CHILD OF FIRE
GAME OF CAGES
For MaryAnn
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER ONE
It was three days before Christmas, and I was not in prison. I couldn’t understand why I was free. I hadn’t hidden my face during the job in Hammer Bay. I hadn’t used a fake name. I honestly hadn’t expected to survive.
I had, though. The list of crimes I’d committed there included breaking and entering, arson, assault, and murder. And what could I have said in my defense? That the people I’d killed really deserved it?
Washington State executes criminals by lethal injection, and for that first night in my own bed, I imagined I was lying on a prison cot in a room with a glass wall, a needle in my arm.
That hadn’t happened. Instead, I’d met with an attorney the society hired, kept my mouth shut, stood in at least a dozen lineups, and waited for the fingerprint and DNA analysis to come back. When it did, they let me go. Maybe I’d only dreamed about the people I’d killed.
So, months later, I was wearing my white supermarket polo shirt, stocking an endcap with gift cards for other stores. It was nearly nine at night, and I had just started my shift. I liked the late shift. It gave me something to do when the restlessness became hard to take.
At the front of the store, a woman was questioning the manager, Harvey. He gestured toward me. At first I figured her for another detective. Even though the last press release about me stated I’d been the victim of identity theft and the police were searching for other suspects, detectives still dropped by my work and home at random times to take another run at me. They weren’t fooled. They knew.
But she didn’t have a cop’s body language. She wore casual gray office clothes and sensible work shoes, an outfit so ordinary I barely noticed it. She walked briskly toward me, clutching a huge bag. Harvey followed.
She was tall and broad in the hips, and had long, delicate hands, large eyes, and a pointed chin. Her skin color showed that she had both black and white parentage, which in this country made her black. “You’re Ray Lilly, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Who’s asking?”
“My name is Catherine Little. I’m a friend of your mother’s.”
That hit me like a punch in the gut. The last time I saw my mother, I was fourteen years old and headed into juvie. She was not someone I thought about. Ever. “Who are you again?”
“I’m Catherine. I work with your mother. I’m a friend of hers. She asked me to contact you.”
“Where is she?” I peered through the glass doors into the parking lot, but it was pitch-dark outside.
“Okay. This is the hard part. Your mom’s in the hospital. She’s had some … issues the last few days. She asked
