He found a convenience store about a mile down the cross street. There were no other customers. The clerk was watching a TV mounted above the scratch tickets. An onscreen reporter stood in front of the visitors’ entrance at Sweetwater State Penitentiary, the volume too low to be heard. Wyatt took a five-pound bag of ice from the freezer, grabbed a roll of paper towels, and went to the counter.
“Got any sandwiches?” Wyatt said.
“No more sandwiches,” the clerk said. “New policy. You could try the Lunch Box.” He pointed down the street.
Wyatt drove a few blocks farther, bought three turkey sandwiches and a six-pack of soda. The TV at the Lunch Box was tuned to a business show; numbers and symbols streamed across the top and bottom of the screen. Wyatt went back to Greer’s old house. No one was on the street or at any of the windows in the nearby houses, two of which also had bank-sale signs on the front lawns. Wyatt parked, walked to the front door, and knocked.
The door opened, whoever was doing the opening staying out of sight behind it. Wyatt went in. “That was quick,” Sonny said, closing the door. If anything, he now looked worse than before, a thin sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
Wyatt handed over the bag of ice. “I’ve got sandwiches, too.”
“Great,” said Sonny.
They went into the kitchen. No appliances, but the sink was still in place. Sonny pounded the ice bag in the metal basin, wrapped a few chunks in paper towel, pressed them lightly against the bashed-in side of his face and his swollen eyelid.
“Ah,” he said. He leaned against the wall, closed his good eye, took a deep breath.
Wyatt snapped two sodas from the six-pack. “Greer upstairs?” he said.
Sonny’s good eye opened. “Actually, no,” he said. He pushed himself off the wall, stood straight. “She left.”
Wyatt, almost at the door, turned back. “Left?”
“She got a call,” Sonny said, “and two minutes later she was out the door.”
“A call from who?”
“Don’t know. But, uh…”
“What?” said Wyatt. “Tell me.”
Sonny exhaled a long, slow breath. “I peeked out through the window upstairs. Some guy came to pick her up.”
“What guy?”
“Didn’t get a good look at him,” Sonny said. “He stayed in the car.”
“What kind of car?”
“A Lexus, I think, something fancy like that. Haven’t kept up with cars all that well. But I caught the plate number, one of those vanity plates, easy to remember- VAN 1. I didn’t get the impression she was coming back.”
Wyatt set the two soda cans on the counter, very gently, as though they were fragile. He just stood there, feeling hollowed out inside. Either Greer had been outright lying to him or she’d been going back and forth in her own mind, playing fair with nobody. Was there a third possibility? None that he could see.
He felt Sonny’s hand on his shoulder. “There’ll be other girls, son. Maybe with a more honest approach, if you don’t mind my opinion.”
Wyatt turned, stepped away. “What does that mean?”
Sonny sighed. “Take the arson, for example-that was her.”
“But you told me it wasn’t.”
“Probably a mistake, in retrospect. But I didn’t see myself as the bad-news messenger, not when we were just getting to know each other, you and me. Plus she pretty much begged me not to tell, one time in the visitors’ room. The truth is she might have been a little impulsive, but she was only trying to help her old man.”
“What about Freddie Helms?”
“Who’s he?”
“The firefighter who got his face practically burned off.”
“I didn’t know about that,” Sonny said.
There was a long silence. The ice in the paper-towel ice pack melted and water ran down Sonny’s face.
Wyatt had a sudden thought. “What if she tells Van you’re here?”
“She won’t do that,” Sonny said. He went to the sink, prepared another ice pack, held it to his head. “Do I smell turkey?” he said. He went to the counter, opened the bag. “Is one for me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Sonny took out a sandwich and unwrapped it. “Real food.” He picked it up. Wyatt wondered: how was he going to eat it with his teeth like that? But he managed, no problem. “How about you?” Sonny said between mouthfuls.
“I’m not hungry.”
Sonny cracked open a soda, drank it down in two swallows. “You okay with lending me the car? I’ll bring it back, promise.”
“Before you turn yourself in?”
“Exactly.”
“What if you get spotted?”
“A risk I’ll have to take,” Sonny said.
“I’ll drive,” Wyatt said. “I want to help.”
Sonny bowed his head. “Thank you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Millerville.”
“And then?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Sonny said. “Right now I’m going to grab a little shut-eye. You should, too.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“Suit yourself.”
Sonny turned, went upstairs. Wyatt heard him moving down the hall toward Bert Torrance’s old bedroom.
A few minutes later, Wyatt realized that in fact he was very tired. He entered Greer’s old bedroom, gazed at the mattress on the floor, finally lay down on it. After a while he took out his cell phone and called her, without the slightest idea of what he would say. He got sent straight to voice mail, and left no message. Rain hammered on the roof.
30
Wyatt smelled Greer, opened his eyes. It was dark, and for a moment he had no idea where he was. Then it came back: Greer’s old bedroom, no Greer.
He got up, rubbed his eyes, looked out the window. Dim lights shone in the windows of a neighboring house or two; other than that, nothing but darkness and the rain falling steadily. He flicked a light switch and nothing happened.
Wyatt left the bedroom, moved carefully down the dark hall and into the kitchen, slightly lit by a streetlamp halfway down the block. The bag of ice, split down the middle, still lay in the sink, most of the ice melted. He dipped his cupped fingers in the bag, splashed cold water on his face. The rain slanted past the streetlamp in black streaks. Wyatt flipped open his phone, checked the time: 7:13. He was hungry. He opened the sandwich bag and found it empty.
Wyatt climbed the stairs, walked down the hall to Bert Torrance’s old bedroom. Light from the same streetlamp came through the window, somewhat brighter than downstairs. Sonny lay on the floor in the corner,
