“You wouldn’t even know from looking at him.”
Waggs nodded, eyeing Paul—the younger of the two boys—swinging his Wii controller like a bat. He limped slightly, his movements jerky, like his left side wasn’t wired quite right. But the way he kept shoving his older brother, Paul had real swagger, even at age nine.
“Ever been in a car accident, Ms. Waggs? On that night, they were two blocks away. Literally, two blocks,” Nana said, her body shifting as she relived the moment. “It was late, and Paul—he’d just turned six and had fallen asleep, so Casey . . . my daughter . . . When she carried him to the car—it was two blocks—so she let him lay across the back seat. No seat belt. The other car . . . it was moving full speed and coming head-on . . .”
“Oh, no.”
Nana didn’t say anything else. She just shook her head, her thumbnail scratching at a nick in her coffee mug. “The way his skull split—Dr. Sandberg said we should prepare for the worst.”
Waggs looked over at the two boys, who were still lost in their video game.
“Three months later,” Nana explained, “he wakes up out of the coma, asking to watch Sesame Street, which I swear, he hadn’t watched since he was little. A month after that, he’s running around—with a limp, sure—but running around like nothing ever happened. Our pastor called it a miracle. That’s the only word for it. Same word your friend used. The painter.”
“Nola,” Waggs and Nana said simultaneously.
Waggs nodded, though miracle didn’t sound like a word that Nola ever used—that is, unless she was trying to get a grandmother’s permission to paint young Paul.
“One last question,” Waggs began. “Why’d you say yes?”
“Pardon?”
“With your grandsons . . . You seem quite protective—rightfully so. But if that’s the case, why’d you let Nola into your house to do a painting?”
At first, Nana Dotty didn’t answer.
“Ma’am, if Nola did something, or threatened you—”
“She paid me. A hundred bucks, okay? And before you give me a look, y’know what it takes to feed growing boys? And the physical therapy on top of that?” She pointed over to both boys standing on her couch, shouting at the TV. “You wanna pay me to paint my grandkid for an hour? You can come to my house every damn night.”
Waggs nodded, glancing at Paul, then picturing the two senior citizens who she’d visited at the other two facilities earlier today. Three different patients. Three different incidents. Three different outcomes. The only thing they had in common? A traumatic brain injury. And a near impossible recovery.
At that, Waggs replayed Lieutenant Colonel Mint, three nights ago, sitting in the back seat of his car, a single bullet burrowing into his head. Was that what Nola was looking for? Did she know Mint’s murder was coming—and she was trying to help him survive the attack? Or did she have a hand in it—was she the one who was supposed to pull the trigger—and she was trying to figure out how to do the least amount of damage?
It made Waggs think back to last night, to Nola curled down like a fist in Waggs’s back seat. Whatever was really going on, Nola wasn’t gunning for Colonel Mint. She was hurt by his death, reminding Waggs of what Zig said: that Roddy was asking his own questions. At first, Waggs had assumed Roddy was looking for Nola, but what if that was the part Waggs had wrong? What if Nola was the one looking for him? It was a fair question, especially considering everything Nola asked about Black House. What was it she said? That she saw someone in Mint’s account—
Wait.
Mint’s Black House account.
Pulling out her phone and excusing herself from the table, Waggs dialed a number she never liked dialing. It rang once . . . twice . . .