Page 47 of Beneath the Stain

Trav took a deep breath and looked at Jefferson. Was it an idle question? Did he suspect?

Jefferson was looking directly at Trav, his blue eyes open, gnawing on his lip with slightly prominent teeth. He was probably the plainest of the boys—he and Stevie tying for least attractive—with his round face and completely average cheekbones and chin.

But those eyes were direct and honest.

Trav couldn’t lie to those eyes, and he’d lied to a lot of criminals and bureaucrats in his day.

“Why do you think?” he asked, trying not to be bitter.

Jefferson swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “What’s Mackey going to say about that when he wakes up?”

“I don’t know. What areyougoing to say?”

Jefferson laughed softly and closed his eyes. He leaned forward and rested his weight on his elbows. “Me and Stevie, we’re damned good at not talking, yeah? We’re like a… a cul de sac, you know? Nothing goes straight through. All the cars and the houses and the people just sort of get caught at the end. That’s me and Stevie with secrets. We tell each other, and that’s as far as it goes. It’s the telling eachotherthat matters.”

Trav closed his eyes, then opened them. “What about Shelia?” he asked. This seemed the time for it.

Jefferson’s smile grew sweet. “She’s getting to be our other house, you know? Like every cul de sac has three? But me and Stevie, we got some secrets older’n her, and she knows it.”

“Secrets like what?” Trav asked, suddenly hungry for them. What made these boys? What secrets forged them, their loyalty and indifference toward each other? What made a Mackey James Sanders?

And that sweet smile shuttered. “Take your pick, Mr. Ford. I can tell you why Mackey don’t like Blake and who kept Mackey supplied with coke. I can tell you why Mackey didn’t go home for Christmas last year and why the whole family thinks Stevie and I are related. I can tell you why Stevie’s mom ain’t talked to us since we left home and why Stevie’s dad wants us to come back real fuckin’ soon. But I wanna know what happened to my brother, so you better pick a good question.”

Trav took a short breath and then a longer one. “So much to choose from,” he muttered. Then: “Okay. I’ll tell you what happened to Mackey, and you tell me which thing I most need to hear.”

“Fair enough,” Jefferson said calmly.

Trav closed his eyes and said it in his head. He’d had to tell Banneker’s parents that their son had killed himself. This moment should not be that hard.

“Your brother was drugged—hard—and raped in an alleyway. The rapist left DNA—and was, blessedly, HIV negative.”

Jefferson nodded. “That’s a motherfucker. You gonna tell Kell?”

Trav didn’t even think about it. “Nope.”

“Good. Kell does his best, but he’s not real bright. Until Mackey makes nice with Blake, he ain’t gonna listen much.”

Okay, all those questions. Now was his chance. “Why doesn’t Mackey like Blake?”

Jefferson grimaced. “’Cause he ain’t Grant. That was a weak try, Mr. Ford. I coulda told you all sorts of stuff.”

Trav smiled in spite of himself. “I’ll just have to ask Mackey himself,” he said softly. His hand, which had been resting on the bed near Mackey’s head, suddenly twitched all on its own, and he used the movement as an excuse to push Mackey’s hair out of his eyes.

It occurred to him that Mackey wasn’t the only one with painful secrets.

He looked up at Jefferson, suddenly curious. “Soareyou and Stevie related?”

Jefferson grinned delightedly. “There ain’t a state in the union that wouldn’t let us marry, if we were a boy and a girl.”

Trav snorted, amused. “That’s not saying much. Most states will let first cousins marry.”

Jefferson kept grinning and nodded. “Yup. That there is true.”

Trav suspected he was being played. “I’ll bet a thousand people have asked you and you haven’t given any of them a straight answer.”

That playful grin on those crooked teeth was as innocent as a sociopath’s. “You’d win that bet, Mr. Ford. Kell and Grant came closest. It’s the name thing, you see? All us boys have our daddy’s last names as our first names?”

Trav’s jaw dropped. “I had not heard that!”