Chương 2
The SUV did not leave.
Through the dirty window, Leo could see its roof beyond the maintenance building. It idled beside a statue of an angel with one wing stained green.
Harold moved to the back wall, shoved aside a shelf of empty flowerpots, and opened a narrow door Leo had not noticed. Beyond it lay a fenced service yard and a strip of woods.
“You have a car?” Leo whispered.
“Truck.”
“Where?”
“Other side of the woods.”
“You planned this?”
“I hoped I wouldn’t need to.”
That answer angered Leo more than a lie might have.
He grabbed the photograph, shoved his property bag beneath his arm, and followed Harold into the service yard.
The old man locked the hidden door behind them. They crossed damp ground, climbed over a sagging wire fence, and entered the trees. Branches scraped Leo’s faded charcoal jacket. The sunlight broke into pieces around them. Somewhere behind the maintenance building, the man called Harold’s name again.
Leo kept one hand inside his jacket, touching the edge of the envelope.
Thomas’s handwriting felt impossible there.
They emerged beside a narrow county road where an old Ford pickup sat under power lines. The truck was pale blue except for one black replacement fender. A yellow plastic cemetery sign lay across the bed.
Harold unlocked the passenger door.
Leo remained on the roadside.
“You’re going to tell me where my father is.”
“Yes.”
“Now.”
“We’re two hundred yards from the men who followed you.”
“Then start talking while you drive.”
Harold looked at him for a long second. “Your father made me promise I’d get you away from the cemetery before you read the letter.”
“He made you promise.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
The road seemed to tilt beneath Leo’s boots.
“My father died fourteen months ago.”
Harold opened the passenger door wider.
“That,” he said quietly, “is why you need to get in.”
Leo climbed into the truck.
Harold drove with both hands on the wheel, leaning forward slightly as if the road required concentration. He did not turn on the radio. The cemetery disappeared behind a line of maples, but Leo kept looking into the side mirror.
The black SUV did not appear.
He tore open the envelope.
Harold flinched at the sound but did not stop him.
The letter was written on unlined paper. Thomas had always preferred unlined paper. He said lines encouraged people to mistake neatness for truth.
Leo read the first sentence twice.
Son, if Harold has given you this, then I failed to meet you myself.
His thumb pressed into the page.
I am alive as I write this. By the time you read it, I may not be. The grave with my name is empty. I had to let the town believe I died because the people who put you in prison were preparing to kill me, and I believed disappearing was the only way to keep the evidence safe long enough to bring you home.
Leo stopped reading.
The truck’s cab became too small. He lowered the window, but the air did not help.
“Pull over.”
Harold looked at him. “We’re not far.”
“Pull over.”
“Leo—”
“Pull the truck over.”
Harold guided the Ford onto the shoulder beside an abandoned farm stand. Leo opened the door before the truck had fully stopped. He stumbled into knee-high grass and bent forward, one hand braced on his thigh.
Nothing came up.
He had not eaten since breakfast at the prison: powdered eggs, white toast, an apple soft around the stem. His stomach folded around itself anyway.
Harold stayed in the truck.
Leo read the sentence again.
The people who put you in prison.
A tractor moved in the distance, small and red against a brown field. A handwritten sign at the farm stand offered SWEET CORN, though the shelves were empty.
Leo laughed once.
It was not amusement. It was the sound his body made because the other possibilities were worse.
He turned toward the truck.
“You knew he was alive.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Eleven months.”
Leo walked to the driver’s door. Harold had rolled down his window. That made it easier.
Leo seized the front of his work jacket.
Harold did not fight him.
“You watched me kneel at an empty grave.”
“I tried to reach you before you got there.”
“You watched me put flowers on it.”
“The SUV was already at the gate.”
“You let me believe my father died.”
“Your father asked me to.”
Leo pulled him halfway toward the window. Harold’s cap fell into his lap.
“People asked me in there whether I wanted to talk to the chaplain. They took me off kitchen duty for three days because they thought I’d hurt myself. I couldn’t call him. I couldn’t write him. I spent fourteen months thinking he died angry at me.”
Harold’s face tightened, but his voice remained low.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t get to say that.”
“You’re right.”
Leo released him so abruptly that Harold struck the back of his head against the seat.
The old man rubbed the spot. He did not complain.
Leo stepped away from the truck and unfolded the letter again.
Thomas wrote that the key opened a locker at the old Bellwether bus terminal. Locker 214. Inside, Leo would find enough to understand what happened but not enough to prove it. For proof, he would need to speak to Evelyn Rusk, the public defender who had handled his case. Thomas warned him not to call the police, the county prosecutor’s office, or anyone connected to the Hale Development Company.
May you like
The final paragraph had been written more heavily, the pen cutting into the paper.
I told myself leaving you alone was temporary. Temporary is a word cowards use when they want credit for pain they are still choosing. I will not ask you to forgive me. I am asking you to finish what I could not. After that, burn this letter or keep it or tear it into pieces. You have the right to decide what remains of me.
