He sat back on his heels, his mind going over the last time he had seen Mary Alice. Her eyes. He would never forget her eyes, the way she had stared into nowhere. Her body told the real story, though. She had endured horrible things, unspeakable things. In his mind, he could still recall the blown-up pictures from his trial, the photographs showing Mary Alice Finney’s violated body splayed out for the world to see. He remembered his aunt pacing back and forth in front of the jury, and how he’d thought at the time that Lydia’s pacing was bad because all it did was draw their attention to the pictures that were right behind her.

“It’s okay,” John had told Lydia when she’d come to Coastal and explained that their appeals were exhausted, that he would more than likely die in prison. “I know you did everything you could.”

Lydia had told him not to talk about drugs with the police, not to mention “Woody because bringing her son into it would open up John’s past drug abuse and they didn’t want that, did they? If ”Woody was put on the stand, he’d tell the truth.

They didn’t want Woody telling the truth, did they?

That night at the party, Woody had said, “No hard feelings,” tossing him the baggie. Was that when he had decided to hurt Mary Alice?

No hard feelings. John didn’t have any feelings left-just rage that burned like he’d swallowed gasoline and lit a match.

He looked down at the girl. She was a child, but she was also a messenger.

John’s stomach clenched as he slid his gloved fingers into her mouth, pinched her tongue between his thumb and forefinger.

Woody had brought all of this to John’s door. John would put it right back on his. The most important thing he learned in prison was that you never touched another man’s property unless you were willing to die for it.

“Woody,” he had called him, but that was a boy’s name and Woody wasn’t a boy anymore. Like John, he was a man. He should be called by a man’s name.

Michael Ormewood.

John picked up the knife.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“You need to walk it off,” John told Mary Alice. “You can’t go home like this.”

“Have you ever kissed a girl?”

He blushed and she laughed.

“Mark Reed,” she told him. “He thinks he’s my boyfriend because he kissed me after the game.”

John kept quiet, saying a silent prayer of death for Mark Reed, quarterback of the football team, driver of a red Corvette, and proud owner of much body hair, which the fucker liked to show off around the locker room like he was working at freaking Chippendale’s.

“You didn’t answer me,” Mary Alice said, and John thought about Woody’s bag of white powder in his pocket.

She could read his mind. “Let me try it.”

“No way.”

“I want to.”

“No you don’t.”

“Come on.” She reached into his pocket and her hand brushed against him. John sucked in air so hard he was surprised his lungs didn’t explode.

Mary Alice was holding the bag up to the streetlight. “What’s so good about it?”

John couldn’t answer. He had more pressing matters requiring his attention.

She opened the bag.

He came to his senses. “Don’t do that.”

“Why not? You do.”

“I’m a loser,” he said. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

There was a noise behind them and they both turned to look.

“Cat,” Mary Alice guessed. “Come on.”

She had taken his hand and John let her lead him down the street toward her house. John stayed quiet as she took him through her backyard. He knew her bedroom was on the bottom floor, but he hadn’t been expecting her to open the window and climb in.

“What are you doing?”

“Shh.”

A twig snapped behind him. He turned again, but all he could see was shadows.

Mary Alice said, “Come on.”

He climbed up, stopping halfway over the sill, whispering, “Your mom will kill me if she finds me in here.”

“I don’t care,” she whispered back, turning on a Hello Kitty lamp that cast a thin halo of light.

“You sleep with a nightlight?”

She playfully slapped his shoulder. “Just get in.”

John landed softly. Her bed was pushed up underneath the window. They were both sitting on her bed. Mary Alice’s bed. John felt his erection return with a vengeance.

If Mary Alice noticed, she didn’t say. “Show me how to do it,” she asked, handing him the bag of coke.

“I’m not going to.”

“I know you want to.”

He did. God, he did. Anything that would give him the ability to get past his own idiotic personality and kiss her.

“Show me,” she repeated.

He unknotted the bag and used his finger to scoop some out.

“You snort it,” he said. “Like this.”

John coughed, almost a gag, as the powder hit the back of his throat. It tasted bitter, metallic. He tried to get enough spit to swallow but his mouth was too dry. His heart did something funny, like a flop, then he felt as if a knife had slammed into it.

Mary Alice looked scared. “Are you-”

The coke hit his brain. Two seconds, tops, and he was so fucked up he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He saw stars-actual stars-and he fell forward, right into Mary Alice. She put her hands on his face to steady him and he tilted his chin up, his lips meeting hers.

The next thing he remembered was waking up with the worst headache he’d ever had in his life. There were shooting pains in his chest and he felt cold, though sweat covered his body. He rolled over, his skin sticking to the sheets. He was thinking that his mother was going to kill him for wetting the bed when he felt her body beside him.

Mary Alice was completely naked. Her neck was twisted to the side, her mouth open and filled with blood. He saw bruises on her legs and other parts of her. Patches of her pubic hair had been ripped out. Bite marks were all over her small breasts.

John was too freaked out to make any noise. He was panting, his bladder pressing for release as he pushed himself back away from her body. The open window was behind him. He reached up, his fingers sliding against the frame. Blood. He had blood all over his hand. He had lain in it all night, his clothes soaking it up like a sponge.

He heard a noise, a “huh-huh-huh,” but it was coming from him. Her face. He couldn’t stop looking at her face. So much blood. His bladder released, a warm, wet liquid flooding down his leg.

He had to get out of here. He had to leave.

John pressed himself against the wall, using his legs to push himself up over the window ledge. He fell through the open window and into the backyard flat on his back, the air puffing out of his lungs in a sharp cough.

He looked up at the sky. It wasn’t yet morning, the sun making the trees gray shadows against black. His legs shook, but he managed to stand, his pants sticking to his thighs, his bloody shirt like a second skin on his back where he had lain beside Mary Alice all night.

John ran, his heart pulsing in his throat.

He had to get out of there.

He had to get home.