Brian blinked.
"His father is William Harris."
Jackson gave a humorless laugh.
"Of course he is."
"You know him?"
"I know of him."
"Jackson, listen to me."
"I'm listening."
"Cody is terrified you'll come down here and hurt somebody."
Nothing.
"He specifically thinks you'll violate parole and go back to prison."
That produced a reaction.
A small exhale.
Not anger.
Pain.
"That what he thinks of me?"
"I think it's what he's afraid of losing."
The silence stretched.
Then Jackson asked, "Where is he?"
"In my office."
"Keep him there."
"I intend to."
"Don't send him to the bus."
"I won't."
"Don't let Harris or Cole near him."
"I won't."
"I'm thirty miles out."
Brian looked at the clock.
"Jackson."
"Yeah?"
"You cannot come onto school property and start a fight."
Jackson's answer was immediate.
"I'm not going to fight anybody."
Brian did not fully believe him.
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"What exactly are you planning?"
"First I'm going to look at my brother."
"And then?"
A pause.
"Then I'm going to find out whether I'm still the man he thinks I can be."
The line went dead.
Brian stared at his phone.
That answer frightened him more than a threat would have.
Across the county, Jackson Sullivan stood behind a motorcycle repair shop with his phone still in his hand.
A faded sign above the garage read SULLIVAN MOTOR WORKS.
The business had officially opened six days earlier.
Jackson had spent nearly three years building toward that sign.
Three years since prison.
Three years of parole appointments.
Anger-management classes.
Court fees.
Drug tests despite never having been arrested for drugs.
Job rejections.
Landlords who stopped returning calls after background checks.
People who saw the tattoos on his hands and decided his future before he opened his mouth.
Jackson understood why.
He had earned some of it.
At twenty-six, he had beaten a man so badly during a bar fight that the victim spent three days in intensive care.
Jackson had told himself the man deserved it.
Maybe he did.
That had not changed the sentence.
Prison gave Jackson a great deal of time to think about the difference between being justified and being free.
Cody had been eight when Jackson went away.
His little brother visited twice.
The second time, Cody pressed both hands against the visitation glass and asked, "When are you coming home?"
Jackson had lied.
"Soon."
It took four years.
Their father deteriorated while Jackson was inside.
Drinking.
Theft.
Another arrest.
Cody entered foster care.
Jackson came home to discover that the little boy who used to follow him around carrying a plastic wrench had learned how to make himself invisible.
That had broken something inside him.
From then on, Jackson had one goal.
Get stable.
Get legal.
Get a house.
Get custody.
He had already been working with an attorney.
Cody did not know how far the process had gone because Jackson did not want to promise something and fail him again.
The three-bedroom rental in the valley was already signed.
One room contained nothing but a bed frame, a desk, and two unopened boxes of furniture.
Jackson had planned to surprise Cody after the next court review.
Now his fifteen-year-old brother was sitting thirty miles away with a boot print on his body.
A clubhouse door opened behind him.
A man named Mercer stepped outside.
"You good, Brick?"
Jackson looked down at the phone.
"No."
Mercer studied his face.
"What happened?"
"My brother."
That was enough to make Mercer straighten.
"He alive?"
"Yeah."
"Need people?"
Jackson looked toward the row of motorcycles.
Ten years earlier, he would have said yes.
He would have arrived at Oak Creek with fifteen men.
He would have made sure every student in the county understood what happened when somebody touched his blood.
That was the old version of him.
The version Cody was afraid would return.
Jackson put on his helmet.
"No."