Uriah stood at the door with him, but he didn’t say anything. Tobias could only imagine what he had to be feeling. Hope? The desire to make everything all right, at last, mixed with the knowledge that, even now, he probably couldn’t? Aiyana had told Tobias that Carl was moody at best. Through the years, he’d often lost his temper and started kicking the furniture or throwing things. Uriah had tried to help him a number of times. It wasn’t until Uriah came home one day to find Carl so enraged he was choking his mother that he made his son leave and told him never to come back.

Now that Shirley was gone and her safety wasn’t a concern, Tobias couldn’t see Uriah turning Carl away even if he crossed the line, and that worried Tobias.

But maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Maybe Carl was only home for the holidays.

He pulled up the collar of his coat to cut the wind as Carl strode past him and, after exchanging a look with Uriah, followed a complaining Carl down the steps. “It’s cold out here!” he muttered as though Tobias was purposely putting him out.

Once Carl moved his Impala to the side, he waved Tobias past, obviously impatient to get back into the warmth of the house.

Tobias stared at him for a few seconds and knew in that moment they would never be friends.

When Carl simply glared back at him, he drove past the Impala to park in his customary spot.

Behind him, Carl didn’t say anything as he got out and trudged inside, so Tobias didn’t say anything, either. “Prick,” he muttered and went into his own house, where he turned on the TV and tried to forget about Axel Devlin’s wife, who’d looked so sad in the diner, and the fact that vulnerable, seventy-six-year-old Uriah had someone who was potentially dangerous staying with him.

Tobias was still having difficulty relaxing an hour later when he received a text from his ex-girlfriend. Tonya Sparks, the sister of his last cellmate, had managed to give him enough hope to be able to endure his final year in prison, but things had fallen apart between them almost as soon as he was released.

I’m having a Christmas party on the 21st at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. I was hoping you’d come.

They spent some time together here and there, but Tobias knew they weren’t good for each other. Tonya partied a lot and didn’t have any direction in her life. She reminded him too much of his mother. He was better off staying away from her.