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“Willie?” Angie called as she made her way through the living room. She paused at the open kitchen doorway. Angie had always embraced her feminine side. She favored figure-hugging skirts and shirts that showed her ample cleavage. Today, she was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans that hung low on her hips. She had lost weight in the three weeks since he’d last seen her. The pants were loose, but not on purpose. Will could see a black thong peeking over the top of the waistband.
Betty started growling again. Angie hissed at the dog. Then she looked at Will. Then she looked at the light blue file folder in his hand. She asked, “Reading up, baby?”
Will didn’t answer.
Angie walked to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. She unscrewed the cap. She took a long swig as she studied Will. “You look like shit.”
He felt like shit. All he wanted to do was put his head down on the table and sleep. “What do you want?”
She leaned back against the counter. He should’ve been surprised by her words, but then, nothing Angie said ever really surprised him. “What are we going to do about your father?”
Will stared down at the file. The kitchen was quiet. He could hear the whistling sound of Betty’s breathing, the tinkle of the tags on her collar as she settled back down.
Angie had never been good at waiting him out. “Well?”
Will didn’t have an answer for her. Eighteen hours of thinking about it pretty much nonstop hadn’t brought any solutions. “I’m not going to do anything.”
Angie seemed disappointed. “You need to call your girlfriend and ask for your balls back.”
Will glared at her. “What do you want, Angie?”
“Your father’s been out for almost six weeks. Did you know that?”
Will felt his stomach clench. He hadn’t bothered to look up the details in the state database, but he’d assumed the release was recent, in the last few days, not almost two months ago.
She said, “He’s sixty-four now. Diabetic. Had a massive heart attack a few years ago. Old people are expensive to take care of.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I was at his parole hearing. Thought I’d see you there, but no.” She raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to ask the obvious question. When Will didn’t, she volunteered, “He looks good for his age. Been keeping in shape. I guess the heart attack scared him.” She smiled. “You’ve got his mouth. The same shape to your lips.”
“Is there a point to this?”
“The point is, I remember our promise.”
Will looked down at his hands. He picked at a torn cuticle. “We were kids back then, Angie.”
“Put a knife in his throat. Jam a crowbar in his head. Shoot him up with H and make it look like an accident. That was your favorite one, right?” She leaned down, inserting herself in his line of sight. “You pussin’ out on me, Wilbur?” He moved away from her. “Do I need to remind you what happened to your mother?”
Will tried to clear his throat, but something got stuck.
Angie dragged over a chair and sat a few inches away from him. “Listen, baby, you can have all the fun you want with your little doctor friend. You know I’ve had my share. But this is business. This goes back to you and me and a promise we made to each other.” She waited another beat, then said, “What happened to your mother, what happened to you—all because of that bastard—we can’t just let that go, Will. He has to pay.”
Will’s cuticle started to bleed, but he couldn’t stop picking at the skin. Angie’s words stirred up something familiar inside of him. The anger. The rage. The need for revenge. Will had spent the last ten years of his life trying to let that go, and now Angie was shoving it back in his face.
He told her, “You’re not in a position to talk to me about broken promises.”
“Ashleigh Snyder.”
Will’s head jerked up, surprised to hear her mention the missing girl.
Angie smiled as she tapped her finger on his mother’s file. “You’re forgetting that I know everything, baby. Every detail. Every last drop. You think he’s changed his ways? You think he’s too old to get around? Let me tell you, honey, he’s been busy inside. He could outrun you, out-jump you, out-kill you. Just looking at him made me scared, and you know I don’t scare easy.”
Will looked at her finger. The nail polish was chipped.
“Are you listening to me, Will?”
He waited for her to stop touching his mother’s file.
Slowly, she moved her hand away.
Angie had helped him fill out the paperwork to get the documents. Angie had been the first to show him his mother’s photograph. Angie had read the autopsy report aloud when Will, so upset he could barely function, was unable to make sense of it. Lacerations. Abrasions. Scratches. Tears. Wounds. The indescribable rendered in cold, medical language. Like Will, Angie knew every word. She knew every awful thing. She knew the pain and the misery, just like she knew when she finished telling Will what had happened to his mother, he had been so violently ill that he’d started coughing up blood.
She said, “He’s holed up at the Four Seasons on Fourteenth. I guess his money earned some interest over the years.”
“You’ve been watching him?”
“I’ve got a friend in security keeping an eye on him for me.” She pursed her lips. “It’s not a bad life. Five-star hotel. He uses the gym every morning. He orders room service. He goes for walks. He hangs out at the bar.”
Will pictured every single tableau. The thought of this man living such an easy life put a fist in his stomach.
“It’s all right,” she soothed. Will couldn’t stop looking at the file. His hands were gripping the edge. “It’s me, baby. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
He flinched as Angie’s fingers traced down his neck, his back. Her fingernails lined up with the scars that mottled his skin. “You can talk to me about it. I was there. I know what went down. I’m not going to judge you.” Will shook his head, but she kept touching him, her hand going to the front of his chest, tips of her fingers finding the perfectly round circles where the tip of a burning cigarette had seared into his flesh. Her mouth was at his ear. “You think this would’ve happened to you if your mother had been around? You think she would’ve let them hurt her baby boy?”
This was what they had talked about for hours, days, weeks, years. The things that had been done to them. The things they would do to pay those people back. Childhood revenge fantasies. That’s all they were. And yet, it felt so good to give in to them now. So nice to enjoy the fantasy of doing to that bastard what the state had refused to do.
“Let me take care of it,” Angie said. “Let me make it all better for you.”
Will was so tired. He felt incapacitated. Every inch of his body was sore. His brain was filled with static that wouldn’t go away. When Angie pressed in closer, all he could think was how good it felt to be near another person. This was what being with Sara had done to Will. She’d taken away his ability to be alone. She’d broken through his solitude. She’d dragged him into a world where he didn’t just want things—he needed them. He needed to be touched. He needed to feel her arms around him.
