"You sure you're all right?" J.B. asked for the third time.
Spencer sucked in a breath, fighting his blurring vision and concentrating on keeping himself upright. "Fine," he grunted. The lie came easily, and J.B. accepted it without question, but it brought back the question he'd been trying to avoid.
What sort of a man was he?
He'd known exactly what to do to escape the parking garage, and he hadn't balked at being shot at or waking up beside a dead body. He'd almost certainly killed before. He lied without remorse. He'd even found himself noting various pick-pocketing targets as he followed J.B. through the streets. Worst of all, he'd left something behind in that garage—something important, something worth more than his life—and he couldn't remember what.
Maybe the men who'd been after him had a good reason to want him dead.
They walked just over a mile, and Spencer felt every step in his pounding head and aching bones. He definitely had a concussion, and his various other injuries were growing harder to ignore. The obvious solution would be to go to a hospital, but instinct warned him against that. He had no idea who his enemies were or where they might be. Hospitals meant reports and questions and paper trails.
He'd had worse. Probably. No hospitals.
He was shaking by the time J.B. led the way up the front steps of a tall, thin building squashed between a liquor store and an office for rent. "This isn't an official shelter," J.B. explained, puffing up the stairs and throwing a gap-toothed smile over his shoulder at Spencer. "Nothing run by the city, anyway. Miss Sunny June lets a few of us stay in her extra rooms, 's long as we help out around the place. Jim seems to have gotten himself on his feet again, so there'll be room."
Spencer hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, gripping the railing with his bloody hand, his breath coming in pathetic little pants. After a few steps, J.B. paused and gave an encouraging wave toward the door. "Almost there."
"Why are you helping me?" Spencer blurted.
J.B. lifted his eyebrows. "You need help."
He smiled, and when Spencer only stared in response, he turned and went on. Spencer stayed where he was. He couldn't afford to trust random men he'd met on the street, not with so many others looking for him, but what choice did he have? He needed rest, a chance to clean up and assess his injuries, to try to remember something about his situation. He'd found J.B. by accident—his enemies couldn't have anticipated him going down that exact street at that exact moment—but still, he was uncertain. That feeling still pulled at him, the certainty that he was leaving something behind, that he needed to go back.
"Come on," J.B. called gently. "You can leave tomorrow if you want, but you need a place for tonight."
Rest when you can. Regain your strength, then get back to the job.
Spencer leaned his weight on the railing and started up the stairs.
"Sunny'll want a full name," J.B. said casually. "She doesn't keep records, but she likes to know who's staying with her."
Another name. Spencer closed his eyes, casting through the darkness for some fragment of identity. Nothing came to mind. He dug through his recent memories, billboards and posters they'd passed on their walk through the city, and settled on the name of an oil company that had advertised a job opening in the window of a career center.
"Ready?" J.B. asked. Without waiting for an answer, he knocked on the door and stepped back to stand beside Spencer. He straightened, trying to make himself look as presentable as possible, but he winced when a light came on over the door a second before it opened.
A large, round woman stood in the doorway in a cotton nightgown, her gray hair done up in curlers, a baseball bat in one hand. She adjusted a pair of cat eye glasses over her nose and studied them before breaking into a grin. "J.B.! I was wondering if you were going to come by tonight!"
"Miss Sunny June," J.B. said, stepping forward to give the woman a hug. She lowered her bat, but kept it in her hand as she looked over J.B.'s head at Spencer.
"I see you brought a friend."
"He needs a place," J.B. said, stepping back and setting his hand on Spencer's shoulder.
Sunny June gave him a long, appraising look. She was several inches taller than him, and somehow managed to look intimidating in her nightclothes. "What's your name?"
"Spencer Stone."
"I got no tolerance for drugs or alcohol in my home," she said sternly.
Spencer tried not to squint through the light as he nodded. "No, ma'am. Won't be a problem."
He fell into a southern drawl as he spoke, which somehow felt both natural and affected. She studied him a moment longer, a slight frown settling over a mouth marked with laugh lines, before finally leaning the bat against the wall by the door.
"All right then. If J.B. vouches for you, we can give it a try. There's a room upstairs you can use, but you'll be sharing a bathroom with J.B. and Miguel. That a problem?"
"No, ma'am."
She continued to watch him, but her expression was softening. "Get yourself cleaned up. I have some supper left you boys can share."
J.B. gave her another hug, and Spencer dipped his head and murmured, "Thank you, ma'am," as he ducked inside. He followed J.B. up the stairs and into the tiny room he was to use, furnished with a twin bed pushed against one wall, a dresser, and a small desk. It was simple, but the smell of fresh soap wafted up from the sheets, and a few old paintings and bright curtains gave the room a homey feel. Spencer stood in the doorway and inhaled, sinking into a flash of memory: he was small, running between dangling clothes on a laundry line, laughing as he chased after a girl in a yellow dress.
"You can use the bathroom first," J.B. said behind him. "There are towels in the cabinet, soap and such in the shower. Sunny usually keeps some extra clothes in the dressers. Take a look, see if anything'll fit."
He opened his eyes, forcing down the hollow feeling burning through his chest. He should thank J.B., he knew he should, but he wasn't sure how to say it. Thanks for not leaving me to die on the street. I can't pay you back. I don't know if I trust you.
"I'll meet you downstairs," J.B. said, backing into the hallway, and then it was too late.
So he was a coward as well as a criminal.
He considered just going to sleep, but his stomach was empty and there was blood in his hair, and he didn't want to ruin Sunny's sheets. With brisk, mechanical movements, he searched the dresser drawers until he found some clothes that looked like they might fit, then shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the shower without looking in the mirror, afraid of what he wouldn't recognize. His clothes were torn and stained and singed, the pockets empty except for a little cash. Still, they were his only clue to himself, so he folded them as nicely as he could and left them on the floor. Undressing only gave him more questions: bruises across his forearms, defensive wounds to go with the swollen knuckles earned from punches; scraped skin on his shoulders and back, probably from his fall; a shallow cut across his thigh, a turned ankle that throbbed without the support of his boot. Then there were the scars crisscrossing his body, more stories he couldn't remember. He ran the washcloth over them quickly, not wanting to linger over the feeling of calloused and pitted skin. He gritted his teeth as he washed the blood from his hair, feeling gingerly along the cut in his scalp. It wasn't large, and had mostly stopped bleeding already, though he stood under the water until he was sure he wouldn't get blood on anything else.
When he could procrastinate no longer, he turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and cleared a circle of steam from the mirror.
Apparently he had blue eyes. There were tiny cuts along his right cheek and ear where the window glass had flown up in his face, and his bottom lip was split. He stared into his blank expression, waiting for the moment of recognition.
It didn't come.
He sighed and pulled on his borrowed sweatpants and dark blue hoodie, both a size too big, and toweled off his wet hair. He still looked like hell, but at least he wouldn't make a mess of Sunny's house by walking through it.
J.B. was waiting for him in the kitchen, a small room with yellow wallpaper and dated cupboards. He sat with Sunny at a round table barely large enough for the two cups of coffee and the plate full of leftovers it held, and he smiled when Spencer walked in. "How you feeling?"
Spencer ducked his head, self-conscious of the bruises and cuts visible in the uncompromising light. "Good. Thanks."
"You're not a good liar," Sunny said. "C'mere, let me take a look at you."
Something in him warmed at the words not a good liar, but he shook his head when she reached out to guide him toward an empty chair. "That's all right, I just came down to thank you for—"
Sunny scooted her chair back and stood, pulling a plate out of the cupboard as she spoke. "Let's get this straight, boy: I don't like repeating myself. Now you sit down and eat and let me fix up those cuts. Then you can go on up to bed."
Spencer sat. He accepted a plate of chicken and rice casserole and ate in silence while she took a first aid kit from beneath the sink and moved a chair between him and J.B. She waited until he'd taken a few bites before opening the kit. "What happened to you?" she asked. "Car accident?"
"Yes," Spencer said.
She swatted his leg. "I told you you're no good at lying. You don't have to say if you don't want to, but don't lie to me."
He looked at her, studying her sharp brown eyes and feeling like a bug underneath her microscope. She'd given him an out—you don't have to say if you don't want to—and that, more than anything else, compelled him toward the truth.
"I fell," he said, simply, finally.
Sunny held his gaze a moment longer and nodded. "All right. Eat."
The kit was well stocked; while Spencer chewed with his sore jaw, Sunny dabbed ointment on his various cuts and bruises and bandaged the larger injuries. She started with his hand, working her way up his arm and neck before gently turning his face to reach his cheek. He kept his eyes on his plate, trying to relax his tensed muscles. The casserole was good. The chicken was canned, but well seasoned, and the rice had been boiled in chicken stock instead of water. Simple ingredients, strong flavor.
He found he liked her.
"I'm gonna take a look at your head," Sunny said, tilting his chin up with one careful finger. "You might need to go in for stitches."
Spencer pulled away. "I'll do it myself."
"Don't be stupid," she said. "You couldn't reach. Now come back here and don't move."
"I can do it," J.B. offered, speaking for the first time since Spencer had joined them. He'd watched Sunny's ministrations in silence, sipping his coffee while Spencer tried not to feel like a county fair exhibit.
Sunny leaned back in her chair to look at J.B. "How do you know a thing like that?"
"Picked it up a ways back," J.B. said. "You know how it is."
Sunny shrugged and turned her attention back to Spencer's head. He'd stopped eating, and was keeping as still as possible while her careful fingers parted his hair. His breath hitched when she touched the edge of the wound, and rush of nausea made him clench his jaw shut.
"All right," she soothed. "J.B., come here and hold his hair back. There, that's better. Okay. It's not as bad as I thought."
Spencer took a shaking breath through his nose and waited out the pain. He had a feeling he'd done that before.
"The cut itself isn't bad," Sunny went on. "Though it's looking pretty swollen. I'll get you something to put on it, but you really should go in. You've probably got a concussion."
"They'll just tell me to rest," Spencer said.
The fingers withdrew, and Spencer exhaled in relief. "You don't need to be stubborn about it," Sunny said, wiping her hands on a napkin.
Spencer looked up at her and tried for a smile. "Supper is delicious, ma'am. Thank you."
"That's all you got to say?"
Her expression wasn't quite irritated, so he eased a bite of casserole onto his fork and lifted it between them. "If you buy a block of cheese and shred it yourself, it'll melt more evenly. The pre-shredded stuff has starches to prevent clumping, which affects how it melts."
She laughed, and the sound almost made the pain worth it. "Fine then. I'll get you some acetaminophen and a cool cloth, but I'm going to be checking in on you in the morning. Don't think you can get out of that."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"And that's enough of that 'yes, ma'am, no, ma'am' nonsense. You call me Sunny or Sunny June, or you get yourself back out onto the street."
Spencer stood, moving slowly to make sure he didn't lose his balance, and took his and J.B.'s empty plates to the sink. There was a dishwasher tucked under the counter, so he put the rinsed dishes inside and returned to the table just long enough to take Sunny's hand. "Thank you, Sunny June," he said quietly, and nodded to J.B. before making his way back up the stairs to bed.