Page 60 of Haven't Killed in Years

His face relaxed into an idle stare.

I didn’t know what to say next. It wasn’t our relationship for me to lead the conversation. My job was to sit quietly, wide-eyed, and absorb every word of his gospel.

“I th-think…” I stuttered when he kept staring at me. “I think a guy named Porter visited you?”

“Yes, he did.” He wasn’t going to give me any more to go on. He was waiting to see what my angle was, how I knew Porter, why I cared to ask.

I psyched myself up, the mental equivalent of pounding my fists against my chest. “I don’t want you to let him visit anymore.”

“Is that so?” He tilted his head, curiosity showing in the arch of his eyebrows. His stare was squeezing my brain, the pressure building.

I didn’t know what words wouldn’t add fuel to the fire. My reason couldn’t be for Porter’s well-being and it couldn’t be for mine. He wouldn’t appreciate that my relationship with Porter was for mywell-being. He would interpret it as a weakness. It would inspire him. There was only one reason he would respect.

“He’s getting in my way,” I said.

That jump-started his eyes again. He leaned in toward the glass, showing something very different in his face. “Explain,” he said.

The intensity paralyzed me. I stayed quiet and he didn’t approve.

“Now!” he demanded, shoulders flinching toward me.

I cowered at the tone of his voice and was grateful for the glass in between us. I broke the stare and shielded my face, burying it as far into my chest as my neck would allow.

“I’m sorry, my dove,” he purred, causing me to glance back up at him. He lifted his hand to the glass.

I had no choice but to reach up and align my fingers with his.“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” I said. “But I don’t need him here connected to you. It will complicate things for me.”

“And you have a bigger problem.” He finished my thoughts for me.

“Do you know about Reanne?” I asked, certain he did.

He nodded, short on words, but not in some calculated way. I could tell it bothered him, but whether he was sad or offended that someone had dared, I couldn’t tell. “What do you know?” he asked.

“I think it was the same person who killed James Calhoun and Oswald Shields. I think yourdaughtermight know.”

He remained still, subtle twitches in his eyes showing he was processing what it all meant.

I had to speak before he could think much more on it. I lowered my head again, struggling to look at him when I spoke. “I have to do something, something I did once before.”

He inhaled, and like the trained animal I was, I allowed it to suck my head back up. We locked eyes and I waited to see if he would infer what I meant.

“You haven’t done it again?” he asked. Of course he knew what I meant. “Not since the first time?”

I shook my head.

He pulled his hand from the glass and ran it through his beard, watching to see if I was lying.

“You’re surprised?” I asked.

“I am.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“No,” he said, teasing the possibility of humanity. “You’re still young. I didn’t understand my role until later in life either.”

“It’s not myrole,” I snapped, as much as I could while keeping my voice low. I was aware of how scarred I was by that idea—that I wassupposed to be this, that nothing I could do mattered. It struck a nerve.

He stuck out his lower jaw and then rolled it back in—a familiar tic—and I knew better than to speak to him like that again.