Rain drove. She knew the way and she insisted, so Ethan handed over the keys. He didn't trust himself behind the wheel anyway. The trembling had calmed, but every nerve felt like a charged wire ready to spark. His own body would eventually betray him. Better to save that for when he came face-to-face with Josh. By then, self-control would be irrelevant.
When they pulled into the driveway next to Josh's trailer, Ethan was first out of the car. Rain caught up and pulled him back by the elbow.
“Hold on. You can't go in there half-cocked.”
“I'm fully loaded, Rain. I don't give a damn about the consequences. Isn't that what you and Laz wanted anyway?”
“That's not what I'm saying. He doesn't live alone.”
“Don't tell me he's married. Jesus, Rain.”
She swiped a hand through the air at him. “Fuck off and give me some damn credit. He lives with his mom, 'kay?”
That staggered Ethan for a second. He didn't have the capacity to hang around waiting to see if Josh's mother was home or not. The frayed strand keeping his self-control in place would never last that long. He had to act. Now.
“Easy, Ethan, your face is turning purple for Christ's sake. Just wait in the car. I'll draw him out. We'll take him somewhere.”
His jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. Words weren't possible. He nodded and dragged himself back to the car as if all of Earth's gravity centered on Josh's trailer.
He sat low in the passenger seat and watched as Rain knocked on the door. Sure enough, a prune-faced woman with a half-smoked cigarette tucked behind one ear answered the door. She looked sixty, but Ethan guessed her actual age ran at least ten years younger.
Rain exchanged some words with the woman, who seemed to know Rain pretty well. The woman retreated into the trailer and a few seconds later Josh poked his head out.
Rain gestured toward the car and Josh glanced over. Didn't look like he saw Ethan slumped in the passenger seat. The two spoke for another minute. Apparently, Rain had to do some convincing to get Josh to come out with her. He seemed suspicious and it made sense. Here Josh had beat the hell out of her, now Rain had come to him as if nothing had happened. Josh's distrust comforted Ethan in a way. It meant this wasn't routine behavior for Rain. He'd been afraid she might have gotten herself into an abusive relationship with a pattern of her going back to him after each bout of violence.
Even Rain had not fallen that far.
While Rain continued to talk Josh into coming along, Ethan's thoughts turned inward. He saw Sadie on the floor. All that blood. Her white skin. He saw Alison's still and battered face. He saw them both alive and smiling. He smelled Alison's perfume, some potent mix of lilac and leather he could never understand her liking. He heard Sadie sing the way she did when listening to the radio, an off key alto that loved every note including the ones she couldn't hit.
The sound of voices drew him back to the present.
Josh and Rain were halfway to the car, but stopped. Josh stared in at Ethan and yelled something, his words muffled but the meaning clear from his curled lip and narrowed eyes.
Ethan got out of the car. His palms felt like hot plates.
“Get in the car, Josh.”
“I ain't going anywhere with you.” He turned to Rain. “What the hell you thinking bringing him here?”
“Get in the fucking car,” Ethan said.
Josh flipped him the bird and spun on his heel to head back to his trailer.
Ethan rushed up behind him, grabbed the back of his collar, and yanked back fast. He pulled Josh off his feet. Josh slapped onto the gravel drive flat on his back, a sound like a sliced tire puffing out of his mouth on impact.
Still holding Josh's shirt collar, now stretched and twisted around the side of Josh's neck, Ethan dragged Josh along the gravel. Josh's mouth opened like a landed fish as the gravel scraped and rolled underneath him. He couldn't even manage a wheeze for all the effort he put into trying to shout.
When they reached the car, Ethan let go and gave Josh a quick kick in the side. Josh curled up and squirmed on the ground, arms up over his face. But Ethan kept the following two kicks low, a second to the ribs and one to the side of a knee.
By now Josh had managed to suck in some air and restart his lungs. He scrambled on his elbows and heels to get out of Ethan's range, came up against the front right tire of the car, and drew his knees up to his chest with nowhere else to go.
Ethan stood over him, done for now, waiting until Josh calmed down and unfolded himself.
Josh looked up between his forearms still guarding his face. “Are you fucking nuts?”
“You getting in the car?”
“So you can take me off somewhere to beat on me some more? Fuck that. My mom's probably calling the cops right now.”
“I wonder if she'd call them if I told her what you did to my daughter?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Alison,” Ethan said, realizing maybe Josh didn't know that Rain's daughter was also Ethan's.
As if to confirm it, Josh's eyes went wide. Looking through his arms like that he resembled a frightened rabbit peeking out of a briar patch. A scared little animal that had finally got caught.
“Whatever he told you is bullshit. I didn't do nothing to her.”
Ethan's insides turned to hot tar. Here came the truth, a lot sooner than he had expected. Maybe too soon. Was he ready for this?
“Who's 'he?'“
Josh's face scrunched up. “Oh, shit, man. You don't know anything. You almost had me there.” He pulled his arms away from his face and planted his hands on the ground to push himself up.
“Better stay there,” Ethan said.
“Back off, man. You are way out of line.”
“You're talking about Lazaro, right?”
“What?” Rain said, her voice cracking.
Ethan nodded. “He knew all along. Knew you were at Rain's place with her. Knew what you did. But he never said a thing.”
Josh shook his head. “Look, man. Go ask him. I didn't lay a hand on her. It never got that far.”
Rain stepped in. “What the fuck? Laz was there that night?”
Josh nodded his head fast. “Yeah. Ali calls me over. You were blotto on the couch. It was her fucking idea, okay? So back off.”
Ethan moved to grab Josh, rip a piece off of him from somewhere, but Rain beat him to it, planting her heel into his crotch.
Josh bellowed and curled up on his side. He writhed, face scraping against the gravel, making small cuts on his cheek he seemed oblivious to.
“She was just a little girl you cocksucker,” Rain screamed.
Josh's mother poked her head out the door, the cigarette from behind her ear lit and clamped between her lips now.
“You leave him alone. He done nothin' to you.”
Rain scooped a handful of gravel and hurled it toward the trailer. The pebbles ticked and dinged against the trailer's aluminum siding, and while none of them came close to the woman, she yanked the door shut against the barrage.
“Stay out of this you dumb cunt.”
A hyperawareness settled over Ethan, turning the smell of the air sharper—cat piss from under the trailer—the hue of the sky crisper, the sound of traffic on the nearby interstate thicker, like an incessant breathy growl.
Pure adrenaline high. But if he rode that high much longer, if he didn't regain control here, the situation would escalate beyond redemption. If he ever wanted to see Graham again, he couldn't let that happen.
“Rain, we can't do this. We don't have time.”
She glared at him, teeth bared, and looked ready to leap at him and claw open his throat. A measure of control settled over her, though. She closed her mouth, sucked a breath through her nose, nostrils flaring.
“Fine. Let's finish it.”
From the ground, Josh glanced back and forth between them, eyes wide and chest heaving. “What the hell you mean, 'finish it?'“
Ethan grabbed Josh's arm and hauled him to his feet. Once balanced, Josh took a swing at Ethan, but Ethan expected the move and deflected the blow with a forearm, then followed through with a punch of his own into Josh's stomach.
Josh doubled over.
Ethan pinned him back against the car to keep him on his feet.
“Lazaro has my son, and the only way I get him back is to punish you for what you did to my daughter.”
“Punish me?”
“He wants me to kill you, Josh. Get it?”
“That motherfuck is lying. I didn't barely touch her, man. She did her little striptease and Laz came in before it went any further. I fucking swear.”
Ethan slapped him across the face to shut him up. He didn't want to hear any more from this disgusting prick.
Josh pouted. “Jesus, man.”
“So then what? Laz interrupts your party and you wait for her outside so you can start it back up? Only she's changed her mind. She came to her senses and you didn't like that, did you?”
“No. This is all wrong. I went home. I went home.”
“How many times did you hit her? How many times before you realized she stopped breathing? Before you realized you'd killed my daughter?”
“Christ, are you kidding me? I didn't kill nobody.”
Ethan put his hand on Josh's throat. He smelled smoke, as if someone had started a pile of leaves on fire in a nearby yard. “You like beating up women. Makes you feel good about yourself. But Ali was young, her little body couldn't take the abuse you're used to dealing.”
“Aren't you listening? Laz kicked me out. You think I'm fucking crazy? I didn't stick around after that. I'm lucky he didn't tear my balls off.”
“This is pointless,” Rain said. “He's not going to admit it.”
Josh craned his neck to look at her. “Because I didn't do it. You don't believe me, ask the fucking cops.”
The burning smell grew thicker. Ethan glanced over his shoulder, but couldn't see any smoke.
“What are you talking about?”
“They came here and grilled me, asking about Rain and about where I was that night. I didn't know about no one getting killed. They just said they were investigating something to do with Rain or something. I told them what I told you. I was home with Mom. Christ, ask her.”
“The cops came here?”
Josh nodded. “Some guy looked like a grandpa but says he was a detective.”
“Randy.”
“Yeah. That's him. I thought it weird the guy would have me call him by his first name if he was a cop, but he had a badge. He showed me.”
Ethan staggered back, giving Josh enough space to stand without leaning against the car. The smoke almost choked him now, yet not a wisp of it floated anywhere in sight.
“When Lazaro showed up,” Ethan said, “did he say anything to Alison?”
“Cussed her out pretty good, but I didn't stick around long like I said. He wanted me out of there.”
“He was mad.”
“As fucking hell. He looked crazy. Throwing shit.” He turned to Rain. “Must have been some good junk to keep you out through all that.”
She scowled. “You're not buying this, are you, Ethan?”
Ethan ignored the question, focused on Josh.
“You didn't tell the cops about any of this, did you?”
“Hell no. I got enough problems. I told them what they asked, which was 'Where were you between nine and midnight Thursday?' I told 'em I was home, my mom backed me up, and that's that.”
“They took your mother's word for it?”
He sneered. “Guess so.”
“You have a record?”
“Fuck's that got to do with it?”
It was answer enough. The cops would check out anyone associated even remotely with Alison if they had a record. And for whatever reason, once they'd checked out Josh, they had written him off as a suspect. Which meant they had looked at other possibilities before settling on Graham as a suspect. A small comfort now.
If Josh was truly in the clear and his story about Lazaro showing up at Rain's apartment was true . . .
He looked at Rain. She clearly wasn't going for Josh's story.
“It's why Lazaro was trying to keep me from Josh, why he wanted me to 'do right by him.' Josh is the only one who can place Laz with Alison that night.”
Rain shook her head, lip curled. “No. He . . . no. He's got no reason to do it.”
Josh spat on the driveway, a big glob of redish-yellow. Apparently he had cut the inside of his mouth sometime during their scuffle. “You done with me? I got shit to do.”
Ethan cocked his fist back and slammed it into Josh's mouth. Josh bounced off the car and flopped to his hands and knees. His teeth had cut Ethan's first two knuckles.
Ethan gazed at the blood welling from the cuts, then down at Josh. “My daughter was fifteen years old. It should have been you that was killed that night.”
He looked up at Rain.
“Take me to Lazaro.”