Page 100 of Poison Wood

“Her name is—” Debby starts.

“Don’t say a word to her, Debby. Not one fucking word.” I pull out of the neighborhood and onto the main road. “What room are you in?”

“We’re in 704. Rita—”

I end the call, toss my phone aside, and start to press the gas pedal when I glance in the rearview mirror and see a white sedan speeding up behind me. I slow down, thinking it will pass me, but it stays in my lane, and as it narrows the gap between us I speed up again. But the car behind me speeds up as well, to the point I think it’s going to ram into the back of the truck. I scream and swerve to the right. The sedan blows past me, its doors almost scraping the truck’s. I squeeze the wheel and manage to keep the truck from sliding into the drainage ditch on my right.

My heart thuds in my chest as I slide to a stop. I fumble for my phone to snap a picture of the license plate but the car is already too far down the road.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Riverbend, Louisiana

Sunday, February 17, 2019

9:41 a.m. CST

Twenty minutes later, I walk into the hospital, shaky, and thankful I’m not being admitted. I considered calling the sheriff about the car that ran me off the road, but I don’t have a license plate or really anything other than a careless driver to report. It was a white sedan similar to Rosalie’s, but I didn’t see the driver. And even though Rosalie is angry, she doesn’t seem like the type to use that tactic. Her brother, though ... maybe.

The elevator arrives, and I hop on.

Of course it could have been a distracted driver, looking at their cell phone and not realizing how close they were getting to me. Just a random moment. But so far, in this town, nothing has felt random.

I exit the elevator onto the seventh floor.

In room 704, my father is propped up in the hospital bed and Debby is on the green sofa with Erin sitting next to her. Carl stands beside Erin and looks horrified when I walk in.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I say to Erin as I enter.

“Oh my,” Debby says.

Carl meets me halfway. “Your father called Erin,” he says.

I look at my father, and he nods. “Why would you do that?” I say to him.

“I figured if I needed to make a statement, your network would be the one to go to.”

“You should have come to me,” I say. Something in my voice sounds close to whining, and I cringe at the sound of it. A little girl whose father has ignored her.

“I’m not here to cause any trouble,” Erin says.

I turn to her. “He’s in a hospital bed, Erin. He can talk to you when he gets home.”

“I feel fine,” my father says, and I shoot him a look.

“He feels fine,” Debby says, and I want to shake them both and tell them to get a grip. They have no idea what they are doing.

“Is this your idea of how to be a reporter?” I say to Erin.

“Does anyone need a Diet Coke?” Debby says, getting up. “I need a Diet Coke.”

“No,” Erin and I say at the same time.

Seeing Erin sitting here in the same room as my father thumps a nerve I didn’t even realize was exposed, and then something worse happens. I remember when I pulled an all-nighter to drive from the scene in Broken Bayou to Fort Worth, Texas, to interview Dr. Willa’s mother. A woman who was in a nursing home, hooked up to oxygen, and I walked into her room and started peppering her with questions. Willa was furious when she found out. Now I understand why. This is not okay. Erin being here is not okay. And not just because of the story she’s digging into but because he’s my father, and although he understands a lot, he doesn’t understand how this works. How his words will forever be recorded and can come back to haunt him at any time.

“We’ll set up an interview with you,” I say to Erin. “But not today.”

She looks to my father. “Judge Meade, are you okay with that or would you rather talk now?”