“Where are we?” She licked hot drops of coffee off the back of her hand and tried not to think about the cold sinking sensation in her stomach.

  “Big Spring. Custer Grady’s coming in on the ten-thirty bus from San Angelo.” His smile faded, leaving something cold and bleak behind. “Man’s been in prison for thirty years, no telling how talkative he’s going to be. But I figure he’ll still have an eye for the ladies.”

  She gave him a long look and said, “You’re using me.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Big Spring was not, in fact, very big, and it didn’t take long to get to the tired-looking concrete bunker of the bus station. Abby drank the last of her coffee as Terry pulled the truck up to the curb. He checked his watch and said, “Ought to be pulling in any minute now. I’ll give you fifteen minutes, that enough time?”

  She nodded. She had absolutely no idea whether it was or not, whether she’d even get a word out of him, but she was too nervous to bargain. She stepped down out of the cab and slammed the door.

  The pickup glided away around the corner. She hugged her coat close against a blast of winter air and opened the glass door.

  The Big Spring bus station had an art-deco theme, as if the architects and builders had gotten together and said, This time it’s not going to look like a bus station. It still looked like a bus station, but an upscale one. Cool blue and green neon gleamed behind glass brick walls, and the floors were painfully clean. A TV set murmured in the corner, tuned to a faded-looking western.

  No matter how neat they kept the bus station, there was no getting around the passengers. Some of them—a surprising percentage, really—had neat, well-kept clothes and some concept of personal hygiene. Some had a wild-eyed, fragrant look, and clutched their battered suitcases or plastic bags close.

  She sat in one of the hard plastic chairs and watched the sweep of the second hand on the clock. Fifteen minutes, he’d said. It seemed like a long time.

  Three sweeps of the second hand later, air brakes farted outside in the garage and red digital letters on a long black screen on the wall said 10:30 FROM SAN ANGELO NOW ARRIV … followed by, BOARDING 11:00 TO ABILENE. Some of the people in the lobby stirred and gathered their bags. Some, like Abby, just sat.

  Outside the glass doors she saw people getting off the bus. They looked like the same people from the waiting room, only fatter, shorter, taller, younger, older. An older man got off the bus clutching a plain brown bag. Was that him? What if she couldn’t recognize him? Did that mean it was all bullshit?

  Another older man came down the steps, looked around, and opened his arms to a young girl about twelve, then her parents. The reunion held up the line for a couple of minutes. Abby stood up and came closer, one hand braced on the cool pebbled glass of the wall.

  A young, fat, tired woman disembarked with two screaming boys in tow. One of them threw his Mickey Mouse suitcase down on the ground and kicked it. She patiently picked it up and put it back in his hand.

  A shadow hesitated at the top of the bus steps, then took a step into the light.

  Abby’s knees went weak and there weren’t any handholds on the glass, nothing to support her at all. She leaned hard against its coolness, pressed her cheek to it.

  Custer Grady looked around, blue eyes cold and pale in a face several shades lighter than she remembered. Age hadn’t softened him, it had preserved him, turned leather to wood, turned ice to crystal. His shoulders were lower now, more rounded, and he looked smaller. His hands were gnarled and bumpy. She remembered, in the instant of darkness when she blinked, how his hands had felt on her, rough as sandstone.

  He came down the rest of the steps and pushed open the glass door to the waiting room. She couldn’t move, couldn’t get out of his way, waited for the recognition to dawn in his eyes like an oil fire.

  He stepped around her and headed for the bathroom. Once the door had swung shut behind him she made her way to the nearest chair and sank into it, breathless and shaken. He hadn’t known her. Why would he? Why had she expected he would?

  Three more sweeps of the clock’s second hand before he came out of the bathroom. He went to the lunch counter built in an art-deco sweep in the far corner and ordered something hot; she saw the steam misting from the cup. He crossed to the chairs and sat down, legs out, crossed at the ankles.

  There was a strange little half-smile on his face.

  I should wait, she thought. Terry will be here soon. I could just wait right here.

  It was an empty suggestion, and she knew it. Before she’d even finished thinking it she was getting up, feet gone numb, legs weak. The distance to him seemed huge and expanded by miles when he glanced in her direction. The touch of those eyes brought an unexpected thrill. She’d thought she’d be scared.

  Before she could think what else to do she was standing next to him, looking down as he looked up, and saying, “Mr. Grady? Custer Grady?”

  God, she knew that smile, slick as oil. “Been a long time since a pretty lady talked to me. Sit down, honey. You looking for me? You a reporter?”

  “Reporter?” she repeated as she took a seat next to him, balanced on the hard plastic edge. “No. Why?”

  “I expected they’d be all over the place by now.” He looked annoyed, almost pouting. “Me being a big star and all.”

  “Star?” She was starting to sound like a parrot. She took a deep breath and tried again. “You just got out of prison, didn’t you?”

  “Hey, are you Loretta?” He sat up straighter, eyes gone bright.

  “No.”

  His smile clabbered. “Thought you might be Loretta. Sweet young thing, been sending me letters for years. All those women sending letters, I figured one of them would make the trip,”

  Ladies’ man, Terry had said derisively in the truck. Custer still thought he was God’s gift to women, Lord, hadn’t he always? Silly old bastard, sixty if he was a day and he thought a herd of screaming girls would be welcoming him home. Abby blew out her breath in frustration and shook her head.

  “If you ain’t a reporter and you never wrote me letters, how come you’re here?” Grady asked. She didn’t like the sharp, assessing look he had, didn’t like the strong, hard hands, either, but at least they were staying in his, lap. “You ain’t a Bible-thumper, are you? I got enough of that up-country,”

  “I want to ask you about Pearl,” she said. He blinked, slowly. Around them conversation seemed to fade out, the bustle of boarding passengers, the hum of reunions, all that was gone and it was only the two of them, close as lovers.

  “Pearl who?” He knew, though. She saw it in his oily smile, his febrile eyes.

  “Pearl Jordan.”

  He picked at a thick callus on his thumb. “My old place was next door to the Jordan place, but I never had no doings with them. Crazy, you know. Whole house full of them, crazy as bedbugs. Say, you ought to buy me some breakfast if you’re going to jaw at me.”

  “I know you knew her.” Abby swallowed, swallowed again. Her mouth felt dry and gritty. “She was your lover.”

  Custer Grady gave a high-pitched, hee-hawing laugh that turned heads and made her stomach lurch. His eyes remained cold and fixed on her face.

  “Listen to you, missy, listen to you. My lover, makes me sound like some rich man in a fancy house. Pearl Jordan was a light-stepping slut, what she was.” He studied her closely and showed stained, crooked teeth in a grin. “That bother you, me talking that way? You a churchgoing gal?”

  “I think Pearl Jordan died in her house before you went to prison and I think you know something about that.”

  Once she’d said it she felt dizzy and sick, the weight of his stare on her heavy as hands. He said, “You think I killed her?”

  “No. I think you know who did.”

  He shook his head, looking away from her at the wall clock. “Missy, I got me a bus to catch soon and I’ve heard all your damn fool nonsense I care to. Pearl Jordan was alive and kicking, last I heard about it. If she’s dead, I got me the tightest damn alibi in the lot. And that’s all I know about that.”

  “Sugar,” she said. “You brought her a bag of sugar after you’d sold some watches and rings. It broke open when you gave it to her and spilled.”

  She’d succeeded in surprising him but that wasn’t much cause for satisfaction; his head snaked around and he said softly, “She tell you that, did she? She tell you what I gave her that sugar for?”

  “So she wouldn’t tell when you raped her on her couch,” she snapped. He reached out and grabbed her wrist and the feel of it was just like she remembered, hard as bone.

  “She never had any complaints of me.”

  “Let go.”

  “Pearl was a slut and she liked it rough.”

  “Let go!” She heard her voice rise as she jerked against his grip. He was hard as an iron bar. The memories of Pearl swarmed over her, choking as dust, and there was no place to go to get free of them, nowhere to run now because he was here, and the memories were right.

  It was all real. Really real.

  “You better let her go, hoss,” said a new voice, shockingly intrusive in their private universe. Abby looked up and saw Terry Bollinger standing over them, silvered aviator glasses reflecting her strained, pale face. Grady’s hold on her wrist tightened. “I ain’t joking.”

  “Didn’t think you were.” Grady considered Terry with a sour expression. “Boy.”

  Terry’s lips thinned and curled upward, but it wasn’t a smile. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “I don’t walk so well, son, I’m getting up in years.” Grady’s tone slid into a trembly whine—and cranked louder, to gain attention, Abby was sure. “You just go on and leave me alone now. Leave me alone.”

  Terry bent down, close enough that Abby flinched back, and with his mouth no more than an inch from Grady’s ear he said, “You get your ass out of that chair and take a walk or it’s gonna be a real long ride back to Huntsville, and you’ll be real glad when you get there.”

  Grady let go of her hand. She winced and pulled it into her lap, working her wrist in circles to shake off the feel of his touch.

  “I ain’t lived this long by going off with hard boys like you,” Grady said. “You want to take me outside you’re gonna have to drag me kicking and screaming. I ain’t saying you can’t do it, big old boy like you, but it ain’t gonna look too good dragging a helpless old man like me out in the cold.”

  “You think I won’t?” Terry asked pleasantly. Grady shook his head. “Just so we understand each other. You catching the noon bus to Midland?”

  Grady sat silently, watching him. Terry reached out and brushed lint from Grady’s ill-fitting brown suit.

  “Change of plans,” he said. “See, you ain’t going to Midland. You’re going to cash in that ticket and buy one for anyplace but West Texas, ’cause I got a little message for you from Sheriff Al Hayes in Fall Creek.”

  “Then I suppose you better deliver it,” Grady said. “Boy.”

  From where she sat, Abby could feel the contempt searing the air between them, bitter as cyanide. Terry leaned forward and put one hand on Grady’s shoulder. His knuckles went white with pressure. Grady’s lips thinned.

  “I ever see you in Fall Creek in my lifetime,” Terry said softly, “it’ll be the end of yours. Did you get that message, you murderous son of a bitch?”

  Grady nodded, frowned, and said, “Do I know you?”

  Terry let go of him and stepped back, turned his mirrored sunglasses toward Abby. “Time’s up. Let’s go.”

  “I do, don’t I? You must be Evvy Doderman’s kid, ain’t that right? You got her face, you poor bastard.” Grady’s lips split open in a dry, bony grin. “Probably got my eyes, though, don’t you?”

  Abby froze in the act of rising. Terry said, still softly, “Not yet,” and put a hand under her arm. There was no difference between his touch and Custer Grady’s, no difference at all.

  She pulled away, planted her feet, and stepped back as he reached for her again. He frowned and motioned her to come on.

  “I’m not going with you, either,” she said. “I don’t think you’re ready to drag me kicking and screaming, either.”

  Terry blew his cheeks round with exasperation, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and shrugged.

  “How the hell are you planning on getting back to Midland? Hitching?”

  She felt the smile that came to her lips, but she didn’t mean it. She said, “Hell, Terry, I’m in a bus station. Figure it out.”

  Sotto Voce: December 22, 1994

  “Today,” Dr. Urdiales said as he set his hologram disc on the table between them, “I’d like to explore what you remember about the cellar.”

  Abby’s breath caught, and she found herself looking away, toward the soothing, expensive art on his walls and the satin-smooth wood desk. Anywhere but into those calm eyes.

  “If you don’t feel comfortable about doing that, you can tell me,” he said, and leaned back. The leather chair creaked and sighed around him. He’d gotten a new haircut, a little shorter in the back than before. It made his face seem longer and thinner, his eyes larger. She wondered what he was like out of the soft womb of the office—on a tennis court, maybe. He had the lean, sinewy look of a tennis player.

  “I think maybe it’s too soon,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s …” She shook her head. “Maybe I don’t really want to know anymore.”

  “Are you afraid you might be wrong?” he asked gently.

  “I’m afraid I might not be.”

  “I will not force you to do anything you don’t wish to do, of course, but sometimes it’s necessary to face your fears to learn from them.” Suddenly, disarmingly, he gave her an impish smile. “And, I confess, I am intrigued to hear your story. Indulge me.”

  She glanced at the clock—4:45 p.m. Surely, if she thought hard enough, she could come up with a reason to leave. Rehearsal. Illness. Death.

  She heard herself say “All right,” and the disc spun, and the colors dragged her down to the dark.

  “Where are you?” The voice came from somewhere behind her, above her, soft as shadow.

  “Kitchen.” She pressed her hands on the peeling yellowed counter, stared down at the rusted hole of the drain in the sink. Dishes stacked untidily to the side, a smell of rotten meat heavy in the air. Outside the kitchen window the day blazed hot as hellfire. Her thin cotton dress clung to her back and wrinkled damp around her thighs. She swiped at her forehead with her forearm.

  “Where are you going?”

  The kitchen moved around her. Her hand touched blood-warm crystal and twisted the cellar doorknob.

  “Why are you going to the cellar?”

  She opened the door. The cooler air crawled over her skin. One step down, away from the dim refuge of the light.

  “What do you see?”

  “Dark.” She’d broken the only bulb after Daddy died. She hesitated on the stairs and closed her eyes, listening.

  Hoarse, ragged breathing in the dark. A surge of rage caught her by surprise, a feeling so strong she wanted to grab hold of that thing down there and rip it apart while it screamed.

  “Something down there,” she said. “Got to get it out.”

  “What is it?”

  She took another step into the dark. Wooden steps creaked under her weight. She reached out for balance and cold metal shifted under her fingers—the heavy blade of a shovel, gritty with dirt. She eased the shovel down from the hook and held it in both hands like a baseball bat.

  Another step down.

  “Come out,” she said. “You come on out and I won’t hurt you.”

  But she knew she would hurt it, would strike at it in a blind red fury until it stopped its breathing and moaning and moving. She took one more step into the dark.

  Something cold closed around her ankle and jerked.

  Her face appeared out of a storm of snow as Dr. Urdiales hit PLAY on the remote control. Abby leaned closer to the television, feeling sick and disoriented at the sight of her own face so … lifeless. It didn’t look like her at all, did it? Was she really that pale, that plain?

  On the screen, Dr. Urdiales’ voice recorded the time and date of the session, even though the camcorder had flashed the information at the bottom of the screen. The video remained focused on her lifeless face, her staring eyes.

  “Pearl?” he asked.

  And her face changed. The eyes narrowed, the face tensed, her shoulders hunched protectively. Abby winced at the feral look in her own eyes.

  “Go back to the last day, Pearl,” his voice said. “Where are you?”

  “Kitchen,” Pearl said shortly. Her face froze on the screen, chopped apart by lines of static as Dr. Urdiales hit PAUSE.

  “You see the change in your body language?” he asked, and watched as she nodded. “Do you remember any of this?”

  She thought she did—flashes, quick impressions. She stared at her frozen, suspicious face and swallowed hard.

  “I remember going down the steps—taking the shovel off the wall. I think I fell.”

  She couldn’t tell him about the drowning flood of emotions—the despair, the fear, the rage. She didn’t have the words.

  “And then?” he asked. She glanced up at the soft gold face of the grandfather clock. “Don’t worry about the time, Abby. What do you remember then?”

  “Darkness.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all there is,” she said, but felt something hard under the words, like concrete. Was that true, or Pearl protecting herself? How could she be sure if Pearl was real?

  Dr. Urdiales sat back and crossed his arms. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he was thinking anything at all. She waited, hands nervously tapping a fingering pattern on her knees.