Page 76 of Gone Tonight
The lawyer is silent for a moment. I wonder if he thinks I have another reason for trying to gather information on James’s location without alerting the authorities.
Some families must do more than simply fantasize about revenge.
I know I would if James so much as breathed in Catherine’s direction.
“They keep a tight leash on these guys. He’ll be heading to a halfway house in Baltimore. He’s going to have to check in with his parole officer. He won’t be running around the streets bothering your family.”
It’s like the lawyer can hear the protest rising in my throat before I utter a word because he continues, “Okay, sure, I’ll look into it. Give me his full name, and if you have his prisoner ID, that’d be helpful, too.”
That information was easy to find on the state’s website during one of my library checks, so I have it and more, stored in the notes section beneath the lawyer’s name. It’s disguised to look like someone’s home address.
“I’ve got to take a deposition in—” the lawyer pauses and I imagine him looking at his watch—“thirty minutes so I won’t be able to get to this till the morning. That okay?”
James may not even have been released yet. It isn’t like giant gates will creak open at precisely 9 a.m. and he’ll walk out alone, like in the movies. Prisons run on their own schedules; they don’t revolve around any particular inmate’s. Plus there will be paperwork to do,and they’ll take a current photo of James, and then he’ll need to be brought to wherever he’s going to be living. Reporters might even be there to document all of it. I’ve researched this. I’m certain of it.
James has even less than I did when I ran. He’ll get a little bit of gate money, but there’s no way he can find me tonight.
“Tomorrow works,” I tell the lawyer. “What’s your fee?”
“For this, let’s call it two-fifty.”
I think of all the dollar bills and fives I squeezed out of an already impossibly tight budget and faithfully brought to the bank, week after week.
“Can I send it via PayPal?”
It’s one of the easiest ways to pay someone anonymously. All you need is an email address, and I’ve already created a new one just for this. I’ll buy a prepaid Visa card and use it for the transaction. I’ve had a long time to prepare for this day. I know exactly what to do.
“Yeah, but wait until I make sure I can find the info on Bates first. Just give me your number and I’ll—”
I cut him off as I approach our apartment building. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”
James is in another state, I tell myself for the hundredth time. If he imagines me living anywhere, it’s by the beach in California or in a small town outside Rome. He’d never expect me to be so close to home. No one would.
I pull open the door to the lobby and walk to the very back, where there is a row of gray metal mailboxes for tenants. I unlock ours, then dig the little white tag with the nameSterlingwritten on it out of the slot at the top and flip it around to its blank side. I slip it back in, then lock up the mailbox and move on.
The mailman knows we live in 406. He probably never even checks the names on these boxes unless someone new moves in. He won’t notice anything amiss.
But if James does somehow find out my name and learns I’m living in this building, I may have just made it a tiny bit harder for him to pinpoint the apartment.
I pull my Mace out of my bag and make sure the nozzle is facing away from me, then creep up the stairs, making wide turns instead of hugging the inside, like people normally do.
I reach our floor and crack open the door to glance down our hallway. It’s completely empty. I walk quickly to our apartment, grateful I can hear the sound of the TV next door. It means someone is nearby.
I unlock the door and close it behind me, then twist the dead bolt and pull the chain home.
I know Catherine is here. My phone showed her location the last time I checked it, which was less than five minutes ago.
But I can’t hear anything.
Usually it’s easy for me to sense her presence in our apartment before I see her, and not just because our place is so small. Call it a mother’s instinct, or maybe it’s the invisible tie I’ve always felt connecting me to her, like a phantom umbilical cord.
I can’t detect her at all right now, though.
I move slowly, my Mace held out in front of me, taking quiet steps as I scan the living room and kitchen area.
Empty. The breakfast plate I left on the counter for Catherine is gone.
Both bedroom doors are open. She could simply be asleep on her bed. That would explain the sense I have that she isn’t present, even though she must be here.
