She left the room and he heard the click of her door, the small crunch of bedsprings. He didn’t know which side of her had finally won, the softness or the strength, but experience told him that she was under the covers, eyes shut tight. Her sudden presence in the door, moments later, took him by surprise. She held out a framed photograph, a color shot from her wedding day. She was twenty, all smiles, and the sun spilled perfect color across her face. Johnny’s dad stood by her side, the same reckless smile bending his features. Johnny remembered the photograph. He thought she’d burned it with the rest. “Take this,” she said.

“I’m coming back.”

“Take it.”

And Johnny did.

Then she hugged him with great tenderness; and when she returned to her room, the door stayed closed.

Johnny stopped behind the screen door, duffel pulling hard on one shoulder. Outside, the leaves twitched in a fitful wind. Hunt stood with his head down, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He peered out from deep-set eyes, staring at the house. He did not see Johnny; his gaze touched first one window, and then another, head unmoving, forehead creased in the center. He shifted when Johnny nudged the door with one foot. “You’re not supposed to be carrying that.” He lifted the bag from Johnny’s shoulder. “You’re going to pull those stitches.”

“They felt okay.” Johnny stepped into the yard and Hunt stopped beside him.

“Before we go.”

“Yeah?”

“When you saw Levi Freemantle…” Hunt hesitated. “Did he have anybody with him?”

Johnny considered the question, looking for danger. He’d refused all of Hunt’s questions, but could not see how this could cause trouble with DSS. He saw the hope on the detective’s face, watched it fade as he shook his head. “Just the trunk.”

Hunt’s eyes were tortured, his voice tight. “Nobody at all?” Hunt could not ask the rest of it: No child? No small girl that could melt a heart?

Johnny shook his head.

Hunt paused, then cleared his throat. “Here.” He held out one of his cards, and Johnny took it. “You can always call me. You don’t even need a reason.” Johnny tilted the card, then tucked it into his back pocket. Hunt looked one last time at the house, then forced a smile. His hand touched Johnny’s shoulder. “Be good,” he said, and tossed Johnny’s bag into the back of the van.

Johnny watched Hunt’s car ease into the road, then turn. The van door squealed when he opened it. He climbed in, Steve’s lips twisted in forced cheer. “Guess it’s just us.”

“This is bullshit,” Johnny said.

Steve’s smile fell away. He started the car, and pulled out of the drive. He licked his lips, cut his eyes right. “Can you tell me what happened?”

He was talking about Tiffany Shore.

“I didn’t save anybody.” It was automatic now, metallic. Johnny kept his eyes away from the house. He feared his reaction if he looked at the shell he’d left his mother in, the vacuum wrapped in flaked paint and rotted wood.

Steve accelerated. “Still, your dad would be proud.”

“Maybe.”

Johnny risked a final glance as the house grew small behind them. The swaybacked roof seemed to straighten, its blemishes faded, and for an instant the house shone like a dime. “Are we going to be okay with this?” Johnny asked. “Me staying with you? It’s not my idea, you know.”

“Just stay out of my stuff.” The van crested the hill, and Steve twisted his jaw like it had popped out of joint. The road dropped into shadow. “You want to buy some candy or comics or something?”

“Candy?”

“That’s what kids like, isn’t it.”

Johnny said nothing.

“Feels like I owe you.”

“Well, you don’t.”

Steve inclined his head toward the glove compartment, more relaxed. “Reach in there and grab my smokes.”

Papers and other junk stuffed the glove compartment. Cigarette packs. Receipts. Lottery tickets. Johnny pulled out a wrinkled, half pack of Lucky Strikes and handed them to his uncle. Then he found the gun. It was wedged into the back corner, tucked away beneath the owner’s manual and a coffee-stained map of Myrtle Beach. The grip was brown wood, nicked, the metal blued with a silver shine on the hammer. Cracks discolored the dry leather holster. Next to the gun rested a faded cardboard box of shells that said:.32 hollow point.

“Don’t touch that,” Steve said easily.

Johnny closed the glove compartment. He watched whiskered trees march beside them, the dark spaces between that hinted of giant men the color of smoke. “Will you teach me how to shoot?”

“It ain’t that hard.”

“Will you?”

Steve glanced sideways, appraising, then flicked a skin of ash out the window. Johnny kept his features still, and he was proud of that, because still was not what he felt. He was thinking of his sister and of a giant man with a melted face and a mustee name.

“What for?” Steve asked, and Johnny showed his most innocent eyes.

“Just ’cause.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Steve worked the van through town. He passed storefronts and columned mansions, the parklike town square with its canopy of twisted oaks and the statue erected more than a century ago to honor a proud county’s Confederate dead. Johnny saw a brush of mistletoe in a tree, and thought of a girl he’d once dared to kiss, whose face now he could barely recall.

A different life.

Once past the square and the sun-dashed campus of the local college, Steve turned onto the four-lane that led to the mall. It was Ken’s mall. He owned it. “Where are we going?” Johnny asked.

“I have to stop by work. It won’t take long.”

Johnny sank into his seat. Steve sensed it. “Mr. Holloway won’t be there,” Steve said. “He never is.”

“I’m not scared of Ken.”

“I can take you to my place first.”

“I said I’m not scared.”

A half laugh. “Whatever.”

Johnny forced himself to sit up. “Why does he care so much about my mother?”

“Mr. Holloway?”

“He treats her like crap.”

“She’s the prettiest woman in this part of the state, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“It’s more than that.”

Steve shrugged. “Mr. Holloway doesn’t like to lose.”

“Lose what?”

“Anything.” Johnny’s confusion showed, and Steve saw it. He narrowed his eyes and pushed smoke through his lips. “You don’t know, do you?” He shook his head. “Christ, almighty.”

“What?”

“Your mom used to go out with Ken Holloway.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Well, you’d better.” Steve took another drag, drawing the moment out. “She was eighteen, maybe nineteen. Just a girl, really.” He shook his head, pursed his lips. “Hotter than a three-dollar pistol, your momma. Could have gone to Hollywood, maybe. New York, for sure. Never did, of course, but could have.”

“I still don’t believe it.”

“He was older, but even then he was the richest man around. Not like he is now, mind you, but rich enough. It’d be hard for a pretty girl to resist the kind of attention he could apply if he set his mind to it, and your mother was no different from most other girls. Flowers. Gifts. Fancy dinners. Anything he could think of to make her feel important.”

“She’s not like that.” Johnny was angry.

“Not now. But young people like to feel bigger than the place they come from. It lasted for a few months, I guess. But then your dad came back to town.”

“Back from where?”

“The service. Four years. He’s what, six years older than she is? Seven? Anyway, she was just a kid when he left, but that changed.” Steve laughed and blew out a low whistle. “Boy, did that change.” Johnny stared out the window, and Steve continued. “Your old man fell for her like a ton of steel.”

“Her, too? For him I mean?”

“Your mom was like a butterfly, Johnny. Pretty and light and delicate. Your old man loved that about her, cherished it. He was as gentle and patient as you’d need to be for a butterfly to land in your hand.”