Travis scrubs through his hair. ‘That’s a hell of a hypothetical.’
‘Being in law enforcement is what you’ve always dreamed of.’
‘I don’t know.’ He seems genuinely torn.
‘Well, Emma can see your uncertainty.’
‘What kind of choice is that anyway? The bureau or my friend?’ Travis’s cheeks are flushed, but at least he’s showing some higher brain function.
In return, Kristin tries to be as honest as she can. ‘I had to choose like that once. I stabbed Simon in the neck so he could be arrested. I chose the law over my brother. I don’t know, anymore, if I would make that choice again.’
She knows saying this will cut him because when she chose the law back in 1980, his father was a casualty of her decision. At least it’s something that will get his attention.
Predictably, he glowers. ‘What are you saying, Kristin?’
‘Just that you’re in a difficult position. You’re divided.’ She sees him take this in, but there’s no way of knowing if her words will have any impact. ‘Look, I’m going to sit here for a little while longer. Then I’m going to check that Emma’s all right, and offer her more Valium, and then I’m going to ask Mr Napier if he can arrange some room service. It’s getting on five o’clock, so I think—’
The phone is ringing. Travis moves first, going back into the hotel room to answer. Kristin assumes the call is probably his, so she continues leafing throughVogue. She’s very surprised when he steps out of the room again and says, ‘Phone for you.’
She’s even more surprised to hear Mr Carter’s baritone on the other end of the line.
‘Miss Gutmunsson, we’re at the end of our rope here.’ Carter clears his throat. ‘How would you feel about going back to talk to your brother?’
The flight to Philadelphia is sparsely occupied, and Kristin has a row to herself. She is not even slightly bothered by the FBI agent who is accompanying her: she has lived her life under supervision at Chesterfield for most of the last two years, and was overseen by teachers or tutors or parents quite often before that. And of course, before his arrest, Simon was her constant companion.
So this is certainly the most free she has been for some time, and it gives her an exuberant feeling. She has nothing with her but her little handbag, with a notebook and a pencil which Mr Carter insisted on, and the copy ofVogue. During the flight, she spurns the articles and editorial opinion pages in the magazine to spend more time with the photographic spreads. She looks at the colors and the textures, examining everything in detail, including the backgrounds of the exterior shots, the flowers in the fields. Some of the pictures were taken in Sudbury, she’s quite certain. Once they’re back on the ground, she folds up the half-dozen pages she’s torn out and tucks them away in her handbag, leaves the rest of the magazine on a table in the passenger boarding area as she walks on toward the waiting car.
Byberry is not a welcoming place, and Kristin can’t help but feel a chill every time she enters the gates. Now, as the sun goes down on the day, it’s like the whole facility is edged with sharp-cut shadows. It makes her tear up to think that after their conversation, she’s going to have to leave Simon alone here in this bitter place once again.
Her steps fly as she descends toward Men’s Secure General. As she gets closer, her heart wants to beat itself out of the prison of her ribs. But she has learned to conceal her emotions from people who might cause Simon harm, so she is sedate with Mr Grenier in the tiny bunker office.
He has just finished eating the dinner he brought from home. While eyeing her, he rolls up the remains in a brown paper sack and picks at his teeth with the edge of a fingernail. ‘Weren’t you just here?’
‘Two days ago,’ Kristin confirms. She smiles, with a hundredth of the enthusiasm she’d normally use for smiling at her sibling. ‘Now I’m back.’
‘Must be some kinda scintillating conversation you folks are having withMr Artiste…’ Grenier wipes his fingers on his shirt before logging her visit. When she doesn’t rise to the bait, he prods further. ‘But I guess there aren’t so many conversations left now, are there?’
Kristin imagines Mr Grenier – with his slicked-back hair and his tattoos and his unpleasant food smells – being consumed by fire as he hurtles into the sun.
‘I’d like to see my brother now,’ she says, still smiling.
‘You and your brother look too much alike.’ Grenier’s cheeks cave as he sucks his back molars. ‘It’s damn unsettling.’
‘Yes.’ Kristin is not of a mind to talk with him further.
Grenier shrugs, lifts his chin at Randy. ‘Let her through.’
Kristin stands in place as Randy works the heavy metal door open. She tries to fix her concentration on where she is, and which side of the yellow line is the correct side. She can never recall.
‘Stay to the right,’ Randy says.
Kristin grins. ‘Of course. Silly me.’
Then she is slipping down the passage, as though the dull concrete is carpeted with lawn. Kristin tunes out the cold white and metal bars and wire, thinking instead of the long arbor walk to the garden of the Massachusetts house in the spring. All the purple vetch shifting in the breeze, mosquito bites on her ankles, the scent of cut grass.
Simon is sitting at his metal shelf desk, working on something with his pastel crayons, but he turns when she arrives, a soft smile playing on his face. ‘I can always tell when you’re the one coming to see me. Your footsteps are so light.’
‘Simon.’ Nowsheis the one consumed by fire, her heart glowing out of her chest.
