I Will Find You(17)

Ted Weston shook his head. “You’re the killer, not me.”

“Killer? Oh, Ted, you have it all wrong. You wouldn’t be a killer. You’d be a hero. An avenging angel. With fifty thousand dollars in his pocket.”

“Why do you want him dead so badly anyway?”

“Look at my face. Just look at what Burroughs did to my face.”

Ted Weston did. But he wasn’t buying it. There was something more going on here.

“A hundred grand,” Sumner said.

Ted swallowed. A hundred grand. He thought about Izzy and the price of all those specialists. “I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You already tipped us off about Burroughs’s visitor with the photograph.”

“That was…That was just a little favor.”

Sumner smiled through the bruises.

“So think of this as another favor. A larger one perhaps, but I have a plan. An utterly flawless plan.”

“Right,” Ted scoffed. “Never heard that one in here before.”

“How about I tell you what I’m thinking? Just theoretically. Just listen, okay? For fun.”

Ted didn’t say no or tell him to shut up. Ted didn’t walk away or even shake his head. He just stood there.

“Let’s say a correctional officer—someone like you, Ted—brought me a blade of some sort. A prison shiv, as they say. As you know, there are plenty around in a place like this. Let’s say, just hypothetically, that I clutch the shiv in my hand to make sure my fingerprints are on the weapon. Then, again hypothetically, let’s say the correctional officer dons gloves. Like, for example, the ones here in the infirmary.” Ross smiled through the pain from the beating. “I then take the blame. I then confess, freely, easily—after all, what do I have to lose? If anything, this will help me get free.”

Ted Weston frowned. “Help you how?”

“My appeal is based on my mental sanity. Killing Burroughs will make me appear to be even more loony. Don’t you see? They’ll have the murder weapon with my fingerprints on it. They’ll have my confession. Dozens of witnesses just saw our altercation, a fight nearly to the death, which will thus add in motive for me.” He turned both palms to the ceiling. “Case closed.”

Ted Weston couldn’t help but squirm. A hundred grand. That was more than a year’s salary. Plus it would be cash, no taxes taken out, so it was closer to two years’ worth. He thought about what he and Edna could do with that kind of cash. They were drowning in bills. That kind of money wouldn’t just be throwing them a life preserver. It would be throwing them a damn yacht. And he knew Sumner was good for it. Everybody knew that. He had already transferred two K into his and Bob’s account to look the other way in the cafeteria, which they’d done until it went south.

Looking away for two grand was one thing. Getting $500 a month to report on what Burroughs was up to, as Ted had for years now, that was nice too. But one hundred grand—man oh man, the number staggered Ted. And all he had to do was stab a worthless baby-killer who should have gotten the chair anyway, a man who, if Sumner wanted him dead, would end up dead no matter what. So what was the harm? What was the big deal?

Sumner was right. Nobody would finger Ted. Even if it went wrong, Ted was liked in here. His colleagues would back him.

It would be so easy.

“Theodore?”

Ted shook his head. “I can’t.”

“If you’re trying to negotiate for more money—”

“I’m not. This isn’t who I am.”

Sumner laughed. “Oh, you’re above it, is that what you think?”

“I need to be right with my family,” Ted said. “With my God.”

“Your God?” Sumner laughed again. “That superstitious nonsense? Your God who lets thousands of children starve every day but lets me live to murder and rape? Do you ever think about that, Theodore? Did your God watch me torture people? Was your God too weak to stop me—or did he choose to watch my victims suffer horrible deaths?”

Ted didn’t bother replying. He stared down at the floor, his face reddening.

“You don’t have a choice, Theodore.”

Ted looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I need you to do this. You’ve already taken money from us. I can let your bosses know—not to mention local law enforcement, the press, your family. I don’t want to do that. I like you. You’re a good man. But we are desperate. You don’t seem to appreciate that. We want Burroughs dead.”

“You keep saying ‘we.’ Who is we?”

Sumner looked him dead in the eye. “You don’t want to know. We need him dead. And we need him dead tonight.”

“Tonight?” Ted couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Even if I—”

“I can make further threats if you’d like. I can remind you of our wealth. I can remind you that we still have resources on the outside. I can remind you that we know all about you, that we know where your family—”

Ted’s hand shot out for Ross Sumner’s throat. Sumner didn’t so much as flinch as Ted’s fingers closed around his neck. It didn’t last, of course. Ted let go almost immediately.

“We can make things bad for you, Theodore. You have no idea how bad.”