The Inmate (79)

I don’t know what happened to the other forty-one cheeses. I don’t want to know.

“You did?” I ask, wanting desperately to hear the story but not really wanting to hear it at all.

“Yep.” Josh smacks his lips on the “p,” which has become an annoying habit of his. “When I went to the corner to mail that letter for you. He was also mailing a letter.”

A million questions are running through my head. How did he look? Is he okay? Did he mention me? Does he hate my guts? “Did he say anything?”

“He said hi.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said hi back.”

This could be the most uninteresting story Josh has ever told me, yet I’m hanging onto his every word. “And then what?

Josh lifts a skinny shoulder. “I went back home.”

The suspenseful story of Josh running into Tim for the first time since he got home from jail appears to now be over, and Josh goes back to shoving macaroni in his mouth. I saw the Oldsmobile in the driveway of the Reese house a few days ago, and I deduced that Tim’s parents had returned to Raker to pick him up and help him put his life back together after all the murder charges ended up being dropped.

As it turned out, Pamela Nelson survived the gunshot wound, and it was a good thing she did. She ended up confessing to everything, which is more than Shane was ever willing to do. After she found out her son was dead, she didn’t really care anymore. She told the police everything—the whole shocking story.

For example, she told them how she helped cover up Tracy Gifford’s murder eleven years ago, when Shane had come to her in a panic, Tracy’s blood on his hands, and told her what he had done. But getting away with Tracy’s murder made them cocky. She told the police how she and Shane planned to kill me that night at the farmhouse to get revenge on my father for not leaving his wife and daughter for her. She even told the police how she had lured Kelli Underwood to Tim’s house one night when she knew he was spending the night with me, sending her a text message supposedly from Tim. Then once Kelli was inside, Pamela Nelson pretended to be Tim’s housekeeper, and offered her a drink laced with sedatives, saying Tim would be home “any minute.” After the drink knocked her out, Pamela rolled her body down the stairs into the basement–the fall broke her neck, but it was Pamela slitting her throat that killed her.

The big mistake I made? Social media. My parents always warned me to keep my likeness off the internet, but I had no idea that the family Christmas party thrown by the company I worked for in Queens had plastered pictures of the event all over their Facebook page. That’s how Pamela Nelson found out about Josh. And that’s why she murdered my parents—to punish them for keeping the secret from her… and also, to get me to come back to Raker. She even ensured I would end up working at the prison by calling every medical practice in the area to complain about my shoddy medical care.

And of course, Shane did his part too. He got rid of my predecessor Elise by ratting her out for distributing drugs to prisoners. Not that she was really doing it—she was exonerated as well.

Once DNA evidence confirmed that Shane and Pamela Nelson had been the mastermind behind all of these murders, the DA dropped all the charges against Tim. But justice is slow, and he only got out of jail a few days earlier.

Not surprisingly, he hasn’t stopped by to say hello.

“Maybe Tim can come over,” Josh suggests. “He could fix that string that came off the light in the closet.”

The string that turns on the lightbulb in our hall closet popped free in my hand a week ago. Since that time, I have been groping for my coat in the dark every day. I would love to get it fixed. But I have a feeling if I stop by the Reese house, Tim won’t be jumping at the chance to do home repairs for me. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t slam the door in my face.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I say carefully.

“Why not?”

“I think Tim might be mad at me.”

“Why?”

I don’t know quite how to explain to Josh everything that has happened in the last few months, so I haven’t. He’s only ten. I took him to a few therapy sessions after the poor kid saw his father killed right in front of him in a freak accident. Of course, Josh didn’t know Shane was his father. He still doesn’t. I’m hoping it will stay that way.

Anyway, Josh seems fine now. He misses Margie though. I ended up pulling him out of school for a couple of weeks when everything exploded online, just to minimize the chances of him finding out what his beloved babysitter had done.

Or that she was really his grandmother.

“You should ask Tim to come over, Mom,” Josh says.

“I should?”

“Yeah! I miss him.”

That tugs at my heartstrings. Josh has lost so much, some of which he doesn’t even know about. In the last year, he lost his father, a grandfather, and two grandmothers. All he’s got left now is me.

Maybe Tim will never forgive me, but if he could be there for Josh, that’s better than nothing.

_____



After we finish dinner, Josh stays behind to do his homework while I tug on my coat and boots. I could take Josh along with me to Tim’s house, but just in case we get a frosty welcome, I don’t want my son around. I fully expect that Tim won’t ever forgive me for this. And either way, this won’t be a pleasant conversation.