Triptych

His mouth opened so that he could breathe. “Maybe you shouldn’t…”

“I know you don’t have anybody to talk to,” she said, her hand firm on his leg. “I just want you to know that you can talk to me.”

He shook his head, whispering, “Robin…”

She rubbed her hand back and forth. “It’s been a long time, huh?”

Never, John thought. It’s been never.

“You wa

“I don’t…” He couldn’t think. “I don’t have any money to-”

She moved closer to him. “I told you. I’m off the clock.”

If her hand went any higher, he was going to have to ask the waitress for a towel. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find some strength.

He put his hand over hers. “I can’t.”

“You don’t want me?”

“There’s not a man alive who doesn’t want you,” he said, thinking there were no truer words ever spoken. “I care about you, Robin. I know that’s stupid. I know I don’t even know you. But I can’t get you involved in my problems, okay? There’s already been too many people hurt. If something happened to you, if you got hurt, too…” He shook his head. He couldn’t think about it. “When this is over,” he said. “When this is over, I’ll find you.”

Robin had taken her hand away. She held her cup up to her mouth and repeated the question. “Who’s blackmailing you, John?”

Her tone had changed. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint how, but it reminded him of the guards in prison, the way they asked a question knowing that you had to answer them or they’d throw you in the hole.

He said, “It’ll all be settled soon.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m just taking care of it,” he told her. “I can’t say anything else about it right now.”

“You’re not going to tell me anything?”

“Nope,” he told her.

“Are you sure, John?”

She was so serious. He gave her a questioning smile, said, “Let’s talk about something else.”

“I need you to talk to me,” she said. “I need to know what’s going on.”

“What’s this all about?”

“It’s about your life, John. Can’t you be up-front with me?”

The hairs on the back of his neck went up. “I don’t like where this is going.”

Robin put down her mug. She stood up, her expression turning hard. “I tried to help you. Remember that.”

“Come on,” he said, not knowing what he’d done wrong. “Robin-”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see the man in the three-piece suit standing behind him.

John said, “What’s going on?”

The man looked at Robin, so John did, too.

“I’m sorry, John,” she said, and she really seemed to be, but he did not know why. She reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. Stupidly, he thought she was going to pay the bill. He opened his mouth to tell her not to worry about it, but by then he caught the glint of gold as she flipped open her badge.

As if he couldn’t see for himself, she told him, “I’m a cop.”

“Robin-”

“It’s Angie, actually.” The man behind him tightened his hand on John’s shoulder. “Let’s do this outside.”

“No…” John could feel his body starting to shake, his muscles turning to liquid.

“Outside,” she ordered, her hand digging up under his arm, making him stand.

He walked like an invalid, leaning against her as the man opened the door. The Decatur cops had done the same thing to him when they had dragged him out of his bedroom. They had taken him down the stairs, into the front yard and cuffed him in front of the whole neighborhood. Somebody had screamed, and when he looked behind him, he realized it was his mother. Emily had fallen to her knees, Richard not even trying to hold her up, as she sobbed.

The sun in the parking lot outside the diner was brutal, and John blinked. He realized he was panting. Jail. They were taking him to jail. They’d take away his clothes, strip-search him, fingerprint him, throw him in a cell with a bunch of other men who were just waiting for John to show back up, waiting to show him exactly what they thought about a child-raping con who couldn’t make it on the outside.

“Will.” She was talking to the man behind John. “Don’t.”

John saw the silver cuffs the man held in his hand.

“Please…” John managed. He couldn’t breathe. His knees buckled. The last thing he saw was Robin moving forward to break his fall.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

8:55 am

Angie felt dirty. Even after a scalding hot shower, she felt like she would never get rid of the filth inside.

The look on John’s face, the fear, the sense of betrayal, had cut her heart like a jagged piece of metal. Will had carried John to the car, helped him into the backseat like a child getting ready for a trip to the store. Angie had stood there thinking, Here are the two men whose lives I’ve ruined the most.

She left before Will could stop her.

What was it about John Shelley that made her want to save him? Maybe it was because he was all alone in the world. Maybe it was because he wore his loneliness like a suit of armor that only Angie could see. He was like Will. Exactly like Will.

Despite the fact that she had cleaned her house top to bottom a few days before, Angie put on her gloves and went to work. She used half a gallon of bleach in the bathroom, scrubbing the glistening white grout with a toothbrush. Will had laid the tile for her, putting it on a diagonal because he knew instinctively that this would make the room look larger. He had painted the walls a creamy yellow and used an off-white oil on the trim while Angie had chided him about his decorating skills.

She should call him. Will was just doing his job. He was a good cop, but he was also a good man and it wasn’t right for her to punish him because John Shelley had gotten mixed up in something bad. As soon as she finished cleaning the house, she would call Will’s cell, make sure he knew it was the situation she hated, not him.

Angie started on the kitchen next, taking out pots and pans, wiping out all the cabinets. She kept going over what had happened this morning, trying to think if there was a way she could have made it easier.

“Fuck,” Angie cursed. She needed shelf liner. It was stupid to wipe out the cabinets when there was probably all kinds of trash underneath the liner. She picked at the corner of the sticky vinyl on the bottom of the sink cabinet, ripping it up in two pieces. The base was clean, but she had already ruined the liner. Angie stood to get more, realizing before she even reached the pantry that she was out.

“Fuck,” she cursed again, snapping off her cleaning gloves. She threw them into the sink, offering a few more expletives as she looked for her keys.

Ten minutes later, she was in her car, driving not to the grocery store, but straight up Ponce de Leon toward Stone Mountain. She knew where Michael lived. After they fucked, or, more to the point, after Michael fucked her, Angie had gotten a little obsessed. She had driven by his house a couple of times, seen his wife and kid in the driveway, caught sight of Michael washing his car. This behavior hadn’t lasted long- maybe a week-before she realized she was acting like a deranged person. It wasn’t Michael she was furious with, but herself, for getting into another bad situation.

The Ormewoods lived in a ranch house that fit the other houses in the neighborhood. Angie parked in the empty driveway. If any of the neighbors noticed her black Monte Carlo SS was out of place, they didn’t come ru

She was dressed in her usual cleaning attire: a pair of cutoffs, one of Will’s old shirts and some pink flip-flops she had slid into as she left the house. The shoes made a popping sound against her soles as she walked up to the garage. The wind was blowing, and Angie wrapped her arms around her waist to fight the chill. She stood on tiptoe as she peered into the garage.