She was in her car in seconds, doors locked and heart pounding. Every emotion was bubbling around inside her, and she felt like a pinball machine. Anger. Dismay. Glee. Confusion.
She rummaged in her purse for two Advil, swallowed them down with the lukewarm coffee. She didn’t know what to think, whether to believe him or not. She took a long, slow, centering breath, then put her car into gear.
Time for the hunt.
CHAPTER 26
Devon
Devon still hadn’t moved from where he was frozen, paring knife in hand. He listened as he heard a man’s voice outside, talking to someone with those long pauses like he was on the phone, laughing. A low, sinister laugh.
Maybe it’s not Uncle T. Maybe it’s a new neighbor, or someone accidentally pulled up at the wrong house, or—
Devon squeezed his eyes shut, counted to ten. Oh, dear Lord. Please don’t let it be him. Please don’t …
And then the slow pound of feet on the wooden stairs outside the kitchen door, the telltale creak of the screen door, the twisting of the door handle.
I could lock it. Then he won’t be able to get in. Maybe jam a chair under the handle, keep him out, get Memaw and sneak out the window …
But his feet felt like they were stuck in mud, like he was having one of those dreams he used to have, where he was in the jungle and there was a humongous lion coming straight toward him and he couldn’t do anything but stand there, completely still, his feet glued to the ground, and wait as the lion ran closer and closer.
Only this time, the lion was Uncle T. And all he did was stand there—waiting for the attack, waiting for everything to end—and watch T turn the handle and step inside.
“If it ain’t Saint Devon.” T pocketed his cell phone, slipped off his sunglasses. The glasses were new, Devon could see, and T wore a new-looking shirt, too. A businessy kind of shirt, like Rev wore.
“Sugar, that you?” came Memaw’s voice from the living room.
“Maw?” T turned to Devon, surprise written on his face. “She’s out of bed?”
A wave of satisfaction—Devon knew it was pride, but he couldn’t help himself—shot through him.
“She started getting better a day or two after you left,” Devon said with meaning, cocked his head.
T seemed like he was about to say something more, opened his mouth, in fact, but then appeared to change his mind. He set his shiny new sunglasses on the kitchen counter and wandered out toward the living room.
“I’m glad you’re doing better, Maw,” Devon could hear him say in a big circus-style voice, like he was some TV announcer, not real at all, and there was the unmistakable sound of cheeks being kissed and Memaw’s recliner squeaking as he imagined her trying to stand. “No, no, Maw, don’t get up. You rest. Take a load off. Devon and I’ll take good care of you. We got it all covered, a’ight?”
Devon didn’t hear Memaw’s reply, but T laughed, a snide, cutting laugh.
“I can do better than hamburger steak and canned green beans for my Maw,” T said, stepping back into the kitchen. He gave Devon the once-over, muttered, “Move it, shorty. I got this.”
For a moment, all Devon could think about was CJ, and the way his friend, who’d always been afraid of everything, had stood up to Marquis, Johnny Vasquez, and Big Ty not two hours ago. He closed his eyes again, took a deep breath, let it all unfold in hismind. Everything he would do: look T straight in the eyes, tell him in no uncertain terms to get out and never come back.
“You feel me, boy?” Uncle T was saying, and he opened his eyes to realize T’d been talking to him for a good minute now, and at this moment had his head swiveled to the side and was staring at him like he’d gone crazy, like Devon himself had looked at CJ earlier that day. “I said, get outta my kitchen.”
He wanted the words to come so badly, burst big and strong and powerful-like from his chest, like he’d imagined so many times before. Like a battle cry. But when they came, they weren’t big at all. They were soft, like a mouse, so soft T made him repeat himself.
“… I said no …”
They were out now. And he couldn’t take them back.
Time stood still for a moment. And for a millisecond, Devon thought maybe Uncle T would make like Big Ty. Turn on his heel and head right back from where he came.
Except T smiled. A twisted smile, that thrummed through Devon’s body like a lightning bolt.
A dead quiet settled over the room.
“What did you say?” T asked in a low voice.
