Page 92 of Poison Wood

“Johnny,” he yells, but the SUV is gone.

He exhales and moves his hand down my back. “You okay?”

I nod, shifting away from his touch. Johnny could have easily hit us, and if he was trying to send a message by driving so close to us, message received.

Grant runs his hands through his hair. “I’m going to need a ride back now.” He looks at my father’s truck.

“Let’s go,” I say.

I pull out onto the two-lane road with Grant buckled in next to me, trying like hell to get a call out.

“Give it a second,” I say.

He looks over at me. “This feels above my pay grade.” He shakes his head. “I’m here to help him reacclimate, and now he’s stolen a car.”

“You going to report it?”

He shakes his head. “I’m going to get him on the phone before I do anything.”

“I bet he’s going to his house. That’s where I’d go. It’s hidden.”

Grant looks up from his phone. “How do you know where his house is?”

I glance at him. “Lucky guess.”

Grant rubs his face. “Right.”

“Want me to take you there?” I say.

He shakes his head again. “No. I need to get back to Riverbend. Johnny can keep the car tonight.”

Relief floods over me. The last place I want to go is that dead-end street. I drive through Piedmont toward the road that leads to the interstate.

“What kind of insurance was he talking about?” I say as I turn right at the stop sign.

Grant studies his phone again. “I don’t know, and I’m not going to speculate on it with a reporter.”

“You knew who I was last night,” I say, testing him.

“Are you kidding?” he says, turning his body to face me. “I had no idea.”

“Bullshit,” I say. “Everybody recognizes me.”

“News flash. Not everybody.”

I look over and study his face. He looks like he’s telling the truth. He turns back to the windshield.

“We’ll have to sort this part out later,” he says, keeping his eyes forward.

“Agree,” I say even though I have no idea what sorting it out later will look like. We’re talking about it as if it’s a business transaction that needs working through when it’s anything but. Aside from the rumorsabout me, I don’t usually have nights like the one Grant and I shared. I want to call it foolish, but Grant doesn’t feel foolish, which could be the very thing that’s got me off kilter with him.

I merge into traffic on I-49 north. “You should be good to make a call,” I say.

He holds his phone up and punches a number. A few seconds later he ends the call and tries again, and again ends the call. He taps on the screen, then types out a text. I glance at his phone, trying to read it. I can only make out the wordscall mebefore he catches me looking and moves the screen so I can’t see.

“We need to be careful here, Rita,” he says.

“No shit.”