The Unwilling(110)

I won’t spend a dime …

The execution was only hours away, and he’d been plain on that point, too.

Once I am dead, you have nothing to fear …

For a moment more, Reece worried at the splinter, but just for a moment. X was nothing special, after all. Maybe that’s why Reece felt so out of sorts.

With a mental flourish, he returned to all the good he’d achieved. He had two boys in the cage, and he really couldn’t let them live. Lonnie had been right about that. He’d keep them alive until tomorrow, of course.

But after the execution?

Reece poured a glass of his father’s favorite bourbon.

Such a small word to mean so much: execution. For Reece, it meant a life without shadow or reason to feel small. He had money. He had the girl. What couldn’t he do once X was out of the picture?

He sat on the sofa, and watched the television play in silence. He would be there, of course. Hundreds already were; they’d been all over the news, old Christians, young hippies, and other strange souls. Some called it a protest, others a vigil, a field full of headlights and campfires and lanterns. None of them really knew X, and that part did make Reece sad. X was a dinosaur and stiff as an old rope, but he was one of a kind. Reece could admit that much, at least. Raising his glass to the television, he watched shadows climb and dance on the prison walls. “The end of an era,” he said, then drank the whiskey down, and went off to watch the girl.



* * *



Alone in his office, Warden Wilson watched the news coverage. WBTV aired an hour-long special at seven o’clock. WRAL aired a similar program at eight, but focused more on the victims, and less on X’s childhood, family fortune, and long-ago string of famous acquaintances. After a time, he unlocked a desk drawer, removed an envelope, and spilled its contents onto the desk. Passports. Travel documents. New identities. According to X, the money would be wired after.

But only after …

What X had asked him to do was a horrible thing—a reprehensible, unforgivable, and horrible thing—but the warden had no choice.

“No choice at all,” he said.

And then he called Ripley.

When he arrived, the warden said, “Come in. Lock the door.” Ripley did and when the warden said, “Sit,” he did that, too. They’d known each other for a long time, not a friendship—how could it be?—but they understood each other. “What’s our status?”

“The lawyers are gone. X is eating.”

Warden Wilson glanced at the clock on the wall. The execution was scheduled for 9:00 a.m., a civilized hour, and not dawn, as people tended to think. “What about Jason French?”

“He’ll be front row, center. Like X wants.”

“And after? Who are you using?”

“Jordan and Kudravetz.”

They were good choices, mercenary as hell and just smart enough. Unlocking the desk, the warden opened the bottom drawer, and removed three buff envelopes, two the size of a large dictionary, the third even larger. With a felt-tip pen, he wrote a name on each one. Ripley. Jordan. Kudravetz. He pushed the largest across the desk. “Open it.”

Ripley did as he was told, no expression on his face as he stacked bricks of cash in neat rows. “Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he finally said.

“And a quarter million for each of the others.”

A moment’s silence followed. A man could buy a good house for forty thousand, a sports car for five. Ripley laced his fingers, and leaned back in the chair. The wheels were invisible, but they were for-damn-sure turning. “All right,” he finally said. “Who do we have to kill?”





42


For Reece, it seemed anything was possible, and he wondered if this was what Christians meant when they spoke of being reborn. He was behind the false wall, and the girl was taking off her clothes. Too soon for a long bath, he knew, or even a hot, quick shower; but clean clothing had proved too much a temptation.

A richer world …

He followed her to the kitchen, only a few feet away as she uncorked a bottle of wine, and flared her nostrils before taking a sip. She moved room to room, and he trailed along behind the mirrors and the walls. When she slept, she did so fully clothed, with her knees drawn up. He’d planned to watch like this for nights or weeks, but it was the dawn of a new world.

An hour after midnight, he went inside.

He wouldn’t touch her yet, but wanted to smell her hair and her skin, to feel the heat of her neck on his face. He stood by the bed, looking down. She was on her side, her lips slightly parted. Leaning close, he studied the line of her nose, and of the lashes, dark on her skin. He breathed deeply, but her hair smelled unclean, and her breath was slightly sour. He would have frowned, but she woke unexpectedly: a shutter-snap of wide eyes and the shadow-pink of an open mouth. For the first time in his life, Reece froze, utterly panicked.

He was ruining it!

The stare held for half a second, then Reece turned and ran, the girl screaming loud enough to shatter every thought he’d ever had.



* * *



I heard the scream, muffled by the house, but definitely in the house. It went on so long that even Chance stirred, which was more than I’d been able to manage in all the long hours we’d been caged.

“Hey, buddy, are you with me?”