I crept to the window, straining my eyes to see his nightstand where a photo caught my eye, the only personal thing I’d seen so far. It was a woman and a boy, I thought. The colors were washed out, but I couldn’t tell if it was age or just a bad camera. And I couldn’t discern at all who the people were, the woman equally likely to be his wife, girlfriend, or mother.
The man came back into the room then, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, and slid between his sheets, a book in hand. I watched for another minute, then sat back, thinking.
He’d made it safely home. Anything that might happen tonight—a stroke or heart attack—was probably beyond his or my ability to stop. There wasn’t a chance I was knocking on his door at this hour anyhow.
I stood and edged carefully to the front of the house, checked the address, and ran back to my apartment, a plan having formed almost unconsciously in the time I’d spent watching him.
I flicked on the computer, changing into layers of my warmest clothes while it booted. I threw a flashlight and the binoculars National Geographic sent Petra into my backpack, then sat at the desk and typed in the address I’d repeated all the way home. The reverse search came up with nine names, five of them men. After chucking the ones way too old or young, I was left with Mark Leventhall, 42, Peter McDaniels, 50, and Jackson Kennit, 48.
The computer’s clock read 4:32. I’d already been gone nearly an hour. Quickly, I googled each name, jotting down key info and kicking myself for not taking an extra five seconds to look at the names on the mailboxes before running off. Two of these guys were a waste of time, but once I left the apartment I’d lose the chance to learn that Mark Leventhall was a newlywed or that Peter McDaniels worked in cancer research or—as the last search screen popped up—that Jackson Kennit had been arrested for drug possession three years ago. The things that might help me determine the value of his being here or gone.
Finally, I shoved the pages into my backpack and hustled back to his apartment. I had a pretty good idea who he was even before I saw his name—J. Kennit—freshly added to one of the building’s three mailboxes.
I took a quick look in his window. He was still sleeping and still marked. Which meant he was still alive.
I pulled out the binoculars and trained them on the bedside photo. Definitely a woman and boy, about five or six years old with dark hair. Both were squinting into the sun. There was blue sky, grass, and absolutely nothing distinguishing about the landscape or way they were dressed. The picture could have been from forty years ago as easily as from last summer.
Slowly I panned the rest of the room, but there was little to see. It was unfair, but I was disappointed. Now that I knew his past, I’d hoped this would be a no-brainer. That there’d be a stash of powder-filled bags peeking out of the closet. But the apartment didn’t look like an ex-con’s drug den. It looked neat and clean; he looked clean, like a man on the mend.
I shoved the binoculars back in my bag and stood. Six forty-three. People might be up, getting ready for church soon. I walked back to the sidewalk, hoping there was somewhere to wait.
By ten the sun shone brightly, the temperature had hit thirty, and I’d learned what little I could from Jackson Kennit’s neighbors.
By two I was exhausted and starting to wonder if maybe Jackson Kennit had already expired, though he was still marked every time I checked.
Finally, around two thirty he emerged, clean-shaven, neatly dressed in jeans and boots, and bundled into his jacket and scarf.
The anxiety and fear I’d felt on first seeing him at The Diner had dulled to glazed-eyed boredom over the past twelve sleepless hours, but when I saw him pass me they rushed back, jolting me upright. Jackson Kennit was awake, on the move, and still marked. He had less than ten hours to live. Unless I changed that.
I stumbled as I stood, my feet numb from so long in the biting air. I’d been ducking into a nearby store as often as possible but had still spent way too long outside.
Jackson Kennit didn’t notice my odd, half-frozen gait, keeping his head low as he walked, just like the night before. I stayed close, aware that it could happen at any time—as he crossed the street, passed a dog or a precariously hung street sign. As always, I had no idea what kind of death I was waiting for.
Halfway down the block, he stopped and leaned against a post with a sign at the top. The bus his neighbors said he took to work. Weekend overtime at the machinery plant.
My heart sped up as my steps slowed down, the moments seeming longer and longer, like an old film whose projector has been shut off in midreel. I had a weird and awful sense of déjà vu. Of standing at another bus stop with another marked man. Robert McKenzie. The one I’d followed when I’d first learned what the mark meant.
And suddenly I realized that my time with Jackson Kennit wasn’t limited by the hours left in the day but by the minutes until he passed through the doors of Sterner’s Manufacturing, because it seemed pretty unlikely they’d let some seventeen-year-old girl dressed like a bum trail him around at work. Just like I wouldn’t have been allowed to follow Robert McKenzie into court or his office. Not that I’d needed to.
I watched Jackson Kennit, steps away from me, could see the small nick near his chin where the razor had cut too deep. He glanced up, maybe feeling my stare. His eyes were hooded, set under a heavy brow and purposely blank, like he was used to hiding things.
“Hi,” I said, the word out before I realized it.
He studied me an extra second before answering. “Hi.”
“Um … do you know if any of these buses go to the city?”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so.”
“Oh.” Now what? I should ask something meaningful, get insight. I couldn’t think of a thing. “Uh … well, is there somewhere good to eat around here?”
He frowned.
“I’m new to the neighborhood,” I added.
“There’s a diner down the street.” He jerked his thumb toward where I’d first seen him. “ ’Bout five blocks away.”
“Great. Thanks.”
We stood in silence. Jackson Kennit shoved his hands in his pockets. Across the street a woman left an apartment building, carrying a baby in one arm and brown grocery bag in the other. She dropped her keys, juggling the baby and the bag to pick them up.
Jackson Kennit and I watched. “Should we help her?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Bus is coming.”
It was. Two blocks down, it pulled away from the curb, lumbering toward us. The woman across the street glanced up, saw it, grabbed at the keys, then dropped the bag. The baby started crying.