not hurt, then?”
“No,” she said. “He’s all right. There probably wasn’t anyone there; it happened in the middle of the night. But just . . .” She trailed off.
“It’ll be okay. Could it have been an accident? A gas explosion, something like that?”
“No. They found pieces of a truck.”
“Well, keep me posted. I’m going to stay here and wait for Mom to wake up.”
Donne went back into the room, pulled out the desk chair next to the bed, and took his mom’s hand. For the first time since he’d last seen his mother, he was worried about his family.
***
The first thing Franklin Carter thought when he got to the site was that he was going to have to have his shoes shined. Here he was dressed to the nines, pin-striped suit, tailored blue shirt, red Armani tie, black shoes, and he was going to get dust all over them. Dust and who knew what else. Blood maybe?
Could someone have been inside?
He doubted it. The restaurant took its last table at ten-thirty and was usually cleared and closed up by one-thirty. The explosion had happened after two in the morning.
But still, blow the place up? That was a tough way to wake up in the morning. Never mind getting to the city when terrorism was suspected. That was a pain in the ass. The FBI had to come get him, in a black car, lights flashing. They tried to look undercover, but they could put on a show when they wanted to.
“Any idea who could have done this?” one of the agents in the front seat had asked.
No, Franklin Carter thought. I don’t have an idea. I know.
But he looked at the agent dead in the eye and said, “No. I don’t know anything about this.”
Jackson Donne’s mother woke up an hour later. She didn’t jolt awake or sit up, she simply opened her eyes and let out a deep breath as if she’d been holding it for a while. He squeezed her hand. She didn’t return the squeeze.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
“No, Mom,” he said. “It’s me, your son. It’s Jackson.”
“Dad,” she said again. “Dad, you can’t go there. You’ll get hurt.” The words were directed at him. There was fear in her voice, her hands shook, and she breathed quickly as if she was nervous. Her dark eyes bored into his, but she didn’t see her son, she saw her father. And for some reason, he was in danger.
“Mom,” Donne said again. “Your father is dead. He has been for years.”
“Dad, please. Just stay.” She whispered the words, but they contained power. He remembered her ability to do that anytime he came home late. She didn’t want to wake up Susan, but she wanted Donne to know she meant business. You never do what you’re told.
Donne wasn’t going anywhere.
She told him or her father—Donne wasn’t sure which—to stay one more time, and then her entire body shook and tears ran down her cheeks. He squeezed her hand tighter. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he told her it would be okay.
Eventually her breathing slowed, the crying stopped, and she slipped back to sleep. He let go of her hand and stood up.
It didn’t take a doctor to realize she was very ill and there wasn’t much time left. His sister had been right to ask him to come here.
He found a box of Kleenex in the desk after he returned to the chair. He took a few tissues and dried the tears off his mother’s face.
Donne’s throat closed up and he had to leave the room. He stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door of room 308 closed behind him. He dialed his sister.
When she answered, Donne said, “She didn’t recognize me.”
“What are you talking about?” Susan didn’t sound like she was crying anymore, but her voice was thick, as if he’d woken her up from a deep sleep.
“Mom didn’t recognize me.”
“Jackson, that’s just the disease. She doesn’t recognize me half the time. Of course, if you’d taken the time to visit earlier, it would be easier for her.”
“Fuck you, Susan. She kept calling me ‘Dad.’ ”
“She’s been talking about Grandpa Joe a lot lately.”
“Did you know him?”
“No. He died before I was born too. Mom always called him Grandpa Joe anyway. Don’t you remember?”
To be honest, he didn’t. He only remembered his mother crying the day his father walked out on them. It was the dominating memory of his childhood, his mother’s sadness. When she was disappointed in him, when she compared him to his father. And now she was comparing him to her father.
“Has Mom ever talked about her father being in danger?” he asked.
“What? What are you talking about?”
The old woman in the wheelchair who’d been crying earlier rolled past him and asked him to have a good day.
He told Susan what their mother had said.
“No,” Susan said. “She never said anything like that. I told you, she said he killed someone.”
“Who would know about Grandpa Joe? Are there any relatives still around I could speak to? Maybe they could tell us what Mom is talking about.”
“Aunt Faye is still around. She lives in Rutherford, I think. I’ll have to look up her address. Franklin and I send her a Christmas card every year. Hold on. Let me find the address book.”
The thought of Susan and her husband actually taking the time to write out Christmas cards was vaguely sickening. She was living a normal life, the kind he never imagined for himself.
Susan came back and gave him the address. Donne memorized it.
For the first time, he noticed the antiseptic smell of the nursing home. It was too clean, like everything had been washed away.
For all the work the staff put into making this a home, it still felt like a hospital, clean, sanitary, and distant.
***
Mike Garibell burned the fake ID and became Bryan Hackett again.
Standing in the middle of his living room, Hackett smiled as he watched the news. The feds had no idea. They hadn’t ruled out terrorism yet. He had plenty of time. And his job wasn’t even done yet.
Jill came up behind him, dug her hands into his shoulder muscles, and kneaded. He closed his
