“No. Just Amanda.” She paused, as if to give Will the opportunity to ask what Amanda had said. After a few silent seconds, she told him, “I know about your father.”
Will stared out the window. Faith had taken more than the long way. There were better routes to bypass North Avenue on the way to Techwood. She had navigated the back roads to Monroe Drive. They were skirting Piedmont Park and heading toward Ansley. It was six o’clock in the morning. There was no accident on North.
She said, “Mama told me last night. She needed me to make a phone call.”
Will watched the houses and apartment buildings go by. They passed the vet’s office where Betty got her shots.
“There’s a guy I used to date way back when. I think you met him once. Sam Lawson. He’s a reporter for the AJC.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Will didn’t want to think about the why behind Evelyn Mitchell’s request. He assumed Amanda was making some kind of Machiavellian move, trying to get ahead of whatever the paper was going to print. Sara read the AJC every morning. She was the only person Will knew who still got the paper delivered. Was this how Sara was going to find out? Will could imagine the phone call. If she called. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe Sara would see this as an easy opportunity to get out of whatever they had started.
Faith said, “That’s how Amanda found out about your father’s parole.” She paused, again anticipating a response. “Sam called her office and asked for a quote. He wanted to know how she felt about him getting out.” Faith stopped at the red light. “He’s not going to run the story. I fed him some details on a biker gang APD busted for running crank out of a charter school. It’s a front-page story. Sam won’t circle back.”
Will stared at the darkened strip of Ansley Mall. The upscale stores weren’t open yet. Their lights glowed in the low dawn. He felt a strange sensation, like he was being driven to the hospital for surgery. Some part of his body would be removed. He would have to recover from that. He would have to find a way to acclimate his senses so they did not feel the gaping hole.
Faith asked, “What did you do to your hands?”
Will tried to bend his fingers. It hurt just flexing them. His ankle throbbed with every beat of his heart. His basement excursion was being felt by every joint in his body.
“Anyway.” Faith swung through the steep curve that took them up Fourteenth Street. “I looked up his case.”
Will was more than familiar with his father’s crimes.
“He dodged a bullet. Furman v. Georgia was in the early seventies.”
“Seventy-two,” Will provided. The landmark Supreme Court case had temporarily suspended the death penalty. A few more years either side and Will’s father would’ve been put to death by the State of Georgia.
He said, “Gary Gilmore was the first man executed after Furman.”
“Spree killer, right? Up in Utah?” Faith loved reading about mass murderers. It was an unfortunate hobby that often came in handy.
Will asked, “Is it a spree if it’s only two people?”
“I think two qualifies so long as the timing is close.”
“I thought that it had to be three.”
“I think that’s just for serial killers.” Faith took out her iPhone. She typed with her thumb as she waited to make an illegal turn onto Peachtree.
Will stared up Fourteenth Street. He couldn’t see the hotel from his vantage point, but he knew that the Four Seasons was two blocks away. That was probably why Faith was making the turn. She knew that his father was staying at the hotel. Will wondered if he was still in bed. The man had been in prison for over thirty years. It was probably impossible for him to sleep late. Maybe he’d already ordered his breakfast from room service. Angie said he used the gym every morning. He was probably running on the treadmill, watching one of the morning shows and planning his day.
“Here we go. Two or more qualifies as a spree.” Faith dropped her iPhone back into the cup holder and turned against the light. “Can we talk about your father now?”
Will said, “Did you know that Peachtree Street is Georgia’s continental divide?” He pointed to the side of the road. “Rain that falls on that side of the road goes to the Atlantic. Rain on this side goes to the Gulf. Maybe I’ve got the sides mixed up, but you get the gist.”
“That’s fascinating, Will.”
“I kissed Angie.”
Faith nearly ran up onto the sidewalk. She jerked the car back into the lane. She was silent for a while before she muttered, “You fucking idiot.”
That felt more like it.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” He stared out the window again. They were heading toward the thick of downtown. “I think I have to tell Sara.”
“No, you most certainly do not,” she countered. “Are you crazy? She’ll kick your ass to the curb.”
She probably should. There was no way that Will could explain to Sara that the oldest cliché in the world happened to be true this one time: the kiss meant nothing. For Will’s part, it had been a reminder that Sara was the only woman he wanted to be with; maybe the first woman he’d ever really wanted to be with. For Angie’s part, the kiss had been tantamount to a dog raising its leg on a fire hydrant.
Faith asked, “Do you want to be with Angie?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No.”
“Was there anything else?”
Will remembered he’d touched her breast. “Not—” He wasn’t going to get into specifics with Faith. “There was no contact between—”
“Okay, I get it.” She turned onto North Avenue. “Jesus, Will.”
He waited for her to continue.
“You can’t tell Sara.”
“I can’t hide things from her.”
She laughed so loud his ears hurt. “Are you kidding me? Does Sara know about your father? Does she know that he—”
“No.”
Faith did not bother to hide her incredulity. “Well then, don’t let this be the one thing you tell her the truth about.”
“It’s different.”
“Do you think Angie will tell her?”
Will shook his head. Angie’s moral code wasn’t easily decipherable, but Will knew she would never tell Sara about the kiss. It was much better to use it to torture Will.
Faith cut straight to the point. “If it’s not going to happen again and it didn’t mean anything, then you’re just going to have to live with the guilt. Or live without Sara.”
Will couldn’t talk about this anymore. He stared out the window again. They were stopped at a red light. The lights were on at the Varsity. In a few hours, the curb men would be out sweeping the lot, slapping numbers on cars and taking orders. Mrs. Flannigan used to bring the older kids to the Varsity once a month. It was a reward for good behavior.
Faith asked, “Have you ever tried to talk to the detectives who worked your mother’s case?”
“One disappeared. Somebody thought he moved to Miami. The other died from AIDS in the early eighties.”
“Did either of them have family?”
“No one I could find.” Honestly, Will hadn’t looked that hard. It was like picking at a scab. There came a point when you started to draw blood.