'Go,' her mother's lips repeat, and then, still looking at Terri, she makes the soft cry of pleasure her husband wants.
Terri turns and slowly climbs the stairs, footsteps soft so that her father will not hear. Her eyes fill with tears . . .
* * *
Tonight, twenty-five years later, Terri opened her eyes and saw the Pagets' gleaming kitchen. She had escaped, and now she owed Rennell Price, whose trauma she understood in a way that Chris and Carlo could not, all that she had to give.
She had escaped her own childhood, and yet she had not escaped. The past had reached out for her, and taken Elena.
* * *
Exhausted from her sleepless night, Terri finished telling Rennell of Payton's confession. 'He says the second man was Eddie,' she concluded. 'And that no one knows but them.'
Rennell said nothing. Terri studied his face for evidence of Payton's betrayal—at once fearful of the pain she had inflicted and hoping for some sign of his innocence.
At last he swallowed, a twitch of the throat muscles. 'For sure they're gonna kill him now.'
'What do you mean, Rennell?'
Rennell blinked, his voice thick with grief. 'Payton's trying to take care of me, and now they're gonna kill him for it.'
Perhaps the depth of Payton's wrong was too enormous for him to grasp. 'He's not dying for you,' she answered. 'He's dying because he's guilty of Thuy Sen's murder. He doesn't want you to die for what he did.'
Rennell's hand covered hers. 'Save him,' he whispered. 'Please.'
Briefly, Terri closed her eyes. But are you innocent? she wanted to ask. When she opened her eyes again, tears were running down his face. 'I can't,' she told him. 'There's only you to save now.'
NINETEEN
TERRI SAT WITH YANCEY JAMES ON A PARK BENCH ACROSS FROM City Hall, its golden dome glistening in the sunlight of a crisp fall afternoon. In the carefully tended park in front of them, homeless men and women, some with shopping carts, patrolled the walkways which crisscrossed the grass. James observed them with what, to Terri, seemed empathy and self- recognition.
'So easy to fall,' he murmured, 'so hard to get back up. Folks don't often appreciate how little separates them from us.'
To Terri, James's manner and appearance had come as a surprise. The man Eula Price and Lou Mauriani had described to her was fleshy and bombastic, with a voice which wafted multisyllabic phrases with the resonance of a church organ. But this Yancey James was quiet and reflective, with the hollowed-out look of a man who had lost weight too quickly, perhaps because of illness. His neck was a loose crepe of skin, his face smoother but close to gaunt. The life in his eyes had vanished.
Terri herself was wary—fearful that James might know some fact that exploded Payton's confession, or pointed to Rennell's guilt; concerned that her need to establish James's incompetence might keep him from talking. 'About the Price case,' she began, 'I wasn't there. I just need to know what you know, for better or worse. And how the case looked to you.'
This elicited the wisp of a smile, which briefly touched his eyes. 'You don't have to be so kindly, Ms. Paget. The A.G.'s folks already been sniffin' around, sayin' how you gonna be bad-mouthing me in court—them hopin' I'd tell them how great I'd done for Rennell Price.' His voice was weary. 'Everybody's tiptoein' up to me like I'm mentally ill, like if they say somethin' mean—or even truthful—I might go postal. Or maybe just break down weepin'.'
Terri smiled. 'Then I'll skip the niceties. If you want to tell me how you screwed up this case, it's okay by me. You're Rennell's last chance of living.'
James gave a rueful shake of the head. 'Odds are it's the only chance I'll ever give him. Just wish I could remember more—fifteen years was a long time ago, even without a wicked cross-addiction to Jack Daniel's and cocaine.' He turned to the park again, gaze distant, speaking softly. 'Know what it's like to be sober, and disbarred? It's like wakin' up in your car in your own garage, but the windshield's busted so bad you can't see out and the hood's all bent out of shape. And all you can do is sit there and wonder how it happened and why you're still alive, 'cause you can't remember drivin' home.'
'What do you remember?'
James's eyes narrowed. 'The grandmother,' he said at length, 'when I told her the boys were in trouble, and I needed more money to investigate. The fear in her eyes gave me a moment of remorse. Maybe even two.'
Terri watched his profile; he seemed to study the park less from interest than from the wish not to look at her. 'Did you investigate?' she asked.
'Me? At no time. I hired another cokehead, a so-called investigator named Rufus Cross, who kicked back half his fees to me. Don't imagine he did squat, either.' He paused, an ironic resignation seeping into his voice. 'You're welcome to look at my files.'
For whatever good they would be, Terri thought. 'What do you remember about Rennell?'
'Nothing much. Never said nothin', really. Just looked right through me. I remember thinkin', Here he is charged with chokin' a nine-year-old on his own come, and he don't give a damn.'
The image of Rennell at eighteen, inexorably headed toward a fate he was too impaired to see, hit Terri hard. 'Did you consider that he might be retarded?'
'Retarded?' James spoke the word with bemusement and, it seemed, a touch of self-reproach. 'He acted like a guilty man stickin' to his big brother's story, and waitin' for Payton to find him a way out. Maybe if I'd ever met with him alone . . .'
