“I told her you were coming as soon as you called,” Jackson said. “She already knows what’s been going on. She’s been listening to the radio.”
“Is she happy?”
“I wouldn’t say she was happy, Bobby. Ginny hasn’t been happy since the baby died.”
“I know,” Bobby said. “I know.”
“You can’t expect her to be happy, Bobby. Not with Tiffany dead. It wouldn’t be right for her to be happy.”
“No,” Bobby said. “Of course it wouldn’t.”
They were already halfway across to the little double jail cell. It wasn’t much of a jail, at least, this place where Ginny had been. It wasn’t like being on the work farm or in the state penitentiary. Bobby reminded himself that that probably didn’t make much difference to Ginny. He reminded himself of a lot of other things, too, like Ginny’s favorite color (cornflower blue) and the fact that she loved to have him send her flowers. He would have to do that on the day he brought her home. He would have to have the house full of cornflower blue flowers.
Ginny was sitting on the chair in her cell with the reading light on, reading her Bible. She looked up at them and put the Bible down on the bed. Bobby expected her to smile at him, but she didn’t. Jackson used the key to open the cell and drew back the barred door.
“You two could talk in the conference room,” Jackson said. “You’d have more privacy there.”
“That’s a good idea,” Bobby told him.
Jackson turned away and walked back down the hall, pushing open the conference room door as he went. Bobby felt elated. Jackson wouldn’t be behaving like this if there was any chance at all that Ginny wouldn’t be released. He would stick around and make sure she didn’t get away instead. Ginny was standing in the middle of the cell with her arms wrapped around her body, not looking at him. Bobby was amazed that her hair looked so good, so shiny and curly and long. It had to have been hell trying to take care of it in a dinky little small-town jail cell.
“Ginny,” Bobby said.
“Yes,” Ginny said. “I hear you.”
“Let’s go down to that conference room Jackson was talking about,” Bobby said. “It’s got to be more cheerful there. Anything’s got to be more cheerful than here.”
Ginny looked around. “I suppose it does.”
“Come on, then,” Bobby said.
Ginny looked around. “I don’t think so,” she told him. “I think I’ll just stay right here.”
“Jackson told me that you’d been listening to the radio,” Bobby said. “He told me you knew all about it. About Harrow.”
“Oh, I know about Harrow, Bobby. Stephen Harrow is dead.”
“Stephen Harrow confessed to the murders,” Bobby said. “Didn’t you know that?”
“I knew that, Bobby.”
“But you’re free to go, don’t you see that? I mean, not tonight. They’ve got their paperwork to do and all that crap. But you’re off the hook now. Stephen Harrow confessed. Everybody will know you didn’t kill Tiffany.”
Ginny cocked her head. “Really, Bobby? Will everybody know?”
“Of course,” Bobby said.
“Even you?”
Bobby felt a chill go up his spine, a vise of ice close around his testicles. “I knew you didn’t kill Tiffany. I always knew that.”
“No,” Ginny told him. “I don’t think you did.”
“I was just—confused, that’s all,” Bobby said. “I couldn’t get around the things you were saying. The goddess worship and all that. It didn’t make any sense. But I didn’t think you killed Tiffany.”
“You thought I killed her just like everybody else thought I killed her,” Ginny said. “All those people who were supposed to be my friends, and my family, and my husband.”
“I am your husband,” Bobby said. “We were married in the sight of the Lord.”
“I don’t seem to have much time for the Lord these days, Bobby. I’m too busy figuring out what I’m going to do with myself next.”
“You’re going to come home to me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It will get better.” Bobby willed himself not to feel the panic that was rushing up into his head like a geyser of bile. “You’ll see. We’ll feel better after a while, both of us will, and then, I know you hate to hear it now, then we’ll have another child.”
“I don’t want another child.”
“You don’t want one now, but you will. You will. Reverend Holborn told me. And once we have another child, the wound will heal, it will heal, it won’t be gone but it won’t hurt so very much and then we can—”