Page 90 of Poison Wood

“It’s okay, Johnny,” Grant says to him. “I know her.”

I raise my eyebrows. Boy, does he know me.

“I know her too,” Johnny says. “And it’s not okay.”

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” I tell Johnny.

Grant looks at my left hand. “Then put that down,” he says.

I look down at the Taser. “No way.” Johnny Adair may be innocent of one crime, but that doesn’t mean he’s innocent of the other one.

I will my legs to keep me upright. A siren buried deep in my central nervous system is wailing. I tell myself I’m safe. That Grant is here and I’m safe. But my every instinct saysrunas I study the massive size of Johnny Adair’s arms. His giant hands look as if, with one hard tug, he could dislocate my shoulder. The kind of strength that would make it easy to dispose of a body.

“Can we talk?” I say to Johnny. “I just spoke with your sister.”

He looks down at me with narrowed eyes. “I told y’all to leave my sister alone.”

I take a step back. “I spoke with her off the record. I wasn’t there as a reporter.”

Grant looks between us, then focuses on me. “You’re a reporter?”

I study his face to see if he’s joking, but he looks serious.

“I thought you said you knew her,” Johnny says. “That’s Rita Meade.”

Grant shows no sign of recognizing my name, and my name coming from Johnny’s mouth is unsettling.

Johnny looks at me and says, “I watch you.”

I take another step back. Those three words can mean anything. I’ve had my fair share of stalkers over the years, the worst of which was a man I found sitting in my living room one morning holding a kitten and a knife. I ran from the home and moved two weeks later.

I think about the headlights I saw at the farm the other night, the tire tracks in the mud, but Johnny wasn’t out then.

Johnny starts walking around the far side of the school in the direction of the cottage.

Grant and I exchange a look. Then Grant jogs to catch up with him, and they both disappear around the side of the school. He doesn’t know this place. He doesn’t feel the memories leaking from its molded brick like blood from an oozing wound.

I could take this opportunity to leave. Turn around and drive home. The adrenaline that’s kept me going this long today is no longer fueling me. My legs feel weak and shaky. I’m exhausted and hungry and in need of a hair of the dog. But instead of listening to my body, I listen to that inner drive that tells me if I stop moving, something will catch me that could be worse than what I’m chasing.

By the time I catch up, Grant and Johnny are standing in front of the cottage, staring at what was once the front door.

“I built this place,” Johnny says.

His voice shakes. His demeanor has changed, and for a horrified second I think he is going to start crying. A man crying is not something I want to witness.Thisman crying is not something I want to witness. Tears are trouble, and if Judge Mac Meade were here, he’d sayStraighten up and fly right. There’s no time for that.But I find myself reaching out to Johnny’s massive arm and touching it. Just like I reached out for Marshall Sanders’s daughter. A moment, a connection, I normally don’t allow myself.

He looks at my hand, and I jerk it back as if I were burned.

“Sorry,” I say.

Johnny walks through the cottage entrance and disappears. The wood pops and moans under his weight, but I don’t hear any crashes.

Grant is next to me, shuffling from one foot to another in the cold shadow created by the school.

“We have a lot to discuss,” I say.

“Yes, we do,” he says without looking at me.

Johnny reemerges from the cottage, holding something in his giant hand. Something that cues my body again for fight or flight and dials up the headache behind my ear into a ripping jolt of pain.