Page 64 of The Bright Lands

Joel chewed his lip. He struggled to recall what he’d been thinking about last night before he fell asleep. The Adderall had gone from not working to suddenly working too well—he never could find a balance in life.

“Jason Ovelle,” he finally said. “He feels like a missing link here. Wasn’t he arrested years ago with Savannah Staler, KT’s older sister?”

“A week apart actually, but yes. Meth on both counts. Jason and Savannah, they were dating at the same time they were dealing. The rumor’s always been that she turned state’s witness to rat Jason out but she’s been such a bad apple down in lockup they keep denying her parole.”

“Well, maybe Jason doesn’t know that. Maybe he met KT through Savannah and they’ve gone into business together. And Jason Ovelle was younger than Troy but they were on the Bison at the same time for a year—I remember that well enough. If Jason was doing business with Troy back then and dealing with KT now, then maybe by extension he was doing business with Dylan.”

“It’s a stretch.”

“I know. But if Jason can help us pin down what exactly Dylan and KT were up to when they said they were at the coast, it’d be a start.”

“Jones cut Jason loose on Friday night. He wasn’t even booked. Mayfield told me the other day Ovelle left town again and there’s APBs out on him but—still.”

“Mayfield’s said a lot of things.”

“Exactly. You think you can find Jason?”

Joel figured that if he kept burning through his Adderall at this rate he might be needing Ovelle’s services soon anyway. “I’ll certainly try.”

“Start at the Varsity Motel—it’s a little dump on the highway south of town. Jason used to stay there. Are you alright? You sound...”

“Never better.”

There was a knock on Joel’s door. He said goodbye to Clark, stumbled as he crossed the room. His drugged mind was racing but his body was heavy as a stone. Joel suspected he was pushing very close to the limits of absolute exhaustion.

It was Darren. His face was troubled. “You get run over last night?”

“I wish I knew.” Joel propped himself against the door frame. “Are you alright?”

Darren frowned. “Something you might want to see out front.”

Joel’s sleek black convertible was parked on the street. Standing on the house’s porch, he had no difficulty reading the words that had been etched into the paint.

GET OUT NOW FAG.

The last word had been repeated across the hood of the car. The cloth hood had been shredded down the middle and lay sunken inside, draped over the seats like a pair of wilted petals.

Joel regarded the car a long time. Regarded the street that must have seen something, heard something last night, just as it must have noticed something ten years ago when pictures were being slipped into papers all over town. No one had said anything then. They would say nothing now. If anything, Joel suspected the folks behind those closed curtains would wish the same thing as his car did: that he would leave, now, and never come back.

“There’s not a gun in the house, is there?” Joel said.

Darren shook his head no.

Joel said nothing more. He stepped into his brother’s room and shut the door. He pushed a hot tear from his eye. He pulled open a drawer of Dylan’s desk, removed what was inside.

A hunting knife. From tip to tip it ran just over half the length of Joel’s forearm. A strap attached to the sheath allowed the weapon, Joel assumed, to be carried over the ankle.

Joel slid the blade free, regarded the keen edge, balanced the knife in his hands. Saw the initials DW on the hilt.

If someone thought this fag would give up so easily, they were sorely mistaken.

CLARK

Clark paced behind the interview room’s one-way glass, straining to hear the conversation piped through the shitty speakers on the wall above her head.

“What did you need the condom for, Jamal?” Mayfield’s voice came through as a whisper, half his words lost to the pop and hiss of the department’s ancient wiring.

“I didn’t say shit about that...”