“Then you need to keep worshiping the almighty beverage,” he said.
They returned to his car and plowed through Doritos, Peanut M&Ms, and more Diet Coke as they drove.
By one p.m., they pulled into the lot at Hawthorne. Colin froze momentarily at the gate as he showed his ID. It was as if all his systems simply stopped functioning for a few seconds. Not because he was nervous. Not because he was scared.
He didn’t feel either of those emotions.
Instead, astonishment gripped him.
He was amazed that the woman who had given birth to him had lived eighteen years behind this fence, past that barbed wire, beyond the concrete walls.
Ryan had told him that today was a visiting day, but Dora Prince wasn’t expecting them. Colin wasn’t here for her, though, or for the investigation. He didn’t come to question her, or obtain evidence. He had nothing to ask her. That wasn’t his job. That wasn’t his role.
He was here for the healing.
As much as he’d tried to dismiss Elle’s suggestion, it had hovered at the front of his brain for the last week. To keep moving forward in his life, whether with Elle or without her, he had another step to take.
Recovery was a daily practice. It didn’t end. He would always be unfinished, but this was part of coming to peace with his unfinished self.
Before they entered the visiting room he turned to Marcus and said, “Bet you didn’t think you’d be here with me visiting our mom today, did you?”
Marcus shook his head. “Nope. But is it weird to say I’m glad we’re here?”
Colin managed a small smile. “It’s not. Let’s go see her.”
“Let’s do it,” Marcus echoed as they entered the cold, concrete visiting room.
A minute later, a woman in orange walked through the door, a corrections officer at her side.
Colin felt nothing and he felt everything.
She was the woman who’d raised him for thirteen years, and she was the woman he’d hated for eighteen years. She was the murderer and the mother. She was everything he never wanted to be, and then he’d become like her in ways he never wanted.
She was a prisoner, and she was a human being. One who still felt emotions, because oceans poured from her eyes, and they were tears of joy, as if all she’d ever wanted was to see her kids.
Despite all his efforts to remain stoic, a lump rose in his throat.
“My babies,” she said, crossing the distance in a nanosecond and wrapping her two youngest kids in the strangest hug Colin had ever experienced. That was no small feat for her to hug two men, considering both towered over her tiny frame. “My babies, my babies, my babies,” she sobbed.
She couldn’t stop weeping, or saying their names.
Eventually, the corrections officer made her let go. The front of Colin’s shirt was wet from her tears.
“Colin,” she said with a crazed kind of joy as she looked at him. Then, she shifted her gaze. “Marcus.”
“Hi,” Marcus said, and his voice seemed horribly dry as he added, “Mom.”
Colin couldn’t bring himself to call her that. But he had something else to say to her. He clapped Marcus on the shoulder and met his mother’s eyes.
“You don’t have to worry about Marcus anymore, because he has brothers and a sister who will look out for him. He has a good family on the outside. And I want you to know we’re going to do everything we can for him. He’s part of us.” He swallowed, and raised his chin up high, girding himself for the hardest part of the visit. For the reason he drove to the prison for the first time in years.
A piece of his heart had been metal, an alloy of shame and guilt. With words like a scalpel, he cut it from his body. “Because I’m a good man,” he said, letting go of the hate, letting it crumble to the ground. It couldn’t weigh him down any longer. “I had a good father, and you have good kids. All of them.”
Then, because it was the compassionate thing to do, he sat down with her and spent the next hour listening to her talk.
On the ride home, he and Marcus stopped for a burger, then John Winston called to give him the news he’d been waiting for.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Elle’s heart still raced furiously. That had been a hell of a game of laser tag. It was made all the better by Colin’s news.
She hung up and turned to her son as they walked toward the rental counter to return the laser tag equipment. “My text message stalker was arrested this morning.”
Alex punched the air. “Yes! That is awesome.”
“The cops got him on grand larceny. He stole two dozen iPhones.”
Alex scoffed. “Androids are way better phones. Better games on them,” he said, and Elle smiled because her son hadn’t spiraled. He hadn’t returned to the silent boy he was before. In fact¸ his temporary sullenness had ended last night when she arrived home—before she’d even told him she’d broken it off with Colin. She was glad that he’d come around before this news because it meant he was stronger than he’d been before—that he was finding the internal resources to deal with the highs and lows of life.
“Anyway, he’s in jail now. Colin just talked to the detective who has been working on his father’s case,” she said, before they reached the counter.
Alex stopped in his tracks. “You said in the car the other day, when you were talking about the messages, that Colin was ‘working on it.’ What did you mean?” he asked, his voice softer now. He hadn’t let her explain the other day; he hadn’t wanted to listen. He wanted to now.
“He took it upon himself to find out who the guy was. He studied the texts, and he researched a number of possibilities as to who was sending them, and he used every tool at his disposal. Instagram, Facebook, and then good old-fashioned elbow grease. He pulled together clues from things people had said, from pictures he had seen, and when Lee Stefano posted again, Colin was ready, and he was able to track him down and give the info to the police.”
Alex whistled in admiration. “That’s impressive. That’s some serious detective work.”
She smiled, a burst of pride surging inside her over what Colin had done. “Yes. Yes it is.” She shifted gears. She needed to talk to her son, to let him know that they were going to have to learn to roll with the punches and not always retreat. “I made a decision to stop seeing him when this got too complicated. I made a choice because you’re my top priority and you always will be. But I also want you to know that I won’t always be able to step back. In this case, it was a choice I could make. But there will be other times when we have to go into the fire. When we have to face it and walk through it and be strong. I know you have it in you,” she said, wrapping her hand around his arm and squeezing.
He nodded solemnly. “I can handle it. I’m sorry I flipped out.”
“There’s no need to be sorry. You did nothing wrong. But I want you to know, too, that whatever challenges come our way, we’ll tackle them together.”
“Hmmm,” Alex mused as they headed to the arcade gallery.
“Hmmm what?”
“That’s pretty cool,” Alex said, like an admission. His voice was deeper now; it had officially changed.
She furrowed her brow. “What’s cool?”
“That Colin did that for you. That he didn’t stop until he’d solved the problem. Dad was never like that. He didn’t solve problems. He only caused them.”
She looped an arm around him, her heart lighting up. “Colin didn’t just do it for me. Or for us. He did it because it was the right thing to do. He’s that kind of a guy.”
“You miss him, don’t you?”
She gave him a noogie. “You’re too observant for your own good.” She pointed to the motorcycle game. “Let’s go kick some ass on the road.”
* * *
John Winston removed his shades when he spotted the young man waiting at a picnic table in the park. Though it was a Sunday morning, the park was quiet, and the picnic tables were far enough away from the playground for a private conversation. Marcus had said he didn’t want to meet at his apartment or at the store where he worked, and not anyplace where someone might see him. John had chosen a park thirty minutes outside of Vegas.