Free Down River by John Hart Page B

told you not to piss me off,” he said.
    “Come on, Adam,” Robin said. “Let’s go outside.”
    “No.” It was all settling upon me: Grace’s lost innocence, the suspicions that dogged me, and the darkness that hung above my return to this place. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    “I want to know what she said.” Grantham stopped short of actually touching me. “She said something to you. I want it.”
    “Is that true?” Robin asked. “Did she speak to you?”
    “Don’t ask me, Robin. It’s not important.”
    “If she said anything, we need to know what it is.”
    I took in the faces around me. What Grace had said was for me, and I felt no need to share it. But Robin put her hand on my arm. “I have vouched for you, Adam. Do you understand what that means?”
    I pushed lightly past her and looked in on Grace. She had curled into a ball, her back to the world outside. I still felt the hot slide of her tears as she’d pressed against me. I spoke to Grantham, but put my eyes on my father. I told them exactly what she said.
    “She said that she was sorry.”
    My father slumped.
    “Sorry for what?” Grantham asked.
    I’d told them the truth, exactly what she’d said; but interpreting that apology was not my problem. So, I offered an explanation that I knew he would accept, even though it was a lie.
    “When we were at the river, she said that she hated me. I imagine that she was apologizing for that.”
    He looked thoughtful. “That’s it?” he asked. “That’s all she said?”
    “That’s it.”
    Robin and Grantham looked at each other and there was a moment of unspoken communication between them. Then Robin spoke. “There are a few other things we’d like to discuss with you. Outside, if you don’t mind.”
    “Sure,” I said, and turned for the exit. I took only two steps before I heard my father say my name. His hands were palms up, his face drawn down by the realization that Grace would be unlikely to embrace the man who’d so abused her. There was no forgiveness in my face as I met his eyes. He took half a step and said my name again, a question, a plea, and for a moment I thought about it; he was in pain, full of sudden regret and of the years that had marched so implacably between us.
    “I don’t think so,” I said, and walked out.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 8
     
     
       I looked for Jamie as we hit the night air, and I saw him at the edge of the lot. He sat behind the wheel of a darkened truck. He took a swallow from a bottle and did not get out. An ambulance pulled in, lights off.
    “I need a cigarette,” Grantham said, and walked off to find one.
    We watched his back, and stood in the kind of awkward silence that troubled people know so well. I heard a horn, a light burst from Jamie’s truck. He pointed to his right, at the entrance to the emergency lot. I turned to see a long, black car slide through the narrow, concrete barrier and pull to a stop. The engine died. Two doors opened and they stepped out: Miriam, my sister, and a thickset man in black boots and a police uniform. They both saw me at the same time and stopped. Miriam looked startled and stayed by the car. The man with her grinned and came over.
    “Adam,” he said, and took me by the hand, pumping it fiercely.
    “George.”
    George Tallman had been a hanger-on for as long as I could remember. He was a few years my junior, and had been much better friends with Danny than with me. I retrieved my hand and studied him. He was six feet two, maybe two ten, with thick, sandy hair and round, brown eyes. He was solid, not fat, and had a handshake he was proud of.
    “The last time I saw you with a gun, George, you were drunk and trying to shoot beer cans off a stump with an air rifle.”
    He glanced at Robin and his eyes narrowed. The smile fell off. “That was a long time ago, Adam.”
    “He’s not really a cop,” Robin said.
    For an instant George looked angry, but it passed. “I do school outreach,” he said.