With a few pushes of a button, he had the recording queued up on the flat-screen across from the bed.
Sheriff Robert Malone stood outside the police station flanked by officers. “Evanee Brown murdered my only son. We have conclusive evidence of this.” The sheriff held up a family photo of a man. “This is a great tragedy to this community who loved Junior, or Robby, as some knew him. I am personally offering a reward of $20,000 to anyone with information about her whereabouts.” What appeared to be a driver’s license photo of Evanee floated in front of the screen.
The next recording was a press conference. Eric McCallister, with Gill Garrison standing next to him. “Evanee Brown is five foot nine. Long, black hair. Slender.” The same driver’s license photo flashed on the screen. “She is considered dangerous. Do not approach her. Call the task force number at the bottom of the screen with any information.”
James paused the action with Gill and Eric on the screen.
“Why haven’t you turned me in? There’s twenty-thousand dollars waiting for you.” Something in her voice still wasn’t right. Her eyes darted back to the kitchen, then to him again.
“There’s right and there’s wrong. It felt right to hide you. I saw your injuries. I know how badly you were hurt. You are safe here. You can heal here. You can decide what you want to do when you leave here. It felt wrong to turn you in. Leave you alone. Unprotected against them.” He waved at the image on the screen.
“You’re a good man, James. Taking care of me when I’m a stranger and the police are after me. Thank you.” For a brief moment, sincerity outweighed the numbness in her tone.
Heat passed over his face. Was he blushing?
“I need to leave for work soon. I’d like to check your wound before I go. Would that be okay?”
“Um. Yeah.”
He unbuttoned the shirt and bared her bandaged breast, all the while careful to disguise the hunger in his eyes with a clinical expression. “After everything you’ve been through, I know this is uncomfortable for you. I’m sorry.” He meant it.
He picked at the medical tape on the side of her breast until he found a fingerhold and gently eased the tape back. Two of the deeper tooth marks still seeped and bled. Her breast would bear those reminders forever.
Chapter 17
James had left. A minute ago? An hour ago? A day ago? Evanee couldn’t understand time anymore. The only thing she could feel was the dagger in her lungs each time she breathed. The blow to her chest each time her heart beat. The absolute torture of living while Lathan was dead.
Life had never been fair, but she’d always hoped that out there somewhere, something great waited for her. That something great had been Lathan. But he was gone. The promise of love—her happy ending—shot dead in front of her.
She was tired. So tired of living. Of struggling. Of fighting. Of losing.
The bullet—she held the solution in her hand.
She tossed off the covers and got out of bed. Upright, legs trembling and heavy from disuse, she felt the world lazily floating around her like cotton blowing on an early summer breeze. It took a moment for her to realize the world wasn’t floating; she was dizzy. She braced herself against the nightstand until her vision stabilized. Nothing, certainly not a little disorientation, was going to deter her from her goal.
In the kitchen, she found a plastic cup and filled it with water.
The bullet blazed hot against her skin. She held it just inches from her eyes and stared at the tiny piece of metal. So small, almost delicate. How could something so innocent looking overpower the strength of Lathan’s life force? But it had. The proof was in the dried blood caked in the crevices and on her palm.
She wanted this piece of metal, this piece of him, inside her. She popped the bullet in her mouth. Its weight and size were foreign. She focused on her tongue, on her taste buds, willed them to give her Lathan’s flavor, but she tasted nothing. She rolled the piece of metal around in her mouth, exploring the contours, the dips, the valleys, the sharp edges. A primitive part of her brain engaged, and she was a child once more, finding comfort in suckling—but this time it wasn’t her thumb.
She lifted the cup of water to her lips and drank deeply, swallowing the bullet. She set the plastic glass on the counter, opened a drawer, and searched for a knife.
The water and bullet sloshed heavily in Evanee’s stomach. She ripped open another drawer. A silverware separator, but it only contained spoons. No forks. No knives. Where were the knives?
She pulled open the rest of the drawers and cupboards, pulled out pots and pans and baking sheets, knocked cans of food over in her search. But there was nothing in the kitchen she could use to cleave open her vein.
Weariness settled in her marrow. She sank to the floor, not caring that the concrete was hard and cold or that James would find her and know what she’d halfheartedly intended.
*
James leaned against the back wall of the packed auditorium. From his position, he had a dominant view of his father. The room was filled with the curious, the impressed, and the depraved.
His father’s voice rose, then fell, his cadence quickening, then releasing with that timeless quality all good storytellers possessed. He’d learned to balance entertainment and the macabre in such a way that even the most gruesome of tales transformed into poetry. Into something beautiful.
That beauty had made Death attractive and yet something to be feared. That beauty had grabbed James’s attention as a child.
An exit door on the audience level opened. The dim light offered no more description of the person than the outline of a man.
Good luck finding a seat in the dark room.