The Laughterhouse

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Caleb parks on a quiet street near town behind a car that is similar to the one he’s driving right down to the color, and climbs out. He tightens his jacket around him and blows into his hands. Octavia is staring at him through the window, the juice box in her hand. Katy is watching too. There are wisps of fog, only just a few, up high around the bulbs of the streetlights. It takes him a minute to use the pocketknife he found in the glove compartment to unscrew each plate. He puts the old ones on the other car, hoping the owner won’t immediately notice. He remembers from his old life that when you had to take something apart, or fix something, there would always be one screw that would be way too tight and the head of it would strip away, making it useless. Every two-minute job in his life that required the use of a tool became a thirty-minute ordeal.

But not this time. Even the two of the eight screws that are rusted come away without much effort. He’ll take that as an omen. And why not? He’s owed some good omens. The doctor stays quiet in the trunk.

He gets back into the car. This all should have been over by now. He fucked up last night. He should have paced himself, ignored that asshole from town who paid for Ariel, just gotten into his car and gone door-to-door like a salesman, selling the people responsible for all of this a death that was long overdue.

He wanted to finish it in the slaughterhouse, but the reality is he can finish it on the side of the road if he has to.

Judge Latham-if he had to choose to let one of the two slide, it would be him. The judge made a decision on the facts presented to him. He believed the defending lawyers and the doctor-he deserves to be punished, and maybe in another life that will happen.

The mother-there’s no choice there. He has to get to her. And driving around with the doctor and two daughters in his car is only tempting fate. The doctor will only stay quiet for so long.

He needs somebody who can help him. He can’t drive to Whitby’s mother’s house. He can’t try the pizza trick again. His neighbor from way back when would have called the cops. There is nobody in this world he can turn to.

Katy is sitting up in the seat behind him. She still isn’t saying anything. She tightens her mouth to prove just how quiet she’s being.

“Put your seat belt on,” he tells her.

He expects her to ask why. Instead she does as he asks.

“Are you cold?”

She nods. He turns on the heater and points the vents toward the back of the car.

It may not be true that there is nobody in the world who will help him. There is one other woman. He wanted to go and visit her. He wanted to see if she was doing okay, but he never did. He felt if he visited her, all he would be doing was picking at the scabs of her life and reopening old wounds.

She is his only chance.

He uses his phone to look up her address.