his ass.
“Alright,” Carter said. “Call me when you do.”
“Hey,” I said, as he walked off. “Are we cool?”
He paused, thinking about it for a moment, his features silhouetted against the bright daylight. We had morphed back into our usual routine while we were in the casino, but it still felt like there was something hanging in the air between us.
“We’re getting there,” he said.
He headed off for his car, and I figured that was as fair of a response as I could expect.
I walked across the parking lot and got into the Jeep. Then I started it up and zig-zagged through the aisles, heading for the exit. As I passed the front entrance, I glanced at the giant glass doors and up higher at the top floor where Moffitt’s office was housed.
A figure in a window directly above the entrance caught my attention.
I hit the brakes, checked the mirror to make sure no one was behind me, then looked back up to the window. It was empty.
I let the Jeep idle for a moment and watched the window to see if anyone returned. It stayed empty.
Finally, I stepped on the gas and headed out of the lot, wondering what that goateed bully was doing staring down at me.
TWENTY-FIVE
The next day, I decided on a different tact. I was frustrated at making little headway and learning virtually nothing about Simington. I knew there was one person who would be able to provide some information, and I had avoided her long enough.
I needed to talk with my mother.
Carolina Braddock and I had reached something resembling a truce for the previous few months. We talked a couple of times a month, had dinner or lunch at least once. I tried to be pleasant, and she tried not to be drunk. We hadn’t erased the discord of the past, but we seemed to be moving forward rather than stalled in the yesteryears.
As I pulled up in front of her house, the place I grew up in and sprinted from the day I was able, I reminded myself that this wasn’t a social call.
This would be business.
The house looked the same as it always did. Not great, not awful. Just indifferent. Patches of brown grass. Cracks in the driveway. Faded paint. Dusty windows. A garage door that never hit the ground squarely.
I stuck my finger on the doorbell and wondered if it would ever change.
Carolina appeared behind the screen door. “Noah,” she said. “This is unexpected.”
My antenna went up. “Pleasant surprise” would have meant she was happy to see me. “Unexpected” said to me that she was partially into a bottle. But this wasn’t a prearranged meeting, so our truce rules weren’t in play.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think to call. Can I come in for a minute?”
“Of course,” she said, pushing the screen open and letting me through.
The living room hadn’t changed a second since I’d been a kid. Same brown corduroy couch and loveseat. An old, cheap coffee table that sported faint crayon marks. Shag carpet that had moved from beige to dirty beige. An old console television against the wall. An attempt to freshen things up with the odor of Lysol.
My childhood tried a full-scale rush into my head, but I slammed the door.
“Sit, sit,” she said, moving the newspaper off the sofa.
She wore a faded blue sweatshirt and jeans. Her brownish-blond hair was pulled away from her face and back into a rubber band. She still looked ten years younger than her age.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” she said, straightening the magazines on the table. “So sorry it’s a mess.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t mean to barge in.”
“You’re never barging. Would you like something to drink?” In this house, that question always felt like a powder keg. “No, I’m good,” I said.
Carolina walked over to the Formica dining room table and picked up a half-empty plastic tumbler. Ice and what looked like lemonade. A slight misstep as she turned back around forced her to catch herself and regain her balance.
Not just lemonade.
She smiled and came back to the sofa, tumbler in hand. “So. How are you?”
“I’m okay,” I said, wondering if the lemonade contained vodka or gin. She loved them both. “You?”
She took a sip of the drink and smiled again. “Good. Really.”
Maybe we had agreed to a truce, but there was nothing we could do about the awkwardness of it all.
“I need to ask you about something,” I said.
She held the cup in both hands, her delicate fingers around it like a vice. “Alright.”
