Page 17 of I Will Find You

Her smile was tight.

“What?” he said.

“Lenny always told me you were the strongest man he ever knew.”

“Were,” he repeated. “Past tense.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m just old.”

Sophie shook her head. “You’re not old, Philip,” she said. “You’re just scared.”

“I’m not sure there’s any difference.”

He turned away. He did not look back as he descended the concrete steps, but he could feel her eyes on him, heavy and perhaps, after all these years, unforgiving.

Chapter

6

I’m too fired up to sleep.

I pace back and forth in my tiny cell. Two steps, turn, two steps, turn. The adrenaline from my altercation with Ross Sumner pumps through my veins. Sleep didn’t come last night. I’m not sure when it will again.

“Visitor.”

It’s Curly again. I’m surprised. “I’m still allowed visitors?”

“Until someone tells me otherwise.”

Every part of me aches, but it is a good ache. After the guards jumped in, both of us were taken to the infirmary. I was able to walk there. Ross had to be carried on a stretcher. Them’s the breaks. The nurse dabbed some peroxide on the bite marks and scrapes before sending me back to my cell. Ross Sumner, alas, was not so lucky. He was, as far as I know, still in the infirmary. I should be above feeling good about this. I should recognize that my private glee-filled gloating comes from a primitive place that this harsh prison has nurtured in me, but too bad.

I am taking great satisfaction in Ross’s pain.

Curly leads me down the same route to the visiting area in total silence. Today I strut more than walk.

“Same visitor?” I ask, just to see what I’ll get in return.

I get nothing.

I sit on the very same stool. Rachel does not bother hiding her horror this time.

“My God, what the hell happened to you?”

I smile and deliver a line I never thought I would: “You should see the other guy.”

Rachel openly studies my face for a few long moments. Yesterday she tried to be more circumspect. All of that pretense is over now. She points at me with her chin. “How did you get all those scars?”

“How do you think?”

“Your eye—”

“I can’t see much out of it. But it’s okay. We have bigger concerns.”

She keeps staring.

“Come on, Rachel. I need you to focus. Forget my face, okay?”

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