Redemption Road(119)

Elizabeth looked at the steeple, at the white paint and the gold cross that looked as cheap as foil. “Was he obsessed with me?”

“He prays for you, here and at home. He prays with your father.”

Elizabeth felt cold fingers in the shade. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Only that he was wrong, sweetheart, and that he has sought forgiveness with all his heart. That’s what makes you right in your way, and your father right in his. It’s what makes this all so awful.”

*

After that, Elizabeth was alone. She had a theory, and it was tied so deeply to her own past that she had trouble looking at it straight on. Harrison Spivey had an intimate connection to the church, to her, and to her family. He could be violent, obsessed.

The victims looked like her.

Was Randolph right about that? She didn’t know. Maybe some of them. All she knew for sure was that Channing was gone, and the clock was ticking. Arrest. Death. They were out there, spinning. And if a voice spoke of caution, it did so from the deepest corner of her mind. Too many years led to this, too many sleepless nights and buried hurts. The word Providence rose, yet even that felt dangerous. This was not about her, she told herself, but about finding the girl.

Then why did that voice, too, sound so distant? It whispered in the drive and drowned in the rush of her blood. She was on the porch of Spivey’s house, but it could have been the quarry or the church or the back of her father’s car as the boy laid a finger on her skin as if daring her to look up or say a word about the thing he’d done. Elizabeth felt all of that, bottled it, and directed it. No one had to get hurt, and no one had to die.

But, goddamn, she felt it.

The feeling took her through the door without knocking; through the kitchen and into the living room, gun holstered, but warm under her palm. She saw the wife and children in the backyard, which was good, because she had no plan beyond making the man talk. She flicked a glance left; saw a dining-room table, framed photographs, golf clubs in the corner. The normalcy of it stoked the resentment. Could a killer kill and then play golf?

She felt the answer in her skin; heard an echo of the voice and tuned it out. Noise came from the back hall so she turned in that direction, her footsteps soundless on deep carpet. She found him behind a desk littered with papers, a broad, soft man with a pencil in one hand and fingers on an old-fashioned calculator that rattled and clicked. The sight was so pedestrian it pulled her from the moment long enough to see the danger of what she was doing. The obsession was hers, but when he looked up, he had the same eyes and lips, the same hands that had been so quick with pine needles and buttons and torn fabric. “Hello, Harrison.”

He took in the gun, and his first glance, after, was through the window and at his children. “Elizabeth. What are you doing?”

She stepped into the room; watched his face and his eyes, his hands on the desk. Behind him, two dozen photographs hung on the wall: Harrison at different groundbreaking ceremonies, a golden shovel in his hand; Harrison with a group of women, and others with suited men. Everyone was at ease and happy and smiling.

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Don’t f*ck with me, Harrison.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, Liz.” He spread his hands. “I don’t know why you’re here with a gun, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, don’t hurt my children.”

She stepped closer, emotion like a wind as she remembered sneaking from the house so she could spread her legs in a trailer park abortion mill and let the pervert who called himself a doctor push cold steel past her cervix. That’s what Harrison Spivey did for her. That’s what she knew of children. “Where is she?”

“You keep saying she. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“I introduced you to her on the sidewalk. Channing Shore. I introduced you and now she’s gone.”

“What? Who?”

“They found Allison Wilson, too. Under the church. Murdered.”

“What in God’s name does that have to do with me?” He looked genuinely appalled, but psychopaths could do that. Dissimulate. Misdirect. Entire lives could be made of lies, with only the dark center holding.

Elizabeth wanted to see his center. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to leave quietly. Your family is outside; they won’t even see us. We’re going to find someplace private, you and I, and we’re going to have a discussion. What that discussion feels like is up to you.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Get up.”

“Maybe, this is how it had to happen.” He leaned back in his chair, and the strength surprised her. He seemed suddenly resolved, with none of the fear she saw on those rare occasions she went to his office or tracked him on the streets. “You really don’t know me at all, do you, Liz? What I’ve done with my life. How I’ve tried to atone.” He gestured at the wall behind him. “Do you even see what’s right in front of you?”

Elizabeth let her gaze run across the photographs, seeing how they were the same, but different, picking up detail she’d missed.

“Six clinics. In six different cities. A decade of work. Fifty cents of every dollar I’ve ever made, and this is just the beginning.”