Chương 7
Ryan stared.
“For stolen boats?”
“For conspiracy, transportation of stolen property, obstruction, and other charges. There were things I didn’t know about until later.”
“What things?”
“Threats. A witness got beaten.”
“My father did it?”
“No.”
“But he knew.”
Walter nodded.
Ryan looked toward the case.
“He was sentenced before I was born?”
“No. After.”
“How old was I?”
“Four months.”
“And he’s still in prison after twenty-three years.”
“He was supposed to be released earlier.”
Ryan turned.
“What happened?”
Walter hesitated.
“He attacked another inmate.”
“When?”
“About seven years ago.”
Ryan thought of the letters stopping six years earlier.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Did it add time?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I’m not sure.”
Ryan crossed his arms.
“So the man is alive.”
“Yes.”
“In prison.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Walter looked at him.
“Pennsylvania.”
“Pennsylvania.”
“Yes.”
“Which prison?”
“Allenwood.”
Ryan repeated the name under his breath.
It sounded absurdly ordinary.
A place with roads and vending machines and people clocking in for work.
A place his father woke up every morning.
“Have you seen him?”
“Not since sentencing.”
“You write?”
“Not anymore.”
“When did you stop?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Before his letters to you stopped.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Walter looked toward the case again.
“He asked me for something I couldn’t do.”
“What?”
“Tell you about him.”
Ryan frowned.
“That’s exactly what you’re doing now.”
“I know.”
“Why couldn’t you then?”
“Your mother.”
“She told you not to?”
“She told me if I contacted you before you were an adult, she’d get a restraining order.”
“Could she?”
“I didn’t know. Didn’t matter. I believed she would try.”
“And after I turned eighteen?”
Walter looked embarrassed again.
Ryan sighed.
“You chickened out.”
“Yeah.”
Ryan ran a hand through his wet hair.
“I’m starting to see a theme.”
Walter accepted that too.
Headlights appeared beyond the trees nearly an hour later.
Ryan saw them first through the narrow opening between the doors.
A car moved slowly down the gravel road toward the boathouse.
His stomach tightened.
Walter stood.
Neither man spoke.
Ryan’s mother parked beside his truck.
For a moment she did not get out.
Ryan watched through the rain-streaked opening as she sat behind the wheel with both hands still on it.
Lisa Parker was forty-eight and small enough that strangers sometimes assumed Ryan’s height came from his father.
He knew now that it had.
She worked as an office manager for a dental practice. She hated driving at night. She carried mints in every purse. She bought too many throw pillows and returned half of them. She had once driven three hours to pick Ryan up from college after he got food poisoning because she did not trust his roommate to “recognize dehydration.”
That woman sat forty feet away from him.
So did a woman who had kept his father alive in secret.
Ryan did not know how to fit them into the same body.
She finally opened the car door.
Walter moved toward the back of the boathouse.
Ryan said, “Don’t.”
Walter stopped.
His mother entered wearing a green raincoat over gray scrubs.
She had come straight from work.
That detail hurt Ryan unexpectedly.
Her hair was damp along the temples. Water ran from the edge of the coat onto the floor.
She looked at him first.
Then Walter.
Twenty-three years passed across her face in less than a second.
“Hello, Lisa,” Walter said.
She ignored him.
“Ryan.”
He waited.
She took one step closer.
“Are you okay?”
He almost laughed.
“No.”
She nodded.
“Okay.”
He hated that answer because it was reasonable.
His mother looked toward the open plank.
Then at the case.
Her face lost color.
“You kept it there.”
Walter said, “That was the agreement.”
“You were supposed to destroy it.”
“No.”
Her head snapped toward him.
“He told me you would.”
“He told you what he wanted you to believe.”
Walter’s voice remained calm.
Lisa stared at him.
Ryan looked between them.
“Great.”
Neither moved.
Ryan pointed toward the case.
“Who wants to explain why one of you thought it should be opened and one of you thought it should be destroyed?”
His mother removed her raincoat slowly and hung it from a nail.
The familiarity of the action bothered him.
“You’ve been here before,” he said.
She looked at him.
“You know where the hooks are.”
Her face tightened.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“More than twice.”
Ryan turned to Walter.
“You said twice.”
“While Daniel lived here.”
Ryan let out a long breath.
“Right. Sure. Of course there’s a technical version.”
Walter said, “I wasn’t trying to—”
“Stop.”
Walter did.
Ryan looked at his mother.
“How many times?”
“After his arrest? Maybe six.”
“When?”
“Mostly during the case.”
“Why?”
“To talk to Walter. To find out what Daniel was saying. To find out what the prosecutors knew.”
“Were you involved?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Walter said, “She wasn’t.”
Lisa looked at him with open dislike.
“I don’t need your help.”
Ryan saw something then that he had rarely seen from his mother.
Hatred.
Not annoyance.
Not anger.
Hatred so old it no longer needed heat.
“What did he do to you?”
Walter lowered his eyes.
Lisa said, “He helped your father destroy evidence.”
Ryan looked at Walter.
Walter said nothing.
“When?”
“After the boat sank,” Lisa continued. “Before the investigators came here. Daniel called him.”
Ryan stared at Walter.
“You said you cooperated.”
“I did.”
“After destroying evidence?”
“Yes.”
“What evidence?”
“Ledgers. Some serial plates. A set of keys.”
Ryan’s voice rose.
“You left that out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Walter looked at him. “Because your mother wasn’t wrong. I told you my part fast.”
Lisa crossed her arms.
“Then he made a deal.”
Walter said, “There was no deal.”
“You were never charged.”
“I was given immunity for truthful testimony.”
“That’s a deal.”
Walter did not argue.
Ryan felt the room shifting again.
Every time he thought he understood where to place blame, somebody kicked the supports away.
May you like
His mother moved toward the case.
“Give me the key.”
