“What’s in the envelope?” I asked.

“Just, uh—some mail.”

“Mail you got from that woman in the kimono back there?”

The kid’s face fell, and his hands relaxed off the wheel.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I backed up a step, my hand to my waist, where I was packing. “Keep your hands on the wheel, bud.”

“What is this—some setup?” the kid asked.

“You’re gonna wanna take your right hand,” I said. “Reach directly across—and hand me the envelope. Then put your hand back on the wheel.”

I needed to know what kind of shit this woman was peddling. Specifically, so I could use it against her. To get her talking about what she might know of John Adrian.

The kid did as he was told, but all that I saw inside was a driver’s license.

I glanced at the date of birth. Which showed him to be twenty-one as of last month. “Let me see your real I.D.”

He took it out of his wallet, and I saw how good the fake was. It had a professional laminate like a real driver’s license. That hard coat and thickness. A holograph of the state seal of Georgia in the far background, with a ripe peach in front of it, a miniature image of the kid’s face across the fruit.

We’d just had a new license design come into play in the last year, making the I.D. up to date. Even future-forward.

“Have you been arrested before, Mr. Meyers?” I asked, reading his name off both licenses.

“No,” he said, his voice scratchy. “My parents are gonna kill me.”

“Well, let’s see what we can do then,” I said. “You wanna tell me about the woman back there?”

“My friend Leo gave me her email address. Her name is Maria. You send her a picture, and she makes a perfect . . .” He stopped then, and I nodded.

“If I were to let you go . . .” I said.

“That would be awesome,” the kid answered.

“You don’t want to have this on you, though.” I held up the fake I.D. “I mean, it’s illegal.”

“Keep it.”

I hesitated, mostly to scare him.

“Okay, I’m gonna hold on to this, Dave,” I said, lifting up the I.D. “Problem is—you tell anyone I went easy on you, I gotta come find you. Y’understand?”

The kid nodded, and I told him he was free to go.

Then I turned and drove back to the woman’s address.

When I parked again, I saw Maria Evans locking up her front door and moving over to an attached garage off to the east side of her place. She started sweeping the dust out of the room. Then left and went back into her house, leaving the small door to the garage ajar.

I left my truck and crossed the street.

Entering the apartment complex from the next building over, I moved in between the two structures. Each building looked to contain three apartments, one on the ground floor and two smaller ones on the second level. All around the white stucco edges were blackberry lilies, planted in small boxes. Marvin had these in his yard, and I remember him keeping Jonas away from them. The flowers were pink with spirals of red in the leaves, and they were poisonous.