Overkill(85)

“He’s right, Cal,” Theo said.

Zach and the other two looked over at him. He was no longer swaying. His voice wasn’t quavering, and his eyes weren’t darting around as though afraid to light. “Why drag this out? Enough with the intimidation. Let’s just get it over with, okay?”

“Okay.” Parsons tightened his grip on the revolver.

Zach thought, Fuck me, wrong call. He locked eyes with Kate.

Then Parsons dropped his gun hand to his side and said, “We confess.”





Chapter 35





Kate was too stunned to move or speak. She’d been certain that the last thing she would see was Zach, looking at her with desperation.

Cal withdrew his arm from her waist and walked over to an end table, where he set the pistol down.

Having regained her breath, Kate asked, “How did you know we were here?”

“Didn’t. But after seeing the stories on TV, you two together, the innuendos being bandied about, we figured you might have gone into hiding, and this was the logical place to look first.”

“But how’d you find my house?” Zach asked.

“I work in a library,” Theo said and gave an apologetic shrug. “County records. Process of elimination. And then for five bucks a guy at a filling station on the edge of town told us which road to take off the highway. He said your private drive wasn’t marked, but to go until we couldn’t go any farther and there it would be.”

“Did Eban provide the pistol?” Zach asked Cal.

“It belongs to my father-in-law. Eban hasn’t plotted your demise yet. He was counting on us to help with that. We wanted no part of it, of him.”

“If you didn’t come to kill us, why did you think a gun would be necessary?” Zach asked. “Why all this tough-guy crap?”

Theo muttered, “Told ya, Cal.”

Which he ignored. “Would you have greeted us like long-lost friends?” Cal asked Zach. “I couldn’t be certain of your reaction to seeing us and wanted protection, just in case. That chain across the road seemed like a warning for intruders to keep out.”

“It was a warning for—”

“All right,” Kate interrupted. “Let’s not dwell on the past ten minutes. I’m more interested in the next ten, or twenty, or however long it takes to talk this through. But before we begin, I’d like to get my boots. Zach is right. My feet are cold.”

Zach and she went upstairs and finished dressing. They were back down in under five minutes. Theo was seated on the hearth. Cal had taken Zach’s favorite chair. The coffee table had been moved back to its rightful place. Kate wondered if they’d guessed why it had been pushed up against the sofa. Worse, did they know? That prospect made her queasy.

To put her mind at ease, she asked how long they’d been inside the house before she’d walked into the kitchen.

“Only a few minutes,” Cal replied. “We thought maybe you’d heard us come through the side door and were coming down to check.”

“Maybe I did hear you on a subconscious level and just didn’t realize what had awoken me.” Self-consciously she glanced at Zach, where he had sat down beside her on the sofa.

He wasn’t looking at her, however. He had a bead on Cal. He said, “Well, you’re here and we’re listening. Where’s the confession?”

Cal took a deep breath and began by saying, “I’m sorry, Bridger.” There was humility in his posture as well as in his voice. “The apology is long overdue. I should have contacted you years ago and told you how sorry I was—am—for what happened to your wife.”

“She wasn’t my wife at the time, but she was a person with years left to live, and those years were taken from her.”

“They were, yeah.” He lowered his head. “I’m sorrier than I can say.”

“That goes for me, too,” Theo said. “But nothing we say will offset what we did, or didn’t do, that night. Speaking for Cal and me, we wish we could rewind, erase it. We’d do anything to make up for what happened.”

“Anything except tell the truth about it at Eban’s trial,” Zach said. “You could have done that.”

Kate placed her hand on his knee, a silent signal for him to exercise restraint. His antagonism toward them was understandable. It wasn’t only Rebecca’s life they’d destroyed; they’d also derailed his. But they were talking. She wanted to keep them talking.

Turning her attention to Theo, she said, “Is that what you came here to confess? You lied on the witness stand?”

Theo looked at Cal, who said, “Yes.”

“You understand that you’ve just admitted to perjury,” Kate said.

“Yes.”

“Your lawyer won’t be happy with you.”

“I’m not happy with me. I’ve got to own up to my part in this or I’ll never be happy. Neither will Melinda.” Looking tortured, he added, “I could lose her over it.”

Kate said, “Did you seek me out with the expectation of being granted clemency, or to try and strike some other deal? Because I can’t guarantee that will come about, Cal. I made sure that Melinda understood that.”

“We came with only one expectation,” he said, “and that’s of seeing Eban put away.”