Redemption Road(122)

“I don’t know where Adrian is.”

“Is that right?”

“I assume that’s why you’re here.”

The warden stepped closer, looking up through dark lashes. “Did you know that William Preston stood up at my wedding eighteen years ago? No, of course not. How could you? Nor could you know that I am the godfather to his children. They’re twins, by the way, and fatherless, of course. I love them like my own, but it’s not the same, is it?”

Elizabeth said nothing.

“So, tell me, Detective.” He took another step. “Was my dear friend alive when you left him beaten and bloody on the roadside?”

“I think you should leave.”

“The coroner says he aspirated four teeth, and half a pint of his own blood. I try to imagine how that would feel, to drown on blood and road grit and teeth. The doctors say he might have lived had he made it to the hospital at the same time as the lawyer. It troubles me that he died for want of a few minutes, so let me make my question very plain. Was it your decision to abandon him to such a horrible death?” He was seven feet from the porch, then five. “Or did that choice belong to Adrian Wall?”

The gun appeared in Elizabeth’s hand.

“Four on one, Detective.”

His voice was soft, but Elizabeth saw Jacks and Woods move closer, too. They wanted Adrian and intended to get him. Whether they sought revenge for Preston’s death or a chance to finish what they’d started in prison, she didn’t know or care. A wild disregard had taken root inside her. It was the arrogance and corruption, the readiness of his smile. “Adrian told me what you did to him.”

“Prisoner Wall is delusional. We’ve established this.”

“What about Faircloth Jones? Eighty-nine years old and harmless. Was he delusional?”

“The lawyer is irrelevant.”

“What?”

“Immaterial,” the warden said. “Of no real meaning or worth.”

Elizabeth’s hand tightened on the pistol, all confusion gone. Nothing burned inside but sudden anger, and that was all right. He’d said four on one but was unarmed, himself, and Olivet looked broken. That made Jacks and Woods the immediate threats, and she’d play those odds all day long. The gun was in her hand; clear lines of fire. The warden was still smiling because he thought she was a cop and would behave as one. But, that’s not what she was. She was Adrian’s friend and Faircloth’s, an exhausted woman on the narrow edge of something bloody.

“I want the man who killed my friend.”

He made it a threat, but Elizabeth ignored it. She’d take the one on the right first because he looked eager, and she tracked better right to left. She’d drop the second before his gun cleared the holster, then take Olivet and the warden. All she needed was a reason.

“Last time, Detective. Where is Adrian Wall?”

“You tortured him.”

“I deny that.”

“You carved your initials into his back.”

“That sounds difficult to prove.”

He was baiting her, smiling. She kept her eyes on Jacks and Woods. She wanted a twitch.

Please, God …

Give me a reason …

“Is everything all right over there?”

That was the neighbor, Mr. Goldman. He stood by the hedge, nervous and worried. Behind him was the same ’72 Pontiac station wagon, and beyond that, his wife. She stood on the porch with a telephone in her hand and a look on her face that said she was a heartbeat away from calling 911. Elizabeth kept her eyes on the guns because things could go downhill fast, and if the slide started, it would start there.

“Last chance, Detective.”

“I don’t think so.”

The warden looked at the neighbor, the wife with the phone. “You can’t hide behind an old man forever.” He showed flat eyes and the same white teeth. “Not in a town like this.”





32

He valued the silo because, like him, it had been made for a particular purpose. It did the job day after day, year after year. Nobody thanked it or even noticed. Now, it was broken down and forgotten, the fields around it grown over with trees, the farmhouse little more than a dark spot in the soil. How many years since someone had cared about it?

Seventy?

A hundred?

He’d discovered it as a boy and in all the years since had never seen another soul come near it. Rumor was some paper company in Maine owned the full ten thousand acres that surrounded it. He could find out for sure if he wanted—a deed of some kind would be buried in a courthouse drawer. But, why bother? The woods were deep and still, the clearing as quiet and lonesome as any place he’d ever known. Concrete was crumbling. Steel was rusted through.

But the structure still stood.

He still stood.

Not all the women made it to the silo, but most did: the fighters and strong-willed, those that needed time to soften. A few had been ready to die from almost the moment he took them, as if they’d wished him into existence, or as if some vital part of them shut down at the mere thought of an ending. They were inevitably a disappointment. But weren’t they all?

Yes, in fundamental ways.

Then, why bother?

Slowing where a red oak hung an arm across the road, he turned onto the narrow track at the property’s edge and nudged deeper into the trees, stopping when he got to the gate he’d installed years ago. Out of the car, he opened the big lock and dragged the gate open. The road behind him was empty, but he moved quickly, pushing the car deeper into the trees, then sliding the gate closed. Once inside, he considered the question again. Why bother at all?