“So, how are…things?” the older woman asked, keeping it vague, but her eyes so bright and excited, she could only be referring to one thing.
George swallowed. None of this was normal. It wasn’t normal to be a widow at her age. It wasn’t normal to be caretaker for your in-laws—though she’d never begrudge them that responsibility—and it most certainly wasn’t normal to use your dead husband’s sperm to try to get pregnant. “Good. Good. The hormones seem to have…kicked in.”
“Yes?”
“I’m feeling…something.”
“So, you’ll be…” Ovulating was the word Bonnie wouldn’t say. And neither would George—not with her mother-in-law. She glanced at the door. How soon could she get out of here?
“Soon, I think, Bonnie. Soon.”
“That’s… It’s wonderful, George. You truly deserve this. You’ve wanted a baby for so long and—”
“Yes. Yes, I have. Thank you, Bonnie. Thank you for supporting me.”
“Of course, dear. Of course.” Bonnie’s eyes filled with tears.
Though George wanted to look away, she forced herself to reach out and put her hand over the other woman’s frail, knobby one, the papery skin dry to the touch. How many times had she held this hand? Certainly more often than she’d held her husband’s. “Have you been using the cream I brought you last week? You really should—”
“Oh, do you know, I forgot about it? I’ll have to go find where I’ve put it. I don’t want you to think that I—”
“It’s okay, Bonnie. It’s okay,” George said, clasping the woman’s hand more tightly and wondering how soon she could escape.
* * *
Clay’s eyes flew open, but he couldn’t move. Fear choked him. No air. Arms like lead. They’d found him. Ape’s needle to his eyeball, his ax cleaving his head. Oh, fuck, he was bleeding out.
His mouth opened, gaped like a fish out of water, and finally, finally, found air. With it came the flood of memories. The pain, scorching, fire, Breadthwaite—Bread—pulling him out. The rest of the team getting inside late—too fucking late. White bed, voices, fuzzy, heavy pain, blinding flashes, muddled memories. His sister, Carly, too. Clean, fresh Carly, not the bruised, battered body he’d identified in the morgue. No, wait. Not Carly. Carly was gone. Other faces. Questions, pain, always the pain.
His moan was the sound that brought him back, his eyes slitted to see a cracked ceiling, a landscape on the wall, faded and blue.
Mountains.
Virginia. Blackwood, Virginia. Where the skin doctor was.
The motel. He was in the motel. White-and-peach bedspread on the floor beneath him, blinds closed, curtains pulled, A/C set to frigid. Against his face rested an empty fifth of vodka.
Last night, like every other night since that day, Clay had succumbed, not to sleep, but rather to a self-inflicted, booze-induced near coma, which didn’t qualify as sleep no matter how long his eyes stayed closed. It left him tired and dizzy and nauseous, with a head the size of Maryland, but at least it gave him those few hours of oblivion.
Painfully, he creaked to standing, each joint making itself known in ways it hadn’t before the shooting. He got up, popped the usual six ibuprofen, his hands tight, and moved to the bathroom, blinking at the heaviness of his eyes. It wasn’t until he caught sight of his puffy, red face in the mirror that he remembered why his eyes hurt so bad.
After a shower, he hit the road, crawling through downtown Blackwood, which appeared to be celebrating Independence Day in style, and finally hit the open road.
In his Toyota. Yeah, not the quite the hum of a Harley.
He drove three hours to the coast, where he scoured craigslist and made some phone calls and bought a truck, dented and dusty with a sprinkling of rust. He hoped to God the thing took him back to Blackwood, but it was safer to do this here or in West Virginia, and he figured he’d stand out less at the beach.
After parking in a spot with an ocean view, he powered up his phone and hit Tyler’s name, noticing the holes in the upholstery and the missing radio knobs. Local color.
“Hey,” he said when his friend answered.
“Clay? Where the fuck are you, man?” Tyler asked. “I been calling you like crazy. Jayda’s asking me if you’re coming today, and I don’t even know. What the hell’s going on?”
“I refused protection, Tyler. Left town.”
“Seriously? You can’t do that, man! They found your house! Got your damned bike! You’ve got to—”
“How’d they find me, Ty? No one else will say.”
