Page 91 of The Bright Lands

JOEL

KT’s house seemed to blacken in the late morning sun. Haggard Mrs. Staler took an age to open the front door. “I don’t allow nobody in this house,” the woman said, twice, before Joel produced a pair of twenties and a small light came into her eye.

“Sorry, sir.” The woman gestured to her wild hair, the dried spit on her chin. As if it explained everything she said, “Oxycodone the only way I sleep these days.”

They found KT in a small bedroom on the second floor, seated atop his bedcovers, an ancient laptop unfolded in his lap.

“Kyler Thomas,” Clark said gently, noticing the vivid bruise on his face. “May we come inside?”

The glow of the computer screen was the only light in the room. Heavy curtains covered the windows. The floor was buried under unwashed clothes, bags of chips.

They came to stand at the edge of the bed.

“That’s an ugly bruise,” Joel said. Under the purple and brown spread across his cheeks, KT was still strikingly handsome, more so than Joel remembered from the game—all cheekbones and full lips and soft lashes—yet the sly light Joel had seen in the boy’s eyes on Friday night had gone out.

“Garrett Mason’s got a bruise just like it on his hand.” Clark smiled. “You two make quite a pair.”

KT’s eyes widened, briefly, at Garrett’s name.

“Whose idea was it to meet at the marina in July?” Joel said.

Nothing.

“Jason Ovelle was out of town for a time,” Clark said. “And then he turned up Friday looking for something in your truck. Where’d he go once our deputy turned him loose after the game, KT?”

Nothing.

Clark leaned forward, hardened her voice. She was good at this. “You got arrested again this week. They found a quarter ounce of meth on you in Dallas, KT. Did you buy it from Jason or did you have another source?”

Nothing.

“Garrett stopped by last night to make sure you stayed quiet about the drugs, didn’t he?” Clark indicated the bruise on KT’s cheek. “The two of you’s been in the business since you figured out you could get away with anything in this town.”

KT turned to her finally. “It weren’t my idea. It was Garrett’s brother. The one who lives out on 270 past the water towers, has all the signs in his yard. He was the one introduced us to Jason. I didn’t do shit.”

Clark glanced back at Joel. Ranger Mason. Of course.

“And how did Dylan get involved?” Clark said.

KT scowled at her. “Dylan was too busy for us.”

“Too busy working in the cities?”

The boy squirmed beneath the laptop before setting it beside him on the bed and letting its screen rest against the wall. He stared at the door and said nothing.

Joel looked at the light the computer threw across his lap. It was enough.

He opened his phone and found the photograph he wanted, passed the phone to Clark.

After a long moment she nodded and passed the phone back.

“Those are your naked photos on Dylan’s ad, aren’t they?” Joel said.

The boy didn’t answer. He only let his head fall into his hands. Of course.

It would have been obvious from the start if Joel had only made himself study the ad with a cool head. There was a door just barely visible in the murky background of the nude pictures. In Dylan’s room that door was nowhere near the bed.

Joel hadn’t put it together until he saw the way KT’s laptop, its lid propped against the wall, threw its light across the boy’s lap. No doubt KT rested the laptop there often, a habit, and had done so the night he took the pictures of himself, the screen’s light throwing his cock’s shadow straight to the left of the frame.