“You said, ‘She can shoot,’” I interrupted him.

“Well,” he said. “She’s been out here. It’s been a bit, but I never forget a face, like I told you earlier. She had another boyfriend then.”

“What’d she shoot?”

“A .38,” he said. “Gun was his, I think.”

I swallowed, pacing by my truck.

“I’m gonna send you a picture,” I said to the old-timer, finding an image on my cell and sending it to Jackson.

I heard a ding on his end of the line.

“Yup,” Jackson said. “That’s the guy.”

I thanked him and hung up.

Stunned.

Stunned into silence.

51

September 11, 1:50 p.m.

Kelly Borland heard a rapping on the side door that let in from the courtyard, and she told Leaf Tanner to hold on for a second.

Leaf was in the middle of a story about a kid in his Life Sciences class. Kelly had been listening while filling an empty trash can with paintbrushes that were too stiff to be reused.

The storage room, which was normally tidy, had turned into a mess of boxes, art books, and supplies. Kelly had been cleaning up. Putting things into piles. Using empty boxes as trash cans. And once she was done today, the place would look just like it had the first day she’d arrived at Falls Magnet. A clean slate.

“Nervous energy?” Leaf had asked her when he first arrived ten minutes earlier.

“Something like that,” she’d said.

A loud banging came again at the side door. Kids, she thought. Screwing around.

The metal door opened inward, and Kelly unlocked it. Swung it toward herself.

She stared at the man framed in the entrance.

Jed Harrington wore a green flannel and jeans, and his hair was uncombed.

Kelly stepped backward, and Leaf poked his head around her.

“Can I help you, buddy?” Leaf Tanner said to Jed.

“I doubt it,” Jed replied. “And I’m not your buddy. Apparently, I’m not hers either.”

52

I hung up the phone from talking to Will Jackson at the gun range and stared down at my phone.

The picture I’d sent him was of Jed Harrington.

Kelly Borland and Jed Harrington.

Together, at a gun range.

My mind was spinning to a specific thought. That I had always known something was wrong. That somehow that’s why I hesitated sleeping with Kelly.

But they’d dated? Shot together?

Which meant what? He was a crazy ex, infatuated with her? Then he unexpectedly showed up at Falls Magnet Middle School?

“Jesus,” I said aloud, thinking how I’d gotten involved with her.

Stay focused on Vankle, Purvis said. Purvis in my head again.

I took a knife from my utility box. Crossed the street and quietly slashed the back two tires of Vankle’s Camaro.

“That oughta slow you down,” I said.

I wandered back to my truck then. Called Kelly up, but got her voicemail.

“Hey,” I said. “I just had the oddest conversation with a guy at a place called Georgia Wild and Free.” I stopped. “It’s a gun range, Kelly. But I think you know that. Call me.”