A hint of bashful pleasure crept into his eyes. 'Grandma always say that. She tole me I had a happy disposition.'
'I think you do, Rennell. Where'd you get that, I wonder.'
'Payton.' The reflexive answer was followed by a sudden remembrance of their circumstances, causing Rennell's smile to vanish, his voice to soften. 'But now they're gonna kill him.'
'Let's not think about that now,' Lane suggested gently. 'Your smile got me thinking about when Payton was little, and you were just a knee baby. What were things like then?'
Rennell studied his handcuffs. 'Long time ago, man. Don't remember much about that, excepting Payton always took care of me.'
'How'd he do that?'
The question caused Rennell's eyes and mouth to tighten in concentration, or perhaps, Terri suspected, in fear. 'When I got scared.'
Lane glanced at Terri. In a tone of amiable sympathy, he said, 'When I was a kid, the dark used to scare me. What used to scare you?'
Rennell's expression seemed to close. 'Maybe when I got in trouble at school. Not learnin' stuff and all, like you said.'
The answer was so plainly deflective that it sparked a new keenness in Lane's eyes, though his smile remained in place. 'Ever get scared when you were just at home?'
Rennell flipped open a Hawkman comic with his thumb, staring at its images. 'I got scared, yeah.'
'When you got scared, what'd you do?'
Rennell kept gazing at the bright-colored pages. Lane waited for some moments before prodding, 'Rennell?'
The big man's eyes closed, and Terri saw that it was not the comics which had captured his mind. 'Sometimes Payton took me to the bush.'
'Tell me about the bush.'
'We be hiding out there.' Rennell's voice slowed, as though speaking a memory as it came to him. 'It was in the park, all thick and tangled up, with places where we hid. Seems like we're stayin' there for a long time.'
'What did you do?'
'Just hidin'. Sometimes Payton tell me stories.'
Lane smiled again. 'What kind of stories?'
' 'Bout what he'd be doin', when he growed up. Like havin' a big house with guard dogs all around it. He tole me I could live with him.'
'Bet that sounded good.'
'Yeah.' Terri heard a complex mix of warmth and fear and melancholy seep into Rennell's words. 'When we was kids, it sounded real good.'
'Sure. I get the part about hiding,' Lane ventured. 'Sometimes when we're little kids, our daddies get mad at us.'
In the silence which followed, Terri and Lane watched Rennell settle into an expressionless torpor. 'Yeah,' Rennell finally allowed. 'Sometimes he get mad.'
'Tell about a time your daddy gets mad.'
Rennell's shoulders twitched—a shrug, Terri thought, or perhaps a flinch. 'Gets mad a lot.'
'How can you tell he's mad?'
'When his eyes get bigger.'
'What happens when you see his eyes get bigger?'
Rennell raised his hands to his face, rubbing both eyes with his thumbs. 'He does bad things to me.'
Terri felt herself tense. But Lane maintained the same manner of empathic curiosity. 'What things are those?'
'Things.' Rennell kept rubbing, and his next words had a strangled quality. 'He hurts me.'
'Yeah,' Lane answered. 'I'm sorry he hurt you.'
Rennell's body shuddered, as though he was receding into his moments of darkest fear. Softly, Lane asked, 'What does he do to you, Rennell?'
Rennell shook his head. No more words came out.
Lane considered him and then, glancing at Terri, briefly frowned. After a moment, he asked Rennell, 'What did you do to be safe?'
Slowly, Rennell let his fingers slip from his face. 'Find Payton,' he answered. 'Sometimes he takes me to the bush.'
Lane, Terri saw, had begun studying Rennell's hands. 'Tell me about your mom,' he said.
Rennell's eyes remained closed. 'She didn't want me.'
'How do you know that?'
