Redemption Road(108)
Olivet placed the gun on the counter, but kept it close. “It’s okay, honey. Why don’t you take breakfast upstairs and watch TV.”
The girl disappeared upstairs, and the warden watched her go. “The limp is barely noticeable. How many surgeries was it? Four?”
“Seven.”
“Still in remission?”
“I don’t like it when you come here.”
“I’m offended.”
“I don’t like you bringing them here, either.”
“See, this has always been the problem with you, Stanford. You think you’re above this somehow, that your money and conscience are somehow clean. What’s your share, now? A half million dollars? Six hundred thousand?”
“My daughter—”
“Don’t use her as an excuse. How much did that boat in your driveway cost, or the watch on your wrist? No. You’re no kind of hero.” The warden dipped a finger in the syrup and licked it. “We’ve been doing this for a lot of years, you and I. The money and drugs, the dirty prisoners and their dirty little crumbs.”
“Don’t talk about that here. Jesus. My daughter is right upstairs.”
“I don’t give a shit about your daughter.” The voice was like ice. “You let Adrian Wall kill my best friend.”
“I didn’t let him do anything.”
“You didn’t stop him, either. How should I feel about that? Preston’s dead and you’re not. Are you a coward, Stanford? Did you beg and crawl as William Preston stood firm and died for the trouble?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then tell me how it was.”
The moment spooled out, and there was hatred there, years of it. Olivet broke first. “Adrian doesn’t know anything,” he said. “If he did, he’d have told us years ago. That makes following him not just needless, but stupid. He’s broken and unpredictable, and we’re the ones who broke him. You can’t control a situation like that, which means we should have never been on that roadside in the first place. If anything got Preston killed, it was you, your inflexibility and ego and greed.”
“Say that again.”
“You shouldn’t be in my house.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” The warden smiled a cold, bright smile and stepped close. “We’re going to find Adrian Wall, just the four of us. We’re going to hunt him down, and we’re going to kill him. Then I’ll decide if I need to kill you, too.”
Olivet glanced at the gun, but the warden was fast and sure, and the gleam in his eyes was like a dare.
Think of the girl.
Of living through the next two minutes.
“How do we find him?” Olivet cleared his throat and stepped away from the gun. “He could be in Mexico by now. Anywhere.”
“He was with the woman last night?”
“Yes.”
“He’s not in Mexico.”
The warden spoke with familiar arrogance. Olivet looked up the stairs and thought he saw a shadow on the wall—his daughter, listening. “Listen,” he whispered. “I’m sorry about what I said.”
“Of course you are. I understand.” The warden picked up the .45, dropped the magazine, and ejected the shell. “We all make mistakes, say things we don’t mean.” He pushed the .45 flat against Olivet’s chest, kept pushing until Olivet stepped backward and struck the sink. “But my friend is dead, and you’re not. That means no one walks away from this. You understand? Not you, not me, and sure as hell not Adrian Wall.”
*
Liz followed Adrian back to the mill, each with a jar of coins tucked in the crook of an arm. She slogged through the creek and did the math. Five thousand coins in thirty jars. One hundred and sixty-five to the jar. Maybe one seventy. What was that?
Two hundred thousand dollars per jar?
Liz couldn’t get her head around that. After thirteen years as a cop, she had $4,300 in the bank and $15,000 in a brokerage account. She didn’t care about money—that had never been her thing—but the thought of $6 million buried in a swamp made her head spin. People had died for it, and people had killed. That made it blood money. Did the stain adhere to Adrian?
She watched him move through the green: the muddy pants and narrow waist, the sure, steady movements.
“You okay back there?”
“Yes,” she said, and decided that she was. Eli Lawrence was dead, his crime paid for. William Preston deserved what he got, and who was she to judge, anyway? She’d lied about a double murder and harbored not one fugitive but two. “What do you plan to do, now?”
Adrian pushed beyond the last trees and waded through the stream that fed the mill. When he spoke, it was at the car. “Go away, I guess.” He took the jar from her hands and put it on the ground beside the other. “Find a place, some other life. It’s what Eli always wanted.”
Elizabeth let her gaze move across the swamp. Mist was burning off; light fingered through. “What about the warden?”
“I don’t need it anymore.” He smiled, and she knew he meant revenge.
“And the gold?”
“This’ll get me started.” He dipped his head at the two jars. “The rest will be there when I come back for it.”