“I think so.”
She nodded, winced, and rubbed her neck. I brought the pizza around and set her up with a few slices. I sat on the other bed and we ate in silence.
“How about the news?” she asked finally. “I’m curious as to how my phone call with the detective went down.”
“You sure you want to know?”
“Don’t we need to keep tabs on how fucked we are?”
“I just don’t want you to worry.”
She smiled dryly. “Too late.”
I took up the remote and scanned around for a local channel. Within moments I found a report about us.
“That’s Patty,” Jo said, around a mouthful.
Outside the diner where I’d found Jo working, a reporter was interviewing a thin, older woman with a short perm. In an angry and tearful tirade, Patty called for Jo to be arrested for Lee’s murder. Behind her, a half-dozen brutish-looking guys nodded darkly in agreement.
Jo sat back against her headboard, pressing herself back as if being pushed by the images.
The scene changed: locals comforting Patty while the reporter talked over. “What was first deemed an accidental house fire is now being classified as possible arson. Two persons of interest, Josephine Clark and Evan Salinger—an escaped convict—are now suspected of foul play.”
Side-by-side pictures flashed on the screen: Jo’s senior portrait and my booking shot from North Central Correctional.
The camera cut to a man in a brown police uniform, captioned Sheriff Griggs, Ouachita Parish.
“I can’t give too many details at this time, but we’ve gathered enough evidence that indicates Mr. Stevenson’s death may not have been accidental. We have issued a warrant for Mr. Salinger’s arrest, and we’d very much like to speak with Ms. Clark.”
An off-camera voice: “And if Ms. Clark doesn’t comply?”
The Sheriff looked grave. “We’d have to start making some serious assumptions about her participation in Mr. Stevenson’s passing.”
I shut off the TV.
“You were right,” Jo said, setting aside her plate. “I didn’t need to see that.” A tense silence passed, then Jo spoke, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. “It’s my fault.”
I tossed my slice of pizza back into the box, my appetite vanishing. “What’s your fault?”
“This.” She gestured at the TV. “Everything. This mess. Lee…” She shook her head and winced. She touched the back of her neck, scrubbed at it, as if she were trying to rub off something dirty left on her skin. “God, this fucking hurts. All of it. It just hurts.”
“Can I help?”
She looked at me and I felt the air thicken. I hadn’t touched her in four years, and I wanted to. I wanted to so badly I could hardly breathe.
“Thanks,” Jo said. She scooted forward on the mattress as I sat behind her.
She was wearing a white tank top and no bra. I stared at the graceful length of her neck and the curve of her shoulder. My pulse jumped and my groin tightened as I took up her silky dark hair and moved it over her shoulder, revealing the smooth skin of her back.
Then I put my hands on her.
I had to close my eyes against the onslaught of physical memories that swamped me. Our first touches, our first kisses. My hands sliding up this same skin that was wet and warm under the water…
I sucked in a breath, forcing my body to settle the hell down. Carefully, I kneaded the tight muscles in Jo’s neck, feeling the fragility of her body beneath my hands. She was small and thin. Malnourished. Yet I could feel her strength, too. A soft heat emanating from her skin. A furnace inside that never burned out, no matter how hard life had tried to snuff it.
She needed peace now, and safety. To eat well and sleep long hours. To rebuild and regroup, nurture that strength and use it for herself instead of basic survival.
I wished I could take her someplace safe and permanent but we had to go north. To the center. If we didn’t we’d be ruined. I hadn’t told Jo that last part; it was a miracle she was putting up with my crazy-sounding story at all. But it was as real to me as my own flesh and bone. The drive to obey the dream—that I could only see in fragments yet—was as natural to me as my own pulse driving the blood through my veins.
My hands gently rubbed at the knots in her neck and shoulders, loosening the tension coiled in her. Jo slumped, her protective walls coming down a bit. They didn’t crumble—she’d built them strong. But I heard her sigh, letting me in a little. She leaned into my touch.
“It didn’t start out bad with Lee,” she said. “He wasn’t a prince by any goddamn stretch of the imagination, but he wasn’t a monster. Not then. Not until he got into meth.” Her breath hitched. “The drugs turned him nasty…”
“It’s okay, Jo.”
“I’m telling you because I’m not stupid. I don’t want you to think I’m stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“I’m weak.”