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knew. He was always walking that line, like the time he ripped off Old Man Duncan’s soda shop on El Camino Real, or when he nabbed Debbie Palmer’s purse and found out she had birth control pills in her wallet. Debbie Palmer wasn’t a virgin? Tom had returned the purse without her knowing, minus five bucks, and hit on her. Got her in the back of his dad’s pickup one night after a ball game and they went at it like rabbits.
    Brian stopped the truck in front of his mom’s house and it sputtered before it died. He stared at the neat little bungalow. The same, but different.
    Same red-shingled one-story, but freshly painted. The porch still had a swing, but it wasn’t the one Brian remembered. This one was wooden with a red-and-white flowered cushion. Flowers lined the walk. Petunias, his mother’s favorite.
    “They grow like weeds but they’re so colorful I can’t help but love them,” she’d told him many times when she planted at the first sign of spring.
    What was she doing planting petunias now? She was eighty. She shouldn’t be on her knees in the dirt.
    As with many of the homes in the neighborhood, the garage was set back from the house. Still, a new Honda rested in the driveway. He couldn’t remember a time his mother didn’t garage the car. He hoped she was well.
    He missed her.
    He got out of the truck and walked slowly up the brick path, straightening his new Dockers. Twenty-four bucks. He couldn’t believe a pair of stupid pants cost that much—and the shirt was half-price, but still fifteen dollars! But he wanted to look nice for his ma.
    The door opened before he even knocked. It wasn’t his ma.
    Uncle Glen? Looked just like him. Full head of light gray hair, watery blue eyes, and fat nose, much too big to be on the little guy’s skinny face.
    Brian blinked. Couldn’t be Uncle Glen, his mom’s brother. He’d be ancient by now. And didn’t Ma write saying that he’d croaked years ago?
    “Toby?” Brian blinked again, his mouth falling open. His cousin Toby looked so old. But he was six years younger than Brian, and . . .
    . . . And
he
was old.
He
was fifty-four. In his fucking fifties.
    His life was gone. Over. Stolen.
    “Brian.” Toby made no move to open the security screen. When had Ma installed it?
    “What are you doing here?” He didn’t mean to sound so defensive. He used to like his little cousin. But that was three decades ago, before shit happened.
    “Aunt Vi called and said you’d been released. I came down to help.”
    “Help with what?”
    Toby shrugged.
    “Let me in. I want to see my mom.”
    “You’re not going to cause problems, Brian, are you?”
    Brian fumed and wanted to slap that stern, holier-than-thou expression off Toby’s rotten face. “No,” he said, reining in his temper. “I wasn’t released. My conviction was overturned. I didn’t do it. I always said I didn’t do it; now there’s proof.”
    Toby nodded. “Yes, that’s what Aunt Vi said you told her. She asked me to look into it.”
    His own mother didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe that he’d been
exonerated
. She didn’t believe his word—she’d sent his lousy cousin to check up on him.
    But more than the pain of his mother’s belief in his guilt was the anger that she’d been subjected to this travesty in the first place.
    He didn’t kill that girl! His jaw trembled as he controlled his anger.
    “So you know I told the truth.” It was almost impossible for him to speak. He wanted to pummel Toby’s stupid, gloating, idiotic face. Damn asshole, walking into
his
house and turning his own mother against him.
    Toby gave a half-nod. “To an extent. But you still could have been involved.”
    “Bullshit!”
    Toby flinched and Brian heard a gasp from somewhere in the living room, behind his cousin. His ma. Shit. He ran a hand over his face, regaining his control.
    “Your mother is eighty-one years old, Brian. Her heart isn’t too good. If I let you in, you have to promise not