The Row(26)

We sit in silence for a while as I fight the urge to feel anything toward him but anger.

“It was your dad he arrested, Riley. I would never forget his name after seeing that picture.” He looks up at me, and his eyes are so sad.

“I only have one question for you.” I straighten my back and stare him in the eye. “Have you told anyone what I told you—about what my father said at my last visit?”

His spine stiffens but he doesn’t answer.

“Tell me.”

There is something cold in his gaze now. I realize with a touch of malicious satisfaction that I’ve offended him. “Of course I haven’t.”

“No one? Not even the chief?” I lean forward, trying to sense if he’s lying.

“No one.” He doesn’t blink, and his expression begs me to believe him. Then he continues, “Telling anyone won’t help or change anything. He’s lost his final appeal anyway, so him confessing doesn’t matter much.”

“That’s all I needed to know.” I get to my feet and walk away, forcing myself not to look back at him when he says my name.





12

ON THURSDAY MORNING, I lie awake in bed. The phone on my nightstand vibrates and I grab it immediately. When I see it’s just an email from the library about a book due this week, I sigh and drop it back in place. It’s not like I’ve responded to Jordan’s texts since I left him at the Galaxy diner on Monday, but it somehow still depresses me that I haven’t heard from him since Tuesday, when he’d texted me three times with similar messages.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to hurt you.

I’m so sorry, Riley. I only wanted to help you, to be there, but somehow I ruined everything instead.

His final message broke my heart into pieces. Because having someone to talk to was everything I’ve wanted for so long, but it was coming from a guy I couldn’t trust anymore to give it to me.

Since then he has left me alone, and I feel so alone.

There is a deep longing in the pit of my stomach from not having Daddy’s letters to read every day. Even after planning what to ask him all week, I can’t decide if I want to go visit him tomorrow. I don’t want to hear him say those awful words again. I don’t know if I can take it.

I curl into a little ball as another wave of sadness hits me. All my favorite memories from visiting my father roll over me. They used to smooth my rough edges like water on the stones in the sea, but now they slice deep canyons of pain in their wake.

Daddy and the times he would tell me a joke and we’d laugh so hard that the guard would check in and tell us to keep it down.

Daddy and the stories he used to tell me of his court cases before he landed at Polunsky. He made even the boring ones sound interesting.

Daddy sharing his love of chess with me and teaching me how to play.

How could this man be a killer? I couldn’t make sense of it. My father the wronged innocent or my father the murderer? I don’t know which is the lie, I just know that he lied.

I pull my blanket up under my chin as I tremble under the weight of this burden. I don’t want it.

Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours.

Time is passing too fast. Everything in me tells me to go to Polunsky tomorrow. Everything but my own fear. It will be a Friday. Going to Polunsky is what I do on Fridays, right?

Clenching my blanket tight in my fingers, I close my eyes and fight the tears that burn from the inside out. What if what he said is true and Daddy murdered those women?

If I cry for a monster, do I become one? How can I mourn a murderer?

Deciding that lying in bed isn’t helping anything, I sit straight up, staring into my reflection on the mirrored closet doors. My skin is so pale it looks ghostly next to my messy dark hair. Heavy shadows haunt the skin beneath my eyes and only enhance the effect. I smack my cheeks quickly with the palms of my hands, trying to force some color into them. I glance at the clock and see it’s only eight, so I flop back onto my pillows.

My phone vibrates again and I grab limply for it. When I see Mr. Masters’s name, I click the Answer button.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Miss Riley.” His voice sounds rushed and not at all like him. “Listen, something has happened, and your mother didn’t answer, so I need you to pass on my message to her as well.”

My stomach sinks. We’ve had one phone call like this before. Daddy had been beaten up in Polunsky and ended up in the infirmary. I say a quick and silent prayer before asking, “What is it?”

“My informant just contacted me. There was a murder last night. A new victim was found. I can’t be sure until I get there, but it sounds the same as the others.” Masters starts talking very fast, but none of the words he’s saying are things I’ve prepared myself for. It takes me a minute to understand what he’s talking about.

He starts rattling off details and my head spins. These are words that I’ve heard dozens of times before: strangulation, blond woman, mid-thirties, tortured. But they’ve always been things Daddy was being accused of doing. Never something he couldn’t possibly have done due to being locked up in Polunsky.

“When? Who? Do they know who did it? Where did it happen?” I start shooting off questions just to signify to him that I’m still here.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I’m heading there now. I’m almost to the corner of Barlow and Prairie, so it isn’t far from here.” I hear the ticking sound of a blinker in the background and realize he’s in his car. “I’ll head your way as soon as I finish talking to the detectives. You just sit tight, Miss Riley, and I’ll get back to you with answers as quick as I can.”