Bigelow?”
Humor cooled out of Dave’s eyes. “We don’t run in the same circles as Graham and Eliza. She let that happen to her kids. Maybe she’s a victim, too, but she let that happen to her kids. And her son is hurt, terrified, and in prison. She let that happen, too.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll wait with them.”
Lee gave him directions, then sat back a minute. He’d been on his way home after a sixteen-hour day. Thinking he might have a before-bed beer.
Now it looked like more coffee with another long day to come.
He turned to his computer, did a run on Zane Bigelow, his parents, his aunt, Dave Carter. He got the phone number for the resort, and got to work.
* * *
When Zane looked back on the worst night of his life, small details stuck. The smell of the van—metallic covered with the sweat of fear and desperation. The sound of the wheels on the road sang misery. The impossible loneliness.
Whatever Dr. Marshall had given him for pain kept it under the surface. He knew it was there, knew it would come back, but he was too numb—body, mind, spirit—to care.
The guard had eyes like marbles, hard and cold. The driver said nothing. He was the only prisoner. He’d learn later his father’s insistence and influence helped speed his transport, alone and at such a late hour.
“Looks like you got your ass kicked, didn’t you? That’s what you get for going at your mother, your baby sister.”
Zane didn’t respond—what was the point? He kept his head down.
And later, like so many things later, he’d learned the guard’s marble eyes and the disgust in his voice were due, at least in part, to the fact that Dr. Graham Bigelow had performed surgery on the guard’s son after a car accident.
He couldn’t find his fear, couldn’t even dig down through the numb for worry.
Until the misery music of the tires changed to a kind of threatening grumble. And he heard the sound of the gate clanging shut behind the van.
Panic bloomed in his belly, spread its tendrils into his chest. And rocks tumbled over it, sharp and heavy. He felt tears stinging the back of his eyes, and some instinct, some atavistic animal inside him warned that if they fell, if even one escaped, it would doom him.
“Welcome home, asshole.”
The guard had to help him out of the van. If he felt any pity for the trembling boy with a splinted arm and ankle boot, he didn’t show it.
He went through a steel door, a metal detector. He had to stand against a wall, bright lights in his eyes, his weight on his uninjured foot. He gave his name, his birth date, his address.
They took him to a room, took his clothes. He couldn’t undress himself with his arm splinted, so suffered the humiliation of being stripped down, the unspeakable humiliation of the strip search.
They gave him clothes. Orange shirt, orange pants, orange clogs—or one clog because of the boot. They had to dress him.
They took him to a room—they called it a pod. It wasn’t a cell like he’d imagined; it didn’t have bars. It had a cot, a toilet, a sink. No window.
“You get up when we tell you. You make your bed, and wait till we take you in for breakfast. You eat what we give you. Since you got your ass kicked, you’ll get a check at the infirmary before you talk to the head shrink, who’s going to ask you about your fucking feelings. You do what you’re told when you’re told. Give me any shit, you’ll pay for it.”
Marble Eyes stepped to the door. “Your father’s a great man. You’re nothing.”
He went out. The door locked with a click that boomed in Zane’s ears.
And the lights went out.
He took one limping step, feeling for a wall, ramming his shin against the side of the cot. He crawled onto it as the trembles turned to shudders, as his breathing devolved into a kind of mewling.
He tried to curl up, just to hold on to himself, but he couldn’t manage it. He wanted to sleep, just sleep, just sleep, but the pain broke through the surface.
He let the tears come now. No one to see, no one to care. The sobs racked him, hurt his chest, his belly, his throat. But when he’d exhausted them, the panic went with them.
He lay, body throbbing, spirit dead.
Hours before, just hours before, he’d kissed the girl. He’d looked