The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,80
talk about it. I just—I did something I’m not happy about, and I don’t even know why I did it.”
“I bet you had a good reason.”
“I don’t know. That’s the whole problem: I don’t even know.”
The kids were still playing tag, the boy chasing after the girl, both of them shrieking with laughter that echoed back from the high ceiling and the concrete floor. A door opened, and a man called out a name. The kid with the ice pack shambled out of the lobby. When the door swung shut, stale air with the smell of microwave popcorn gusted through the lobby.
“I think for a long time, I told myself I didn’t want to be like all the sheep around me because it was a way of feeling better than everyone, when I’ve never really felt better than anyone. I mean, I know what I am.”
“Yeah. And I’m a fucking idiot who can’t read. And I didn’t graduate high school, and I didn’t go to college, and I don’t know how to fill out a job application or look for an apartment on my own. I didn’t know my Social Security number until you—”
“Jem, what happened?”
He shook his head.
After a moment, Tean said, “You can read.”
“I can’t read like an adult.”
“You’re getting better.”
Jem just shook his head again. They’d gone round and round like this too many times, and somehow he’d said it all wrong anyway. What he wanted to say was that he’d never wanted a normal life until he’d met Tean. And even that was a lie because he’d always wanted a normal life; he’d just never been willing to take risks for it until Tean. And it wasn’t just reading, it wasn’t just his ruined credit, it wasn’t just jobs and apartments and whatever the hell Tean meant when he talked about IRAs. It was the fact that there was something fundamentally screwed up inside Jem, something that made him not normal, and there weren’t any workbooks or GED classes that could fix that. He’d proven it today with the game he’d played with LouElla, the way it had gotten in his head and made him realize all over again how different he was from everybody around him.
“Beep beep boop?” Tean said.
“Boop,” Jem said. “Fucking boop.”
Across the room, the same door opened again, and another eddy of stale popcorn air rushed into the lobby. Ammon stood there in another of his cheap suits, trying hard to look unreadable when he was obviously excited. A little of that excitement faded when he took in how they were sitting: Tean’s arm around Jem, Jem’s head on the doc’s shoulder. Ammon came across the room toward them, the heels of his wingtips clicking.
“I don’t have time to talk,” he said. “I’m sorry, but today’s crazy.”
“You arrested Hannah,” Tean said, his arm sliding away from Jem as he stood.
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Without talking to me? Without even telling me?”
“This is a police investigation,” Ammon said. “I couldn’t tell you something like that even if I wanted to.”
“How did you find her?”
“She came in on her own.”
“Why did you arrest her?”
Ammon shook his head. “Are you not listening to me?”
“No, I want to know. I deserve to know. On what grounds? What’s the evidence?”
“I only came out here to let you know that you should go home. The best thing you can do for Hannah right now is make sure Caleb is ok, support him while they go through this. You can check her visiting hours—”
“Fuck visiting hours,” Tean said.
“That’s a dollar in the jar,” Jem said.
“You lied to me,” Tean said. “You used me. You told me you just wanted information from Hannah, and then you sat back and waited for us to drop the whole case in your lap.”
Tean turned to go, but Ammon gripped his arm and yanked him back. “First of all,” Ammon said in a furious whisper, “I begged you not to get involved again. I ordered you not to get involved again. Yes, I asked you to see if you could get Hannah to give up some information. At the time, I thought I was just looking for a missing person.”
“You’re an awful liar,” Tean said.
“I thought, at the time, I was doing the best thing for everyone. But don’t pretend I wound you up and let you loose and just waited for you to assemble all the evidence that your work wife is a murderer. I tried