Pretend You're Mine(132)
“Any weapons or other contraband?” The guard pointed at a poster listing, among other things, cellphones and drugs and slid a clipboard through the opening above the skinny counter.
“No.”
“Sign in.” The guard’s tone was as bored as a seventh grader conjugating verbs.
Luke scrawled his signature on a blank line and wrote Perry’s name next to it. He was surprised the pen didn’t snap in his grip.
“Go on through that door, through the metal detector. Visitors’ desk is on the right,” the guard said, buzzing him through.
The next door opened, and Luke walked into a large waiting room. The block walls were painted a pale, industrial gray. A handful of people waited in plastic chairs facing the desk.
After answering the contraband question again, Luke tossed his sunglasses, keys, and wallet in the tray and passed through the metal detector.
The woman behind the visitors’ desk looked more like a cheerful grandmother than a prison guard.
Her graying strawberry blond hair was pulled back in a bun that tight, frizzy curls were exploding out of. Her round face had a dusting of freckles across her cheeks and nose.
“What can I do for you, sugar?” Her drawl echoed West Virginia mountains.
“I’m here to see Clive Perry.”
“Okay, I’m gonna need your driver’s license, please.”
He handed it over and she copied it before returning it to him.
“All right, sugar, you go ahead and have a seat and I’ll send someone to find Mr. Perry. We’ll set you up in an empty room.”
Luke thanked her and took a seat facing the desk. His fingers drummed a silent beat on his jeans.
No matter what, it ended today. Perry’s stalking and manipulations, any threat he posed to Harper, ended today. No matter what.
“Mr. Garrison?”
Luke approached the desk.
“We’ve got you in room B. Just follow Bill here, and Mr. Perry will be in shortly.
“Thanks.” He followed Bill, a guard with a shock of white hair, who topped the scales at maybe 100 pounds.
The room was a dingy ten-foot-by-ten-foot space with a scarred table, an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied for at least a week, and two plastic chairs. The walls were covered with wood paneling from the seventies.
Luke ignored the chairs and stood in the corner, facing the door, to wait.
A few minutes passed before the door opened again. It was Bill again and behind him was Perry.
Clive Perry might once have been intimidating. But a lifetime of poor choices left him stooped and hollow. He was five-foot-eleven, but his stooped shoulders made him look shorter. His gray hair was combed and neatly trimmed.
The lines on his face were deep, making him look older than his 62 years.
There was nothing remarkable about the man. Nothing that screamed “unstable psychopath.” Except maybe the eyes. A pale, watery blue. There was an emptiness in his gaze. Luke had seen it before. In the enemy’s eyes. And once in his own reflection.
Perry thanked Bill and took a seat at the table. Long gnarled fingers, stained yellow, reached for a cigarette.
He lit it and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Garrison?”
Play it cocky, Luke reminded himself. The cocky, overprotective boyfriend.
He took the chair opposite Perry and tucked his sunglasses into the open collar of his button down.
“Do you know who I am?” Luke asked.
“I haven’t the faintest.” Perry’s small, mean smile showed teeth stained with age.
“Let’s cut the bullshit. You are done harassing Harper.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Luke pulled the letter out of his pocket and slid it across the table. “I think you do.”
The smile broadened. “Ah, my letter.”
“Letters,” Luke corrected him.
“So she’s read them. I wasn’t sure. We’re something like pen pals,” Perry said.
“No. You’re something like a stalker.”
“I pose no threat to her.”
Luke smirked. “I can see that.” He kicked back in the chair.
“I’ve served my time, Mr. Garrison. I’ve been a model prisoner,” he said, steepling his fingers. “And I’ve made no specific threats to your girlfriend.”
“You don’t have the balls to make a direct threat, much less carry it out.”
“There, you see? Nothing to concern yourself with. My history with Harper is just that, history.”
“Then why do you still write?”
Perry opened his hands and shrugged. “Maybe it’s as simple as I don’t want to be forgotten. We played important roles in each other’s lives. It would be a shame to forget that.”