place had mentioned a fiancée. But then, I was pretty sure that Jefferson had left out a bunch of things and downright lied about a bunch of others.

And then it hit me—Ivy.
How closely she twineth, how tight she clings.
I didn't need Rico's literary analysis to know I'd been warned about this girl, a piece of information I intended to take seriously.

She kicked her foot up and down. “They won't let me see him again, not this week. They said I caused a disruption last time.”

“Oh?”

“I suppose I did. I wore a longer skirt this time, but they still wouldn't let me in.”

She folded her hands in her lap on top of the glossy magazine, but the restlessness remained. Jonesing for her phone, I suspected, for the need to check in, text back, look up. Any second she'd start biting her nails in withdrawal.

She adjusted the strap on her shoe. “His lawyer told me to keep a tight lip. He said that I was to treat everyone who worked here as an informant. Is that why you're here? You looking to inform?”

“I'm looking to set some things straight.”

“Oh. Right.” She nodded sagely. “He told me about the civil suit. Between you and me, though, I don't think he means to follow through. He's had a hard life, and now he's trying to hurt others as he himself has been hurt.”

I wanted to shake her. I wanted to tell her, in clear lurid terms, what her fiancé had tried to do to me, had ordered done to Trey, how he'd tried to kill his own father and brother. I wanted to rewind my memories and open up my brain and show her the Jasper I knew, the one with the gun in his hand, soaking wet and burning with psychotic rage. Jasper red in tooth and claw.

I kept my voice neutral, however. “How exactly did you meet Jasper?”

“He answered my Friends Behind Bars ad. We hit it off right away, but we didn't stay friends for long.” Her foot kept bobbing. “Does his lawyer know you're here?”

“I have no idea.”

Ivy looked over my shoulder into the visitation room and smiled. “He knows now.”

I turned. Two people were returning into the waiting area from a far corner cubicle in the visitation room. The man was medium height, medium build, medium coloring, as utterly mid-spectrum an individual as I'd ever seen. Tan suit, ivory shirt, ecru tie, all of it high quality but rumpled. His mouse-brown hair dipped over a pale forehead, almost obscuring his eyes.

The woman at his side matched him in tone. Her slacks and shirt were immaculately pressed, however, and precisely fitted. I'd learned to recognize the hang of properly tailored clothes, and the sharp creases and break of the cuffs revealed the care in hers, especially when contrasted with the lawyer's too-long jacket and wrinkled shirt.

He stuck his hand out when he saw me. “Well, hello there, Ms. Randolph! When my client told me you were on his visitor list, I didn't quite believe him. Ainsworth Lovett, pleased to meet you.”

I took his hand. He had soft skin and a firm get-down-to-business grip. The woman slipped the notebook she held into a messenger bag. She didn't extend her hand.

Lovett flipped his hand in her direction. “My investigator, Finn Hudson.”

I did a double-take. This was no paunchy middle-aged former G-man. This was an athletic young woman with a peaches-and-cream complexion and spiky terrier hair, her slanting eyes bird-of-prey sharp. I saw humor simmering in her expression, and I knew she knew why I was staring slack-jawed at her.

Lovett's manner was disarming. “I cautioned Jasper this was a bad idea.”

Ivy Rae piped up. “I did too.”

He acknowledged her with a papery, all-purpose smile. “And yet he insisted.” The smile flickered my way. “What's my fine opponent up to, Ms. Randolph?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Madam Olethea. I cannot imagine the circumstance that would have anyone at the prosecutor's office allowing you within fifty feet of my client. But I'm sure there is one. I'm sure it's positively devious.”

I folded my arms. “You're the one defending the cold-blooded, racist, murdering—”

“Alleged.”

“—lying sack of deviousness that is Jasper Boone.”

He wagged a finger at me. “Tut tut, Ms. Randolph. I shouldn't have to remind you that it's people like my client who need the most protection under the law. The court of public opinion would have him swinging in one of those beautiful squares this very afternoon, not because there's any proof he's guilty of his charges, but because he reminds them of every awful thing about humanity that they want to erase. So erase him they would.”

“I'm supposed to believe you're in this for truth and justice?”

“I am.”

“Then why aren't you doing it pro bono instead of helping Jasper sue me for millions in civil court?”

He sighed extravagantly. “You're speaking of the civil matter, of course. That was Jasper's idea, not mine. I assured him we were working on a contingency basis, that I'd taken him as a client on principal, not for financial gain.”

“I don't believe that for one second.”

“That is certainly your right. But it changes nothing.”

The guard behind the deck stood up. “T. Randolph!”

“I'm coming, I'm coming!” I shook my head at the lawyer. “Look, you can throw your ideals and your money into the toilet if you want, but I don't want to see any more letters from you or your investigator. I am declining to be interviewed, as is Trey, as is Phoenix, as is Detective Garrity, as is everyone. Don't contact any of us anymore.”

“Don't worry, those letters were a courtesy which will not be coming your way again. And I'll be counseling my client to have no further contact with you, counseling him firmly. Oh, and one more thing.” He stepped closer, dropped his voice, and his eyes went hard as marbles. “If I get even a whiff of your trying to bribe anyone here at this facility into delivering false medical statements, my next call won't be to the prosecutor, it will be to the authorities. That's a federal crime, Ms. Randolph.”

I was so mad I could spit. “I'll have you know—”

“T. Randolph, last call!”

I turned my back on Lovett and headed toward the metal detector. He was already walking out the door, but I felt the eyes of his investigator on me. Had she spotted me during my conversation with Shane yesterday and ratted me out to Lovett? Or had Shane been talking to them as well, throwing fuel on the rumor fire? Had he hinted to them as strongly as he had to me that his testimony was for sale?

Ivy joined the two of them, chattering like a blue jay, as they filed out the front door. And it wasn't until that second, until I saw Finn Hudson from the back, her boy-short hair catching in the sunlight, that I recognized her.

She was the woman in the photo with Hope.