I open Show Love to Get Love, which, I’m pretty sure, could be the worst title ever picked for a book. But these kinds of books all normally have bad names. It’s part of the appeal. Bad names and ripped men on the covers, women wearing sheer clothing. Except in this case the title sounds like a self-help book. I get a few chapters into it, realizing that the way for Belinda, the main character, to find love is for her to give her love to as many men as she can in the hope that one of them will look past the fact that she’s acting a little like a whore.
It’s a short book and I’m a quick reader, but I still skim it because even though time is something I have plenty of, I feel an urgency to find Melissa’s message. I figure skim the books now, and if I miss the message then read them in detail later. So I find out Belinda’s fate, which is to marry a rich man who used to be a gigolo, but who was left ten million dollars by an old lady he used to service. It’s a timeless classic.
I’m halfway through another when shower time arrives. The group of thirty somehow separates itself into different social classes. They do it by the crimes they committed. They see some crimes as better than others. Healthier, I suppose. Somehow that makes them better people. I don’t know. It’s a strange world, but here I am living in strange times, where a guy can burn down a retirement home with twelve people inside and be treated like a king compared to somebody like Santa Kenny, who raped three children and got caught with a fourth. Lines are being drawn all over the place in this world and none of them make sense. I don’t know what lines to stand behind, which ones to cross. I’m in the serial-killer gang all by myself even though I’m not the only serial killer in here. Edward Hunter, he’s by himself too. He killed a bunch of people and people call him a hero because they were bad people, but that doesn’t set him free. Caleb Cole is in a group of one too. We should be forming a club. We should get T-shirts made up.
There is nothing fun about showering with other naked men—though, for some reason, my father’s voice pops into my head and tells me it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m not sure what he’s getting at—but his voice has popped into my head every other time I’ve stood naked in front of all these other men. It’s humiliating.
The showers are like gym showers, a large communal area with plenty of different sprays and lots of taps and plenty of tiles everywhere. It’s a concrete floor with a dozen different drains. The air is thick with steam and the water a little too hot and there are only a few cakes of soap to go around so we have to share, which is pretty awful when they get handed to you with the occasional pubic hair caked into the surface. A few minutes into the shower and suddenly the men immediately to my left and to my right move further to their left and right and I’m alone.
Then not so alone, as Caleb Cole comes up to me.
“I’ve made my decision,” he says.
The water is pouring down on us. Steam is rising. The air is thick and I feel a little light-headed. “And?”
“And I’m going to kill you,” he says, and his fist moves so quickly I don’t even see it happening, not until it hits me solidly in the stomach, knocking the air out of me and dropping me to my knees. Caleb takes a step back and cradles his hand against his chest and covers it with his other one.
“Hey,” one of the guards calls out, “what’s going on there?” he asks, but the steam is too thick for him to see that well and he’s too dry and lazy to really come and check.
“He slipped over,” Cole shouts out. “People slip in showers.”
I look up at him, but stay on my knees, which is not a great height to be at in a room full of naked men unless you’re a football player.
“Is that right?” the guard shouts back.
“Yeah,” I say. “I slipped.”
The guard doesn’t respond.
“As soon as I find something I can shape into a blade, I’m going to cut you open,” Caleb says, and he starts washing himself down while staring at me, the scars across his body disappearing behind lathers of soap. “What do you think about that?”
I think I need to find something sharp too.
“I can pay you,” I tell him. “Twenty thousand dollars.”
He stops soaping himself. He twists his head and his eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”
“To leave me alone,” I say. “I’ll pay you twenty thousand dollars and you can use that money to pay somebody to finish the job on the outside that you’re going to have to wait twenty years to do yourself.”
He slowly nods, the sides of his mouth turning down as he does. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay, you’ll take it?”
He shakes his head. “Okay, I’ll think about it,” he says. “Something like that is going to require a lot of thought.” He rinses off the soap. “I’ll let you know tomorrow,” he says, and then he disappears back into the steam and I’m left alone on my knees, wondering now what my chances are of even making it to trial.
Chapter Fourteen
Fate is on her side. Melissa didn’t think so, not when she had to put two bullets into Sam Winston and not when she had to open fire a couple of more times today, but it’s led her to the support meeting and if fate wasn’t on her side then the meeting would have been on any other day of the week and not today. Statistically she had a one-in-seven chance. Or, the other way of looking at it is she had a six-out-of-seven chance the meeting wouldn’t be today. That’s not luck, it’s fate. Good fate. Her life has been full of bad fate. Her sister, herself, bad shit happening. Now it’s good shit. Like finding the building earlier opposite the back of the courthouse, unfinished, the construction company gone broke the way construction companies are apt to do in this day and age. Seven stories of half-completed offices, a whole bunch of them with perfect views out over the back of the courthouse. She decides to wait and see what else fate can take care of tonight before embracing it.
Finding the support group wasn’t hard. Three minutes online is all it took. And it’s not just a support group for victims of Joe Middleton, but for other victims too—or, more accurately, family of victims who, so it seems, have labeled themselves as victims. It’s a community hall in Belfast, a suburb to the north of the city that on bad days smells like the dump only a few miles away and on other bad days is just Belfast. There are twenty cars in the parking lot out front, and hers makes it twenty-one. It’s still raining and still cold, but the forecast suggests an improvement over the next few days.
She takes her umbrella—actually, it used to belong to Walker up until earlier today—and makes her way into the hall, keeping a close eye on the ground to avoid the puddles forming where bits of pavement have broken away. She walks alongside a pair of elderly people who have their arms around each other as they share an umbrella. They nod at her and offer a kind smile. She wonders if they’re here because she killed their son. She has changed wigs again—this time she’s gone black.
The older man holds the door open for his wife, and keeps the door open for Melissa and she smiles at him and thanks him and can’t think of anybody she’s hurt who looks like them. She steps into a hall big enough to hold a wedding reception and ugly enough to hold a twenty-first birthday party. Every wall is covered in wooden paneling. The floor inside the doorway is wet with footprints and she steps around them carefully, not wanting to fall over in front of these people and have to fake an early labor. She can see and hear the heaters in the hall blasting out hot air, but it’s still cold in here. She closes her new umbrella and leans it up against the wall where there are a dozen similar ones. She takes off her jacket and carries it over her arm. There are thirty people in here, maybe thirty-five. Some are standing around in groups of two or three and chatting with some kind of familiarity. Others are by themselves. A set of chairs form a circle at the far end of the room, and beyond the chairs is a stage where in the past she guesses bands have sung and fathers have given speeches. At the moment there are more chairs than there are people. A long table has been set up with coffee and sandwiches. She wonders if in a few years all these people will begin to socialize, if meetings in summer will be held in parks and people will bring along picnics. Happy little social groups and lifelong friends brought about by death and misery, perhaps some intermarrying and interbreeding to go along with it. Both she and Joe have contributed to that. They should be proud.