to her shoulders, crinkled by a bad do-it-at-home perm—surely she hadn’t actually paid someone to do that to her. She towered over me, all 250 pounds of her.
“You’re Renee Gilmore?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come in?”
“Come in? Why?”
“I’d rather not say, not out here.”
“Why not?”
She hesitated, fiddling with her thick fingers. Her pink polish was a good two weeks old, judging by the growth at the base of her nails. Chipped and scratched.
“Do you know a priest at Basal?” she asked in a husky voice.
Every alarm in my mind clanged to life. First a phone call, and now this? The woman went from being messy tramp to lifeline in less time than I could think it. I scanned the parking lot and sidewalks. “You’re alone?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you? How did you get here?”
“Constance. I got here on the bus. That’s all I can say.” She looked around again, like someone frightened she might be seen talking to me. If she was scared, I had even more reason to be.
I pulled the door open. “Hurry.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as she stepped in, I closed and locked the door. “Don’t touch anything.” That sounded rude. “I mean, I just cleaned. So what do you know about Danny? Have you seen him?”
“No. No, it’s not like that. I—”
“But you’ve heard from him? Or about him?”
“I was told to deliver this.” She held out the shoebox.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will it explode?”
“Hasn’t yet. Please, just take it.”
I took the box from her and examined the lid, which was sealed shut with masking tape. No name, no address, just an old Nike shoebox that held something other than a pair of shoes, judging by how light it was.
“I should open it?” I asked.
“Not now. I have no idea what it is. I was just told to give it to you, that’s all.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“You have to believe me, I have no idea what it’s about.” She hesitated. “But there’s something else.”
“What?”
She glanced around as if putting off saying what she really wanted to say.
“Do you mind if I have a drink of water?”
Not sure what else to do, I set the box on the counter, crossed to the cupboard, pulled out a glass, and filled it from the filtered-water spout at the sink. I handed her the glass. “Here.”
“Can I sit down?”
My first thought was
So I rounded the counter and waved her into the living room. “Sure, sit.”
“I have to get back. If Bruce finds out I told you this he’d flip his lid.”
“Bruce who? Tell me what?” She’d crossed to the couch but hadn’t taken a seat. “Sit down.”
Constance settled to the couch. Her glass was still full. She was trying to work up the nerve to tell me something. Already, my mind was seeing Danny lying in the center of the prison yard, bleeding on the ground with a shank sticking out of his back.
“Please, just say it. What’s happened to him?”
“Nothing that I know of. But he might be in some trouble.”
“What trouble?”
“I talked to Bruce two days ago. Bruce Randell. He’s in Basal.”
“Your husband?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend? Sister?”
“Let’s just say we know each other. He went down on a distribution conviction eight years ago and was transferred to Basal after it opened.”
I sat down on the edge of the stuffed chair facing her. “And? What about the priest?”
“If this gets back to Bruce…He’s got connections on the outside.”
“Whatever you tell me, I swear, not a soul will know.”
She nodded once. “Bruce once told me he was sexually molested by a priest when he was a boy. No one can know that or he’d hit the ceiling. For two years, when he was thirteen. He went back when he was eighteen and killed the priest who did it. I’ll deny that if it ever comes back on me.”
“It won’t. I promise.”
“I’m only telling you so that you know why I’m here.”
“Which is what? He hates priests and Danny’s a priest?”
“He talked about the priest transferring to Basal and said I’d be getting a box he wanted me to deliver to someone. He said I’d know who when I got the box.”
“Me?”
She stared at me and nodded once.
My heart was pounding. The phone call suddenly made more sense to me. But why me? How could Bruce know about me? Or get my number? Two thoughts crammed into my mind. The first was that he knew more than a few things about me.
The second was that both Danny and I were dead.
I stood up and looked at the shoe box. “What’s in the box?”
“I swear, I don’t know what’s in the box. Money, for all I know. I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
In that moment, confronted by what seemed like certainty, I felt my mind rewinding, becoming the mind of the woman I’d been three years earlier, before Danny had fixed me.
“Why didn’t you go to the warden with this?” I asked.
“I can’t. You don’t understand, I should have just dropped the box off and left.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? They gave it to you, right? They were wearing a mask?”
“It was left for me with a note with your name and address on it. I’m not going to sit here and tell you how or why I have to do this. Let’s just say I have a conscience. But Bruce can hurt anyone he wants to, including me.”
So then. There it was. We were dead. But I wasn’t feeling fear; I was feeling rage. The kind I hadn’t felt for three years. And that box was calling to me, daring me to open that lid.
I sat down and drilled her with a stare. “That’s it?”
“I had to tell you.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
She shrugged. “Warn the priest.”
“Warn him? I can’t even get a phone call through to him! They’ve cut me off!”
The woman pushed herself up using the armrest. “Can he handle himself?”
I couldn’t believe she was just going to dump this on me and leave. “He’s in for murder, isn’t he?” I said. “But he doesn’t like to hurt people. You don’t know anyone else on the inside I can get to? Someone in food services? A cop? A guard?”
“Not at Basal, no way. I’m sorry, honey, I don’t know what to tell you. I did what I had to, you understand.
