my brother away to his Texas ranch and his big family. Daddy always joked how she transformed herself from a Yankee to a Texan. I was born quickly; Sadie, four years later.”
“And they lived happily ever after?” Palpable sarcasm.
“You know, you’re an ass. I’m surprised you’re not beaten up every day.”
Jack’s phone beeped. A text message. He glanced down.
“We’ll have to continue this later,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
I was back on the sidewalk in forty seconds, dazed, angry, wondering how a professional like me, trained to strip away the layers of the human soul, had extracted so little from Jack Smith. He’d played on my fear brilliantly.
I uneasily entered the parking garage where I’d left the truck a couple of hours earlier. It was a different parking garage from the one where I fired a gun, at the opposite side of town, convenientlylocated near the Bank of the Wild West. Nonetheless, it was a parking garage.
It helped that I rode up in the elevator with a beautiful, ethereal-looking young couple, professional orchestra musicians, lugging their instrument cases from Bass Hall and arguing whether Rostropovich or Casals was the greatest cellist of all time.
Mama would have an opinion
, I thought.
I got off by myself on the second floor, my eyes sweeping every corner of the garage as I walked to Daddy’s truck. Neurotically, I peered in the pickup bed, then at the cars parked on either side of me. An empty blue Mustang convertible on the right, and, on the left, a green late-model Jeep. The interior of the Jeep appeared piled to the top with trash, leaving about a six-inch view out the back window.
A hoarder, I thought. Hoarders usually start their habit as teenagers. Most don’t seek treatment until reaching fifty. A lifetime of pointless shame.
As I moved closer, I could see that there was more organization to the mess inside than I’d thought. The car was crammed to the top with papers and files, not garbage. Still, it appeared obsessive. A delicate chain with a small gold medallion hung from the rearview mirror.
As I pulled out of the parking garage, I mentally kicked myself again.
I hadn’t asked Jack for the name of the dead girl, the one he said shared my Social Security number. And maybe something much worse.
CHAPTER 10
I no longer know who I am
.
I said it out loud, in the pickup, halfway home to Sadie.
I am a product of lies
.
The knowledge was making me reckless.
I shouldn’t be doing this alone.
I should never have followed Jack Smith into that hotel. My cell phone buzzed in the seat beside me and I jumped, skittering into another lane, nearly hitting a Volkswagen Beetle.
I straightened out the wheel, grabbing the phone, staring at the readout, my heart tripping erratically.
Marcia. W.A.’s secretary.
I stabbed at the touch screen.
“Hello? Marcia? Hello?”
She started in immediately.
“Hi, honey. Just wanted to let you know that W.A. is in a five-foot hover. As you know, he does not like loose details. He had no idea, no idea
ta’tall
”—she emphasized these last two syllables with Texan flair—“that your mother was carrying on secretly with that bank. He’s over there right now. Made ’em open up past quittin’ time just for him to get things settled. Thankgoodness, I calmed him down a bit before he called the bank president.” She drew in an audible breath. “Wild West. Even for Texas, that’s a silly name for a bank. I’d sooner shoot off my right pinkie toe than put my money there or shop at Walmart on a Sunday afternoon. But the president was quite cooperative. Turns out his dad was Billy Bob Jordan, who used to go up against W.A. back in the day. You remember him?”
Marcia was always asking whether I remembered people I never knew. If I didn’t hop in quickly, she was sure to give extensive details of Billy Bob’s lineage going back to the Confederacy.
“Well, at least he’s not in an eight-foot hover. Or a ten-foot
“And they lived happily ever after?” Palpable sarcasm.
“You know, you’re an ass. I’m surprised you’re not beaten up every day.”
Jack’s phone beeped. A text message. He glanced down.
“We’ll have to continue this later,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
I was back on the sidewalk in forty seconds, dazed, angry, wondering how a professional like me, trained to strip away the layers of the human soul, had extracted so little from Jack Smith. He’d played on my fear brilliantly.
I uneasily entered the parking garage where I’d left the truck a couple of hours earlier. It was a different parking garage from the one where I fired a gun, at the opposite side of town, convenientlylocated near the Bank of the Wild West. Nonetheless, it was a parking garage.
It helped that I rode up in the elevator with a beautiful, ethereal-looking young couple, professional orchestra musicians, lugging their instrument cases from Bass Hall and arguing whether Rostropovich or Casals was the greatest cellist of all time.
Mama would have an opinion
, I thought.
I got off by myself on the second floor, my eyes sweeping every corner of the garage as I walked to Daddy’s truck. Neurotically, I peered in the pickup bed, then at the cars parked on either side of me. An empty blue Mustang convertible on the right, and, on the left, a green late-model Jeep. The interior of the Jeep appeared piled to the top with trash, leaving about a six-inch view out the back window.
A hoarder, I thought. Hoarders usually start their habit as teenagers. Most don’t seek treatment until reaching fifty. A lifetime of pointless shame.
As I moved closer, I could see that there was more organization to the mess inside than I’d thought. The car was crammed to the top with papers and files, not garbage. Still, it appeared obsessive. A delicate chain with a small gold medallion hung from the rearview mirror.
As I pulled out of the parking garage, I mentally kicked myself again.
I hadn’t asked Jack for the name of the dead girl, the one he said shared my Social Security number. And maybe something much worse.
CHAPTER 10
I no longer know who I am
.
I said it out loud, in the pickup, halfway home to Sadie.
I am a product of lies
.
The knowledge was making me reckless.
I shouldn’t be doing this alone.
I should never have followed Jack Smith into that hotel. My cell phone buzzed in the seat beside me and I jumped, skittering into another lane, nearly hitting a Volkswagen Beetle.
I straightened out the wheel, grabbing the phone, staring at the readout, my heart tripping erratically.
Marcia. W.A.’s secretary.
I stabbed at the touch screen.
“Hello? Marcia? Hello?”
She started in immediately.
“Hi, honey. Just wanted to let you know that W.A. is in a five-foot hover. As you know, he does not like loose details. He had no idea, no idea
ta’tall
”—she emphasized these last two syllables with Texan flair—“that your mother was carrying on secretly with that bank. He’s over there right now. Made ’em open up past quittin’ time just for him to get things settled. Thankgoodness, I calmed him down a bit before he called the bank president.” She drew in an audible breath. “Wild West. Even for Texas, that’s a silly name for a bank. I’d sooner shoot off my right pinkie toe than put my money there or shop at Walmart on a Sunday afternoon. But the president was quite cooperative. Turns out his dad was Billy Bob Jordan, who used to go up against W.A. back in the day. You remember him?”
Marcia was always asking whether I remembered people I never knew. If I didn’t hop in quickly, she was sure to give extensive details of Billy Bob’s lineage going back to the Confederacy.
“Well, at least he’s not in an eight-foot hover. Or a ten-foot
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