The Steep and Thorny Way(18)

I breathed through my mouth. My tongue went so dry, my throat turned raw.

“Will you consider it, Hanalee?” He peeked back at me. “You just said yourself that your father blames the doc. You have your proof. And I know for certain you have a vengeful side.”

I swallowed. “I wasn’t ever truly going to kill you. I sent that bullet straight past your ear on purpose, so you’d feel exactly what I felt when Sheriff Rink told me my father was dead.”

He didn’t respond. He simply stared without blinking.

I rubbed the sides of my face and groaned from deep within my belly. “I’m not making any promises until morning. This might all feel like a bad dream by the time I wake up.”

“Here . . .” He turned and reached for something under the cot, next to a couple of clothbound books with titles too hidden in the dark to read. I also saw a stack of playing cards, built into a triangular tower five cards high, constructed on the ground next to the foot of the bed. The crossword puzzle pages of a newspaper lay in a heap beside the tower, with half the squares still blank.

“I guess you’re not so good at crossword puzzles,” I said.

“Here, I’ve got a fountain pen.” Joe reached toward me with the pen in hand. “Write down your father’s words, exactly the way you remember them—somewhere on your body where Dr. Koning or your mother won’t see.”

I shrank back. “I don’t know if the ink will show up on my skin.”

He fetched one of the puzzle pages. “Then write the words here.”

“What if Dr. Koning sees what I’ve written on the page?”

“I bet you’ve got a knack for hiding things from him.” He tore a corner off the newspaper and laid it flat on the floor in front of me. “Like the gun . . . and the elixir you took tonight.”

“All right.” I snatched the pen from his hand. “Give me a second to make my brain slow down, and I’ll write what I remember.”

Joe spun back around toward the cot and grabbed a pair of beat-up brown shoes from underneath. We both remained seated on the shed’s filthy old floorboards, which felt as hard as a rib cage against the backs of my thighs. Splinters needled their way into my left ankle.

I leaned forward, and, next to the ripped bottom of the crossword puzzle, I filled the newsprint with seven words:

I put full blame on the doc.

My hand shook so much, the letters formed as smudges and squiggles. My stomach twisted just from looking at them.

“There.” I screwed the cap back into place and tossed the pen at Joe. “It’s done. I gotta go home.”

He shoved a shoe over his right foot and laced it. “I’ll walk you back.”

“There’s no need for that.” I crammed the piece of newsprint into my pocket.

“It’s dark.” He put on the other shoe. “You’re on that tonic. And despite what my father and the state of Oregon claim, I am a gentleman.” He tied the second lace and got to his feet.

I braced my hands against the floorboards and pushed myself up. “Why would doctors in prison want to perform surgery on you? What’s wrong with you?”

He ran a hand through his hair and headed for the door. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure about that, Joe? Everyone I’ve spoken to since yesterday warned me not to talk to you. They all told me you’re crazy.”

He stopped by the door. “Who said that?”

“Robbie Witten. Mildred Marks. Sheriff Rink.”

A shaky breath rattled through his lips, and he averted his eyes from mine.

“Why would they say that?” I asked. “In fact, why should I listen to your plans to kill my stepfather if you’re completely off your rocker?”

“I’m not crazy, Hanalee. Just . . .” He swung the door open. “Let’s get you back home.”

I didn’t budge.

“Hanalee . . .” Joe sighed and shifted toward me. “Ignorant sons of bitches say terrible things about me because they don’t understand my type of people.”

I shifted my weight between my feet. “W-w-what do you mean, your ‘type of people’? Are you part Indian or something?”

“No.”

“Catholic?”

He rolled his eyes. “My father’s a goddamned Methodist preacher, for Christ’s sake. I’m not Catholic.”

“Then what do you mean?”

He raked a hand through his hair once more and returned his gaze to the sunken floorboards in front of him. “It’s none of your business.”

“Tell me, Joe, or I won’t conspire with you. I’ll investigate my father’s death on my own. I’ll let the sheriff know where you’re hiding . . .”

“Jesus.”

“No secrets. Tell me the truth if you want me to believe everything you say.”

“All right, if you’re going to be so damn pushy about it, I’ll tell you, but you can’t breathe a word about it to another soul.” He grabbed his stomach. “I’m a . . . what people call a . . .” His face made a wincing expression that reminded me of the way I’d felt when I first swallowed down the fire of Necromancer’s Nectar. “Oh, Christ, just . . . I’m an Oscar Wilde.”

I shook my head, confused. “You’re a playwright?”