The Prophet

12

ADAM HAD IMAGINED THAT the girl with the glitter nail polish had grown up somewhere pretty and safe and secure. When he saw the shitty apartment building, one in which he had two current clients and countless former, he was at first surprised. Then he remembered why she’d come to see him—her father had been in prison for years, her background was not anything that suggested upscale living—and realized that he was doing it again, the thing he could not do: he was turning Rachel Bond into Marie Lynn Austin.

There was a van from one of the Cleveland news stations parked in front of the apartment, but the crew appeared to be loading up equipment. Adam cracked the window and smoked a cigarette and waited until they were gone. Then he got out of the Jeep and went to the door to make his promise.

She would have heard a lot of them by now. None quite like his.

The first response to his knock, shouted, was, “I told you I got nothing more to say!”

“Not a reporter, Mrs. Bond.”

There was a pause, then the sound of footsteps and the ratcheting of the deadbolt. The door opened and a small dog, some sort of mutt with a shiny black coat, rushed forward and shoved his nose against Adam’s jeans. Above the dog stood Penny Gootee, a thin, weary-looking blonde with red-rimmed eyes. She was wearing jeans and a white sweater that was covered in dog hair. Beyond, Adam could see an open beer on the coffee table, a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray beside it, and, on the couch, a worn comforter and a giant stuffed penguin.

Those last two would be Rachel’s things, he knew. Penny had been on the couch with her daughter’s blanket and stuffed animal, having a beer and a cigarette. Adam felt a red pulse behind his eyes, had to reach out and put one hand on the doorframe.

“Mrs. Bond,” he said, “my name is Adam Austin. I came to—”

“Ah, the great coach.”

“I’m not the coach.”

She tilted her head, and when she did, her neck cracked. “Who are you, then?”

He willed his eyes to stay on hers as he said, “I’m the guy who gave her the address. I’m the guy who told her where she could find the man who was pretending to be her father.”

“Fuck you,” Rachel Bond’s mother said.

Adam nodded.

Tears tried to start in her eyes but didn’t find the mass or the energy needed to spill over. The dog jumped up and put his front paws on Adam’s legs and licked his hand, tail wagging.

“She lied to me about her name and her age,” he said. “I wish she hadn’t. But I should have been paying better attention.”

Penny reached out and pulled the dog down from Adam and back to her, held his collar.

“I want to be alone,” she said.

“I understand that.” He was struggling for his voice now, wanted to turn from the sight of her grief as if it were a bitter winter wind. “I just had to come by to say a few things.”

“You’re sorry, right? Well, great. I’m real glad to hear that. I’m real damn glad, that just means the world, you have no idea how much that helps.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. And, no, that’s not worth a damn. I came here to make you a promise.”

She knelt to wrap both arms around the dog. When she spoke, her voice was muffled against his fur.

“She’s in heaven now? Is that your promise? Or is it that you’re going to help them catch the son of a bitch who killed my daughter? I’ve heard both of those a lot today. They mean as much as your apology. Not shit, Mr. Austin. Not shit.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Adam said.

For a moment she just held the dog. When she lifted her face, her eyes focused on his for the first time. She looked as if she intended to speak, but whatever she saw in his eyes closed her parted lips. She just sat there on her knees on the dirty carpet holding the dog.

“I will find him,” Adam said, “and I will kill him. That task is all that I am now. It is all that I will be until it’s finished. He will die for what he has done. That’s the only thing anyone can give you, and I will give it to you. I promise.”

The dog whined, pulled toward Adam, and Penny Gootee tightened her arms around him and held. She hadn’t spoken. Adam reached in his pocket and removed a business card.

“I’ll find him on my own,” he said. “But it may be faster with your help.”

He extended the card, but she just looked at it, then back at his face.

“I’ll call the police,” she said. “They need to know what you’re talking about. Coming here, bothering me, saying things like that… they need to know.”

“Tell them,” Adam said. “When they come to see me, I’ll make the same pledge to them. I’ll make it to anyone who asks. It’s not idle talk. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him, and before the end he’ll know why I came.”

She reached out and took the card. Held it in one hand and the dog’s collar in the other as behind her the room filled with smoke from the still-burning cigarette, a trail of it rising above her daughter’s blanket, draped there on the edge of the couch.

“He’s still out there,” Adam said. “And as long as he is, I will be, too.”

He turned and left then, and she did not call after him or shut the door. When he started the Jeep she was still there on the threshold, on her knees.