hand. “Satisfied?”
The markings had been carved deep, and when Michael touched them he knew that Abigail had been the one to put them there. He tried to see her as she must have been, ten years old and bone thin, straining hard to make the lines of the cross so straight and true. “What was his name?”
“Give me a hundred dollars and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me or I put a bullet in your head.”
Her lips pursed, and she said, “Robert.”
“Robert.” He touched the markings again and looked at his mother. “What did he look like?”
“Trouble with a big damn T.” She waved a hand. “All you boys did.”
Michael felt new rage. “You should have gone away for this. You should have fried.”
“And if there was justice in the world, I’d be living rich or holding that gun. But that ain’t the world God made. Now…” She thumped the tree with her cane. “You seen it. You said your piece. Now, give an old lady a few dollars or go on and get the hell out.”
“Did you say justice?”
“You heard me.”
Michael felt the gun in his hand and it felt like the hand of God, like the universe rolled back to show the meaning of poetry and purpose. This woman had made him a killer so that he might one day kill this woman. It was a circle so perfect it smelled of providence. The gun came up and it was light in his hand. Mountain air tasted fresh in his throat. He could kill her now and bring closure to what remained of his family. Abigail would be free, Robert’s death avenged. Justice for the boys he and Julian had been.
“Do it,” she said.
He stared into her eyes, and saw nothing.
“Fucking do it!”
But even as the trigger creaked under his finger, Michael pictured Otto Kaitlin, who’d raised him to be better than the things he did. He thought of Elena, and the man she wished him to be, then of his own child and the father it deserved. He thought of the future he wanted.
The gun came down.
“I knew it, you pussy.” She spit on the dirt. “You limp-dick, red-assed cocksucker.”
Michael looked at the ravaged leg and unrepentant eyes, the cracked lips and bitterness. “I hope you live a very long time,” he said, and walked away.
He made it fifteen feet before she called after him. “Did Abigail tell you your real name?”
Michael looked back, momentarily undone as spite spread on his mother’s face. It was an orphan’s ultimate question. Who are my parents? What is my name?
“She didn’t tell you Robert’s name, so I’m guessing she didn’t tell you yours, either. She didn’t, did she? Selfish little brat.”
“We’re done here.” Michael started walking. She raised her voice.
“Whatever they named you at that orphanage ain’t the name God will know you by! That name comes from me!”
Leaves slapped at his face. The ground was smooth and damp.
“A momma leaves a mark when she names a child!”
Michael turned. “I want nothing from you.”
“What about your father’s name? You want that?” Michael raised the gun, pointed it at the soft place beneath her chin. “We already know you don’t have the guts.”
Michael put a shot past both sides of her head, the bullets so close and fast they lifted hair.
She froze, mouth open and dead silent. Michael said, “Next one goes in your right eye.” She risked a step back, and Michael matched her movement, the forest very green around them. “No one would miss you. No one out here would even care.”
Arabella held perfectly still, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers. Behind her, the gulley dropped off forty feet, water creaming white at the bottom. “You want your real name or not?”
“Not.”
“Then you’re nothing.”
“I disagree.”
“You have nothing.”
“I have eighty million dollars,” Michael said. “I have a brother and a sister, a family of my own.” He dropped the hammer on the gun, slipped it under his belt. “What do
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Two days later, the last reporters left Chatham County. The police were finished with Abigail and Julian; the feds were gone, headlines fading as bodies were buried and the investigation moved north. Late- morning sun slanted through Julian’s window as he stood before the tall mirror and finished knotting a silk tie. His suit was pressed and dark; he was anxious.
“May I come in?”
Abigail stood in the open door, a half-smile on her face.
“Sure.”
She crossed the room and stood beside him, peering into the mirror. “So serious,” she said.
“Don’t.”
“So thin.”
“Please.”
“I’m sorry.” She moved in front of him, adjusted his tie and then ran fingers down his lapels. “You’re right. It’s just that the world has been so serious. We should be the opposite. You’re safe. You’re well.”
“I don’t feel well.”
He was pale and terribly thin. The suit hung from his frame. “You’ll be okay, sweetheart.”
“I don’t know.” Julian held very still, eyes large and wounded as he studied his image in the mirror. “I feel… divided.”
“You don’t mean…?”
She was thinking of his schizophrenia, so Julian shook his head. “Not like that, no. It’s just…”
“What?”
She peered up, worried for him, frightened of a world that, to her, looked so thin beneath his feet. It had always been like that, soft words and troubled looks, the conviction he would melt as slow and sure as newsprint dropped on an empty sea. He shook his head, unwilling to talk about it. “I’m nervous, I guess.”
“Your name is known in forty countries,” Abigail said. “You’ve sold millions of books. I’ve seen you speak to a room of thousands…”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
Urgency gave weight to her question. The moment stretched, and Julian felt a connection between them, a bond that was real and strong and dark with things unsaid.
“It just is.”
It was a child’s answer, and he knew it. Yet, how could he explain that this was not about knowledge or strength or the man he’d set out to be? No matter what he accomplished, he would always be the boy from Iron House. He would always feel hunted and exposed, a half step too close to shadowed corners. He could bury such feelings for a while, but there was only so much dirt in the world. And that was the problem. For as
