Bill King had ceased to be a man to him.

When he was escorted into the small, square room with walls made of concrete blocks painted a slick gray, sticky with maybe hundreds of coats of paint over the years, covering everything from crude drawings to piss and shit, Bill King was standing with his head down. There were two COs on either side of him, so there were six men in the small room, and Darren could smell their coffee breath, the stale Juicy Fruit gum one of them was popping between his long teeth. That one pulled a chair from the round table in the center of the room and shoved Bill King down into it. His cuffed hands banged on the wood-laminate tabletop, making a faint pinging sound, like a starting bell. His hair had grown back in, covering the tattoos Darren knew ringed his scalp. And he wore glasses. He raised his head and looked at Darren, called him sir, and asked if he’d like the officers to stay. “It’s whatever makes you comfortable,” he said.

His eyes were blue like Rosemary’s. Levi had his mother’s eyes. Just like Darren, who bore more in common physically with his mother than with the Mathews men in his family. Bill King talked quietly and had a flutter in his expression that spoke of a chronic condition beyond contrition. It was shame. It had carved gray hollows beneath his eyes that made him seem vaguely ill. “If it’s okay with you, Ranger, I’d just as soon talk to you alone. In private, if that’s all right.” The four COs shrugged and headed for the door without even checking if Darren was okay with it. There was a window in the steel door to the room. Bill King would remain handcuffed. Darren let them go.

When the steel door closed behind him, Bill stood from his chair, its legs scraping across the floor, startling Darren. Darren’s hand went immediately to his side. But his Colt .45 had been checked before he entered the inner layers of the Telford Unit prison. He backed up and heard the clang of the chains connected to Bill’s handcuffs as Bill, realizing he’d scared the man, returned to his seat at the table, sheepish. Softly, he said, “I ain’t been much of anything in my life but an angry kid and then an angry man for reasons I didn’t even half understand at the time. I caused my mama heartache, and Lord knows I’ve ruined lives.”

“Keith Washington.”

“Yes,” Bill said. “And Danielle, Keisha, and Jarrod.”

He was speaking of Keith’s wife and children.

He knew their names.