The clerk cleared his throat. “What are your plans, Mr. Cruise?”
“What the hell are you talking about, ‘plans’?”
“I mean, we all agree this was sudden, but where will you relocate…Any idea of a job out there?”
“Out there?”
“Well, I assumed you’d head to Atlanta, don’t you still have relatives there?”
He stared, uncomprehending. “My mother.”
The clerk nodded. “If you’ll just bring your belongings down to processing, we’ve got three hundred dollars and a Greyhound bus ticket waiting for you.”
The implication slammed into Cruise like a two-by-four, followed by a tide of pure glee.
What a monumental mistake. Didn’t they realize who he was?
He knew enough to say nothing unless he had to, lest he arouse suspicion and make them realize they were releasing the wrong person.
“Your street clothes are in Property, we still have those for you. And a Bible. Think of it as a gift. From us to you, Mr. Cruise.”
The clerk smiled thinly, like giving him a Bible was some great favor. Well, if this little twit expected some sort of thank-you, he got nothing. Cruise stared at him, then quickly looked down, afraid the clerk could somehow read his mind if he looked into his eyes long enough.
He limped along down the corridor, walking slowly, and not just because of his bum leg. His every breath carefully controlled, he kept his eyes down and his mouth shut. Keep walking, keep walking. Keep it together…keep it together.
This couldn’t possibly be happening. It couldn’t.
Any second now, they’d realize their mistake and haul him back to the Row. Probably beat the crap out of him, too.
Cruise kept a wary eye on the guard, who stayed with them every step of the way, gun locked and loaded.
When they arrived at Processing, another clerk asked, “Did you want any of your belongings that you left back on the Row?”
“No,” he said simply, quietly. All he had under his bunk were some legal files and the papers he had worked on, outlining why he was innocent, especially of the last murder. And the articles about Hailey. If he made it out the front door, he sure as hell wouldn’t need any of that bullshit with him.
When he finally stepped outside, he had nothing but the clothes he’d worn at trial, a folder of legal papers explaining his release, three hundred dollars, and a bus ticket voucher worth fifty-five dollars.
Cruise took a deep, expectant breath.
The air was not at all as he imagined it would be. During all those nights in a twelve-by-twelve, he imagined the sweet smell outside.
Bullshit. It still smelled bad.
He made it all the way down a long cement walk and through two series of chain-link fences with barbed wire coiled across the tops, and he still smelled the funk of Reidsville.
Would the stench be in his nostrils the rest of his life?
He said nothing climbing into the prison van, acting perfectly calm. The radio was tuned to easy listening, low and irritating in the background.
“How’s it going?” the driver asked, and it took a minute for Cruise to realize he was talking to him.
Cruise remained silent but the guy just kept talking.
“You come out of a place like that, and it’s gotta be awesome, dude.”
Cruise managed a tight half-smile.
“Gorgeous day, isn’t it? Not too hot. That’s how I like ’em. ’Cause when it’s too hot, I sweat. And I don’t like to sweat.” He glanced over at Cruise, like he was looking for an acknowledgment.
And the guy kept talking. Couldn’t he see Cruise didn’t want to have a conversation? Like they were friends or something?
He had to concentrate, but that damn music whining through the car speakers was driving him crazy, buzzing around his ears like a mosquito.
Cruise wanted to look out the window at the roadside, but he had to keep staring down at his hands. They were getting electric.
The music buzzed, the driver chattered, and Cruise’s hands twitched with need.
Until the moment they pulled up to the bus station.
“Well, here we are,” the driver announced, like he was the happiest guy in the whole friggin’ world. Stupid bastard. If Cruise wasn’t in a public parking lot, he’d twist the driver’s head off.
“Good luck to you.”
Cruise ignored him.
He stepped away from the van as if in a dream.
The van pulled away. He could see the driver glancing at him in the rearview.
Then it disappeared around the corner and was gone. Cruise waited until it was out of sight before he moved. The music, the chatter, the noise was all gone now. He was alone. Totally alone for the first time in over five years. No cellmate, no warden following his every step as he walked in and out of his cell, no camera trained on him as he slept and ate and shit every day.
Alone…holding his jailhouse file with the Bible inside.
Before they could hunt him down and drag him back to the penitentiary, he turned and walked toward the station.
He stepped inside and was amazed at seeing people milling about, playing video games, and eating hotdogs in the bus grill.
Stepping up to the ticket counter, he could tell the clerk knew he was straight from Reidsville. Was the haircut the giveaway?
“Can I help you?” she asked, looking almost smug.
Bitch. She was fat with too much makeup, and her perfume stank.
Cruise stared at her neck. It was freckled and fleshy with powder caked on it, same as on her face.
Nothing like Hailey’s neck.
In that moment, a surge went through Cruise’s body, starting in his hands and pulsing to his head, his feet, his chest, his legs.
Cruise was breathing again. A smile crossed his face and he knew.
It wasn’t a dream. It was all real.
“Sir, can I help you? Do you need a ticket somewhere?”
He spoke the first words he had uttered in hours.
“New York City. One-way.”
26
New York City
“HOW DOES THIS OUTFIT MAKE ME LOOK?” DANA ASKED HAILEY, spinning in circles in her kitchenette as they waited for the morning’s second pot of coffee to brew.
“Curvy,” Hailey said, and reached out to brush a speck of lint from Dana’s snug blue dress.
“Curvy-good or curvy-fat?”
“Curvy-good.”
“I hope so. There are supposed to be a lot of single guys at this party tonight. Are you wearing those boots, or did you bring dress-up shoes to change into?”
“I’m wearing these boots…home. After work. And then I’m wearing a pair of socks,” Hailey told her as she took skim milk from the fridge.
“Party pooper. You said you were going.”
“I said I might go.”
And that was just to humor Theresa, one of the therapists who worked down the hall, who had popped over yesterday with an invitation to a housewarming party she and her roommate were throwing.
“Give me one good reason why you can’t,” Dana said.
“Because I don’t want to?” Hailey said with a smile.
“That’s not-”
“Excuse me,” a male voice interrupted from the doorway.
Hailey saw Dana light up and looked over her shoulder to see a familiar man dressed in a white coat, a sterile mask dangling around his neck.
“I’m Adam Springhurst…I work downstairs?”
“Hi! I’ve seen you around the building…I’m Dana. This is Hailey. It’s her office. I’m across the hall.”
“Oh, okay…that’s good. Nice to meet you.” The dentist shook Dana’s hand, then Hailey’s.
There was something so familiar about him…as if Hailey had seen him before…but of course she must have. He worked downstairs. You’d have to be blind not to notice the dark hair, dark eyes, and traces of a tan that spoke of outdoors.