Free Hail Mary by J. R. Rain

suffering be in vain. Hear their cry and take action.”
    “ I’m just one man.”
    “ So am I,” he said.
    “ You’re more than just a man,” I said.
    He tilted his head toward me. “And so are you, Jim.”
     
     
     
    Chapter Twenty
     
     
    I parked my van a few houses down from the address in question. It was late, just past midnight, and this was my first time here.
    Oddly, I felt nervous. Apprehensive.
    It had been nearly a month since my discovery. My discovery being, of course, that the son of the very man who had investigated my mother’s murder—the same investigator who had turned up zero evidence—looked exactly like the image in the age-progression photograph.
    I sat in my van and studied the single-story home. A home that wasn’t even four miles from mine. There was a white truck parked out front. The garage was wide enough to fit two cars. The lawn was manicured with a curved walk that led up to the front door. The home was fenced on both sides of the property. The fences were lined with hedges and roses. For all intents and purposes, a very normal-looking Orange County home.
    That just so happened to be four miles from my own.
    I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. My stomach was roiling. Nerves. I had been sitting on this information for nearly a month. But since my mother had been dead now for twenty-one years, I figured I could wait a few more weeks to decide my next step. Besides, the bastard wasn’t going anywhere.
    Almost a month ago.
    A month to stew. A month to brood. A month to come to terms with this improbable piece of information.
    My mother’s murder was still technically open, although it might as well have been closed. Nothing had been done on it for nearly two decades. And to top it off, the key piece of evidence had been languishing in my father’s moving boxes for years.
    The pictures.
    My mother deserved better than this. She was a good person. A good mother. She had no family, just me. She had no friends, just me. I was a mama’s boy, admittedly. It’s hard not to be a mama’s boy when your father is ice cold.
    I watched the home for another ten minutes from the driver’s side, then slipped through the little doorway that led to the rear of the van. There, I got comfortable in one of the swivel recliner chairs, and through a heavily-tinted window, I watched the home all night long.
     
     
     
    Chapter Twenty-one
     
     
    I was certain I hadn’t fallen asleep.
    Then again, when you stare at something long enough, in a comfortable-enough chair, on a quiet-enough street not too far from the beach, well, you’re bound to slip in and out of consciousness.
    Except I was pretty sure I hadn’t slipped in and out of consciousness. I was pretty sure I had stared at that fucking house with its white Ford F-150 parked in the driveway, its seven bottlebrush plants following the curve of the driveway, its mostly green grass except for the dry spot in the middle, and its bright porch light that seemed to somehow reach through the heavily-tinted glass and straight to the back of my head.
    After what seemed like an eternity, the porch light finally turned off and a thirty-something woman with a nice-enough body appeared in the doorway. She wore workout clothes. She did a few stretches, appeared to crack her neck, then headed down the driveway, hung a right, jogged past my van on the opposite side of the street, then continued on.
    I watched her through the tinted rear window until she hung a right at the far corner and disappeared.
    There was barely enough light out to call this morning. The sun was still forty or fifty minutes away. I briefly marveled at morning people. I was fairly certain the woman had been smiling to herself as she passed me by.
    I checked my cell phone. A smile on her face at 5:43 in the morning?
    Who smiled at 5:43 in the morning?
    I marveled at this, and then let it go.
    The morning continued to brighten. Birds twittered with a little more energy.