Rennell inhaled, inward pain filling his voice. 'She always tole me that.'
'Why'd she say that?'
Rennell's silence was followed by a shrug of resignation. ' 'Cause I did stupid things, I guess. Just acted stupid without knowin' I was.'
Terri could feel him sliding into a depression. 'When you were a kid,' she asked as a diversion, 'what did you want to be?'
Rennell's eyes remained closed. 'Maybe a pilot, or a superhero. Like Hawkman. Just fly over everything, where it's safe.'
The poignancy of his last phrase made Terri pause. 'What were the best things that ever happened to you?'
'Don't know.' Rennell's voice softened. 'Maybe when Payton took me to the store. Or maybe,' he amended, 'when he sat with me in the cafeteria at school. Sometimes no one else ever sits with me.'
Lane, Terri saw, was still gazing at Rennell's hands. 'I guess that made you feel bad,' he said. 'What else made you feel bad?'
Rennell's head bent forward slightly. 'When it rained.'
'Why don't you like rain?'
'Can't go outside then.'
'Why'd you want to go outside?'
Pausing, Rennell seemed to swallow. 'Daddy. Rain was like it was at night.'
'And you didn't like night, I guess.'
Rennell shook his head.
'Why not?'
' 'Cause I'm afraid. Don't want to go to sleep.'
'Why?'
Lightly, Rennell touched the side of his face. 'Sometimes I wake up crying.'
'Is that what you were afraid of—crying?'
Silent, Rennell rested his forehead in the chain between his hands.
'Rennell?'
'Sometimes I'd hear Daddy, my mama screaming.' His eyes shut tighter. 'Head hurts so much it's like it's going to explode. Least it keeps me awake.'
'What did your daddy do to Mama?'
Rennell shook his head, a stubborn gesture of refusal. Gently, Lane took Rennell's hands from beneath his face and laid them on the table, tracing a scar on Rennell's left wrist that Terri had not noticed. Voice still quiet, Lane asked, 'When did you try to hurt yourself, Rennell?'
Once more, Rennell shook his head. No words came out.
'Okay,' Lane said softly. 'Okay. We'll just take a rest for a little while, and then maybe you can help me out with something.'
Rennell's eyes slowly opened.
'Okay.' Lane's fingers intertwined with Rennell's. 'Stay with me, son.'
Waiting, Terri felt the gooseflesh on her skin, a hollowness in the pit of her stomach. 'I want you to remember something for us,' Lane told Rennell. 'Something hard. Because it's important.'
Rennell's eyes screwed up again. 'Your mama stabbed your daddy,' Lane said, 'when you were nine years old. Terri and I need for you to tell us what you saw.'
Rennell raised his face as though to gaze at the ceiling, save that his eyes remained closed. 'Blood,' he answered finally and then, with his next few broken words, summoned an image which pierced Terri's heart.
* * *
Vernon Price lay on the carpet, eyes wild with shock and fright and hatred, white T-shirt shining with his blood pumping from his chest. Rennell could not speak or move.
'Want my blood?' Price shrieked at the boy. 'Then you come here, you stupid pussy.'
Fear made Rennell's feet move closer to his father. With a spasm of rage, his father grabbed his wrists, drawing Rennell's face close to his. His ragged breath smelled like blood and whiskey.
'She did this, you son of a whore.' Price placed his palm to his pulsing wound, then slowly wiped his blood across the boy's face and eyes. 'Only blood of mine you'll ever get.'
A stream of red came gushing from his mouth.
* * *
That was all Rennell would say.
When they were done, Terri stood with Anthony Lane in the parking lot. 'It's way too hard on him,' she said. 'And there's too damned much I know we're missing.'
