by Greg Iles
“It’s hard to say. About three years ago I really started to notice. The more he aged—or the more Sally aged, really—the more attention he started paying to Kevin. And to me. You know women age faster than men. Sally was beautiful, but you can only turn the clock back so far. Max still lives like he’s forty.”
“The son of a bitch could pass for ten years younger than he is.”
“Oh, he’s starting to creak a little. He feels the reaper out there in the dark. But during those good years, Max coached Kevin’s athletic teams, taught him to hunt—all the things Kevin loves doing now. I didn’t realize then what the result of that would be. Max was stealing Kevin from Paul. I’m not kidding. That damned traveling baseball team has taken over their lives. Kevin lives for it. This past year and a half, I’ve watched Max become more obsessed every month. He wants that boy. He wants to be his father. To live as his father.”
“And he wants you.”
Jet nods with what looks like desperation.
A terrifying thought has risen from a dark place in my mind. “Do you think Max has ever thought about trying to get Paul out of the way?”
In the light of the dashboard, I see something chilling in her eyes. “I don’t think he’s thought of much else for the past year. He said it out loud tonight. He didn’t talk about killing Paul. But setting him up in Dallas or Atlanta with a new business and all the money he could ever need.”
“Without Kevin or you? Max is crazy if he thinks Paul would ever do that.”
Jet looks back at me like someone grieving a death that hasn’t happened yet. “He would tell Paul the truth first. To drive him away.”
“Push him to suicide, you mean.”
She closes her eyes. “That’s a short push.”
As I wrap my mind around this potential nightmare, a new question comes to me. “If Max had this to hang over your head all this time, why didn’t he use it to extort sex from you?”
An eerie laugh echoes off the window glass. “He didn’t need me. He had plenty of women back then. And he cared about Kevin way too much to risk messing that up. I think he sensed that if he pestered me that way, he’d destabilize the situation. So he screwed other women and made sure he always had access to Kevin.”
“But now . . . ?”
Jet’s jaw tightens. “Now it’s different.”
“I honestly don’t see how this situation ends without violence.”
When she speaks again, I feel like she’s talking to herself as much as to me. “He’s been watching me for months. Stalking me, practically. After you and I got back together . . . it was like he could smell you on me. He sensed I was sexually active again. I could feel his eyes on me all the time, even when Sally and Paul were around.”
“And you think Sally never saw that?”
“I’m sure she noticed him ogling my ass. But he does that to any woman with a figure. That doesn’t necessarily lead to the secret.”
“So when Max saw you and me on the patio—”
“He lost it.” She takes hold of my wrist. “Seriously, I think he wants to kill you.”
“He covered his hatred pretty well at my house yesterday.”
“Of course! He’s a consummate liar. A natural liar. Not a pathological one, because he doesn’t lie for the pleasure of it. He lies to get what he wants.”
We’ve entered Bienville proper now. Convenience stores and service stations drift past on either side of the Ford. As we shunt down the dark vein of Cemetery Road, the essential reality of this nightmare finally comes home to me. Kevin Matheson is Max’s son. Jet’s dream that she and I would move away from here and set up a new life in Washington with Kevin was never more than that. A fantasy.
“I always thought Paul was the obstacle to us being together,” I say softly. “But if you took Kevin away from this town, Max would hunt us to the ends of the earth.”
She answers with solemn intensity. “That’s why I hope he dies back there. I hope Warren Lacey tries to save him without going to a hospital, and he dies of a brain bleed.”
As more buildings close in around us, Jet says, “Do you want to wash your hands of all this? Of me?”
Instead of answering, I reach for her hand. As I do, my iPhone rings. It takes me a few seconds to get it out, but when I do, I see the caller is my mother. A pulse of fear goes through me, and I remember my father lying helpless in his bed last night.
“Mom?” I say, trying not to betray my anxiety.
“It’s me, Marshall.”
Something in her voice sets off every alarm in my brain. “What is it? Dad?”
“He’s in the hospital. Don’t worry, he’s not dead. But he’s had a heart attack. A severe one.”
Sensing my distress, Jet reaches out and grips my knee.
“When did it happen?” I ask.
“About an hour ago. Jack Kirby came by the house after work. He tried to convince Duncan to be admitted to the cardiac unit, just as a precaution. But you know your father. He wouldn’t hear of it. I begged, but he just wouldn’t go.”
“That’s not your fault, Mom. Everybody knows how hardheaded he is.”
“I don’t know. Anyway, about eight thirty he got short of breath, and then the pain started in his back. High up. I called an ambulance. He was unconscious by the time they reached the hospital. Jack’s been up here ever since, tending to him. They’ve used some kind of device to put him into hypothermia, to reduce the chance of brain damage. And they’ve induced a coma as well.”
I suppress the urge to say “My God,” but it’s clear that Dad is in critical condition.
“They’ve done enzyme tests, of course,” Mom goes on, “but those take time. Jack’s sure it was a major heart attack, and he says Duncan’s heart failure is worse. He’s got a lot of fluid buildup.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll come straight there.”
“I want to tell you something,” she says, and I hear her voice crack. A single sob comes down the line, and my throat goes tight. I know what it costs her to break down in front of me. “Right up until it happened,” she goes on, “he was talking about you getting out a newspaper tomorrow. He was so excited. He’d talked to Aaron at the barn three or four times. Ben Tate, too. It seems like everybody’s pitching in. Duncan was more excited than I’ve seen him in years. Today was just too much for him. He felt like he’d let us all down.”
“I know. He’s going to see that newspaper tomorrow. You hang tough. I’m on my way.”
“Hurry, Marshall.”
I click end and hit the gas hard.
“Your dad?” Jet asks.
“Major heart attack. I don’t think he has very long.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t. Not after tonight. Where’s your car?”
“My law office.”
“I’ll run you there first.”
“Don’t be crazy! It’s too far out of your way. Drop me somewhere on the way, and I’ll have somebody pick me up and take me to my car.”
“Who?”
“My paralegal. If Josh can’t do it, I’ll get somebody else.”
“With Max’s gun?”
Jet’s eyes go wide. “And the hammer. Shit, I forgot about that.”
As my eyes register where we are, a simple answer hits me. “We’re about to come to that turn where the railroad tracks come together. Roll down your window, and when we get there, throw it all down into the gully. There’s nothing but kudzu and rattlesnakes down there. Nobody’s ever going to find anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Wipe them on your pants leg just in case. For prints. Hurry.”
“Max’s phone, too?”
“No, keep the phone. Hide it when you get home.”
Jet reaches down for the hammer and wipes it on her pants leg. Then the gun. Twenty seconds later, we enter the turn where my father’s first family slid into eternity. I see no other headlights, no pedestrians on the road.
“Do it!”
>
Jet hurls the hardware through the window while our tires judder over the railroad iron. I don’t hear any impact noise.
“Did you make the gully?”
“Yep. They’re gone.”
Four blocks past the turn, I pull into a black pool of shadow against the curb. Instead of getting out, Jet turns and takes my face in her hands. Hers is a mosaic of dried tears and mascara.
“I never wanted to lie to you,” she says, looking deep into my eyes. “I love you.”
“I know. I love you, too. Where will you say you’ve been?”
“My office, I guess.”
I wrap my arms around her, hard enough to hurt, then kiss her ear and neck and hair with frantic urgency. Despite all she told me tonight, her skin and hair taste exactly the same. She smells the same. Most of all, her eyes still shine with life. After she shivers against me for a few seconds, I release her, and she vanishes into the dark. When I shift into Drive and press the pedal to the floor, blood suffuses my muscles, and a wild compulsion fills my chest. If I see blue lights behind me, I will not stop.
I must see my father while he still lives.
Chapter 40
My father was still in a coma when I reached the intensive care unit. Dr. Kirby and our local cardiologist had used a device called the Arctic Sun to put him into hypothermia, and a propofol-induced coma was part of their protocol. By circulating cold water through pads affixed to the thighs and torso, the Arctic Sun can prevent brain damage from insufficient blood flow. The ICU only allows visitors for fifteen minutes out of every hour, so we’ve set up a temporary camp in the waiting room. Right now Mom is in with Dad, having given me the first ten minutes of this quarter hour.
After my first silent visit with him, I rode out to Dixie Allman’s house to get my Flex back. She’d lost her shift at the Show ’n’ Tail and wasn’t happy about it. I gave her a hundred bucks as compensation, but she still griped about having to take her Explorer back so soon. As I pulled out of her driveway, Denny ran up to my window and knocked. He’d been proud to see his photos in the Watchman, and while his mother has forbidden him from doing any more filming for the paper, he hopes to keep helping out on Buck’s murder case. I told him I’d call him if I needed aerial support.
Back at the hospital, I found Nadine in the ICU waiting room with a food basket and a big steel thermos. As soon as she’d learned about Dad’s plight, she’d run by her bookstore and gathered up muffins, sandwiches, and coffee. The Bienville General Hospital has no food available after hours, other than vending-machine crap, so Nadine made sure we would want for nothing. I told her she didn’t have to stay, but she planted herself beside me on the plastic couch and started reading Twitter and Instagram like she meant to stay all night.
After a while, she asked me about the closing of the Watchman, which is apparently the talk of the town. Though she didn’t know the inside story, she knew enough to guess that my deal with the Poker Club was never consummated. After some reflection, I told her that Ben Tate was working on getting out a newspaper tomorrow, one that would at least wound some Poker Club members. When her face betrayed concern, I confessed that I’d avoided telling her ahead of time because I knew how she felt about risking the loss of the paper mill. While she thought about that, I described how Arthur Pine shut down the paper and fired our staff, and the effect that had on my father.
“Hit them back,” she said flatly. “Jab them with a sharp stick and let them know they’re mortal. They have to obey the rules like everybody else, or they go down.”
“I thought you’d try to talk me out of it.”
She shrugged. “I don’t want Bienville to lose the mill. I won’t lie about that. But I don’t see why taking down some corrupt assholes has to destroy the whole deal. Is the story you’re running tomorrow going to hurt Azure Dragon directly?”
“Nothing they can’t survive. There was something in the PDF file that hinted at a quid pro quo between Azure Dragon and Senator Sumner—or that’s how I read it—but I told Ben to hold that back until we know more. I’m hoping my source will flesh that out with the next delivery. If there is another delivery.”
“What alias did you say the source used?”
“Mark Felt.”
She looked as though she were trying to recall the name of a song playing on the radio. “Was he one of the Watergate burglars?”
“No, he was Deep Throat, Bob Woodward’s secret source.”
“Right. Got it.” She shook her head, a wicked smile on her face. “Man, oh, man, when that trail camera photo of Beau Holland with Buck hits tomorrow, Beau’s going to lose it. He’ll be truly desperate. He won’t know who he can trust. I’d love to be there when he opens that paper.”
We’ve sat in companionable silence for a while since that conversation, Nadine reading a novel on her phone while I text back and forth with Ben about tomorrow’s stories. When a woman of about seventy walks in and sits in a shiny brown chair on the opposite side of the waiting room, Nadine leans close and whispers, “So Ben Tate is editing this issue alone?”
“He’s writing it alone, for the most part. Building the pages, everything. I’m just giving him a little guidance. I may read the stories before he sends out the final file, but I trust Ben. All but the front page we’re contracting to a paper in a nearby city.”
“Why not the front page? Legal issues?”
“Bingo. My dad’s old press men are trying to run off a front page with the original Watchman masthead, but I don’t know how much luck they’re having. If they succeed, we’re somehow going to have to recruit a crew to wrap that page around the main issue, as well as deliver the papers before sunup.”
“That sounds like a lot of work. How many papers?”
“Our normal run is seven thousand. But we’re going to try for ten thousand tomorrow and just throw them at every house. To hell with the subscriber list.”
Nadine looks intrigued. “That sounds like something I could help with, organizing some of that. Or grunt work, whatever. I know how to fold.”
“Would you really?”
She smiles. “Sure. I can do whatever those guys need, plus keep you up to speed, since you’ll be stuck here.”
“I’ve got to say, I’m surprised.”
She laughs. “Hey, I may be pragmatic, but I won’t stand by while a bunch of Daddy Warbucks–types subvert the free press.”
I can’t help but smile. After giving her Ben Tate’s contact info, I text Ben that Nadine will be calling him and that he should trust her. While she walks down the hall to talk to Ben out of earshot of the other visitor, I lean back on the hard plastic sofa and wonder how Jet fared tonight. How long did it take her to get a ride to her Volvo? To get home to Paul and Kevin? She hasn’t texted me, so I’m guessing things must be tense over there. I’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow to get any answers.
My watch shows thirty minutes until my next ICU visit. They’ve obviously let Mom overstay her allotted time, unless she’s in the restroom. I’m so dazed by all that Jet told me on Parnassus Hill that I’ve found myself focusing on other things, however painful. The last ten minutes I spent in the ICU were nothing like the sixty seconds that Mom left me alone with Dad last night. Last night I could have nudged him awake, brought him back to the present, into the flow of human existence. But standing over him tonight, I knew that if I nudged him, nothing would happen. He’s sedated, yes, but he was unconscious when the paramedics brought him in, and Dr. Kirby made it clear to me that he might never wake up. How can it be that only this morning, I called Dad and got a long, well-reasoned answer about why he never went after the Poker Club in print? Tonight he can’t even hear my questions. I fear that my mother’s dream of Dad and me having a cathartic conversation, one in which forgiveness is at least a possibility, is receding to the unreachable horizon of might-have-been. It may not be too late, of course. But it feels too late.
Looking up and down the hall, I see no sign of either Nadine or my mother
. Left in relative solitude, I allow the thoughts I’ve held at bay for the past couple of hours to rush in. Jet revealed life-altering facts back on that hill. Kevin’s true paternity was a revelation of such magnitude that a few hours can’t possibly suffice to work through all the implications. I can scarcely get my mind around the idea that Jet’s been hiding a rape for thirteen years. And not a rape by a stranger, or even an acquaintance, but a family member—one who raped her when she was an adult. Not only an adult, I remind myself, but an attorney. Moreover, she’s been raising the child of that rape while the rapist is involved with him. Everything I know about Jet tells me she wouldn’t be able to do that. And yet . . . she has.
The oldest human failing is to assume we know everything about those we love. We may well know more than anyone else on earth about a person. But even if we know 99 percent of their thoughts and history, the remaining unknowns could shatter everything we believe about them. Yet what did Jet’s revelations prove? That I don’t know her at all? Or that she’s as human as the rest of us? I’m certainly guilty of having idealized her. The girl I knew at fourteen could never have survived unchanged through adulthood. Besides, nothing Jet told me implicates her in any way. Max is the villain in that horror story. And yet . . . as I think of her now, a small aberration has appeared in the lens of my perception. The cause of it must be the one question Jet couldn’t answer: After Max raped her, but before she knew she was pregnant, why didn’t she leave? Throw a bag into the back of her car and run for her life—
“Marshall?”
I jump in my seat.
Nadine walks around from behind me. “People are up in arms about the closing of the Watchman,” she says excitedly, though in a low voice. Glancing over at the woman in the chair, she sits close to me on the sofa. “I talked to a friend of mine after I spoke to Ben. You’d think people would be glad the paper closed, given how angry they were at Buck, not to mention your dad’s anti-Trump editorials. But there seems to be a groundswell of anger about losing the paper. Sympathy for your father, maybe? The black community’s especially angry. Alderman Washington went on the radio and tore into the Poker Club right on the air.”
