A friend, William Newmiller, spent several hours telling me about the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility and describing details of entry procedure, “offender” treatment and lifestyle, and layout. My thanks to him and good wishes for proving his son’s innocence and getting him released.
As always I owe thanks to many people for reading early drafts, cheering me on, and supporting me emotionally and otherwise while I write. Thanks to my critique group, Lin Poyer, Marie Layton, and Amy Tracy, and to my mother, Joan Hankins, for comments on early drafts. A special thanks to Rev. Sally Hubbell for reading the manuscript and giving me her very helpful thoughts. This book is better than it would have been because of their input.
I am grateful every day to my husband and daughters, who fill my world with joy and make everything worthwhile.
Book Club Discussion Questions
Neil Asher is incarcerated, yet he is not the only character who is trapped or imprisoned in some way. What other characters are imprisoned? Are these “prisons” imposed by forces and circumstances outside the individual, or are they self-built? Are the characters freed or do they free themselves in the course of the story? If not, why not?
Discuss the “rock/stone” images in this novel. Obviously, the reckoning stones were used to punish and humiliate. How are other stone references/symbols positive ones? How does Iris’s connection to stones influence the story?
How do the different characters find redemption (if they do)? Compare Jolene’s path to redemption with Marian’s, for instance. Is Iris redeemed in this story? Does she need redemption?
The ending hints that there may be forgiveness and grace even for people like pedophiles who society may consider monsters. Are there acts that are unredeemable or unforgivable? How do you interpret the ending?
Iris sometimes seems obsessed with finding and revealing the truth, even at great cost to herself and others. Is the truth all-important?
What is innocence? Are there any characters in this book who are innocent?
How do the flashbacks work to give the story more depth? Do they make Iris a more sympathetic character? What about Jolene?
I love meeting with book clubs and would be happy to join your club in person or via Skype if you discuss The Reckoning Stones. Contact me through my web page, www.lauradisilverio.com.
© bluefoxphotography.com
About the Author
Laura DiSilverio is the nationally best selling author of the Readaholics Book Club series, and more than a dozen other crime novels. Past President of Sisters in Crime, she pens articles for Writer’s Digest, and conducts workshops and speaks at writers’ conferences, universities, and literary events. A retired Air Force intelligence officer, she plots murders and parents teens in Colorado, trying to keep the two tasks separate.
An Excerpt from Close Call the Next Book by Laura DiSilverio
one
Sydney
Washington D.C., Wednesday, 1 August
When someone starts a conversation with “Are you okay?” and you have no idea what they’re talking about, it’s a sure sign that fate has trampled you with cleats and you just don’t know it yet.
That thought zipped through my head as I slowed in the middle of a rush hour D.C. sidewalk to answer a cell phone call from my mom.
“Are you okay?” she asked, anxiety tightening her voice.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” A man jostled me and I walked faster. The sidewalk was almost as jammed as the street and the pedestrians had fewer hesitations about ramming each other.
She inhaled sharply. “You haven’t heard. Oh, my God. Sydney, it’s George.”
“George?” There had only ever been one George in my life, one George who had been my life, but I asked anyway, “Manley?” The name brought with it a whole lot of memories I tried to keep corralled in an “Off Limits” part of my brain. Nausea roiled my stomach and I swallowed hard. “What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
“How? Wha—” I was abreast of an Electronics Emporium and the display window was filled with high-def TVs. Images of me and George from long ago played on the screens. I hung up on Mom without apology and edged closer to the window. I was thirteen years younger and twenty pounds heavier on the screen; it was like looking at a badly distorted image, a fun-house mirror. My face flamed and I looked over my shoulder. No one was pointing or staring. People trotted down the Metro stairs. Jaywalkers snarled traffic. Thank God for small favors. I turned back to the window as my younger self shrouded her head with a coat to escape the reporters jabbing microphones at her.
George’s image filled the screens. Oh, my God. In his sixties, his silver hair matched the gray of his suit and his hooded eyes challenged the viewer. A name and a brace of years underscored the photo: “George Manley (D/Ohio), former Speaker of the House, 1953–2016.” He was really dead. Oh, my God. My knees buckled. I splayed a hand on the cool glass to keep from falling.
“Hey, lady, this yours?” A beefy stranger held my briefcase. I hadn’t even felt it fall.
“What? Oh, thank you.” I strangled the handle, torn between wanting to know what had happened to George and an unwillingness to hear newscasters rehash our past. The anchor, face solemn, narrated silently, and I tried to read his lips. Had he said “heart attack?” Anger prickled in my scalp and in my hands and feet. I swung away from the window. God knew I had plenty of reason to hate George, but he was dead. Why did the networks always—always—have to zoom in on the sordid? How sad—tragic, even—that our affair was haunting George even in death. He’d have wanted to be remembered for his education bill, for three decades of public service, not for screwing a co-ed younger than his daughter. Even if that girl had loved him more than … more than was safe.
Anger, humiliation, and something that wasn’t quite sadness—more like regret—mixed up in my stomach as I pushed open the door of Sol’s Deli, four storefronts away. A bell tinkled, drowned by customers shouting their orders to harried clerks, cell phones spraying Bach or the Beatles, and cash registers pinging. I inhaled a peppery hint of salami and the vinegar tang of pickles and pepperoncini. Better. My jangled nerves quieted. Leaning against a glass-fronted case, I let the cool seep through my sweat-damp dress. D.C. summers could double as one of Dante’s circles of hell—one reserved for politicians, George used to say. I tore my thoughts away from George Manley. Even though I’d never live down my teenage mistake, I didn’t have to relive it just because George was dead. I didn’t need the painful memories spoiling my evening with Jason.
Half a pound of sharp cheddar, I forced myself to think instead, two roasted chicken dinners, and a few of those garlic olives Jason liked. Did we need more coffee? Supplies like coffee and toilet paper seemed to evaporate with Jason in the house. One more week and he’d be back in his newly-renovated condo. A pang zipped through me and I bit the inside of my lip. It’d been a little claustrophobic at first, having Jason around, but I liked bumping against him now as we cooked dinner in the small kitchen, liked hearing the details of his day and snuggling with him every night, not just on weekends. I could live with the whiskers in the sink, but his racing bicycle couldn’t stay in the living room. We’d have to find somewhere else to keep it if—
“Ma’am? It’s your turn.” A man nudged me from behind. He bounced from one foot to the other, horn-rimmed glasses balanced on his sharp nose. “Can you hurry it up? I’ve gotta get my kids from daycare. They charge ten bucks for every minute you’re late. Per kid.”
“Sorry.”
I stepped to the counter with its four cash registers and ordered, on impulse getting a piece of chocolate cheesecake for Mrs. Colwell, my neighbor with the chocolate jones and fixed income. I had to lean forward to be heard over the men on either side, both jabbering into their cell phones. The aproned clerk dumped two white bags with handles on the counter, and my phone rang.
“Sorry.” I checked the number displayed on the cell phone. Mom. Calling back to check on my okay-ness. I didn’t answer. I put the phone beside the deli bags and pulled out a fifty as the man on my left slapped his phone on the counter to inspect the contents of six pizza boxes and the man on my other side set his phone down to pick up coins he’d dropped.
“Sorry. I don’t have anything smaller,” I told the clerk, a youth with pimples and straw-colored hair. Good grief, I sounded like the battered women I’d set up Winning Ways to help: “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“It’s cool,” the clerk said, making change. He peered at me in a way I’d come to dread. “You look familiar—”
I didn’t need this. “Thanks.” I gave him a five and a nervous smile, sidling away, desperate to be gone before he said more.
“Hey—I just saw you on TV!” He jerked his head toward the tiny television suspended above the far end of the counter. “Cool! You’re that—”
Impatient, the man behind me elbowed me aside and knocked against a jar of pickles, sending a stream of briny water over the counter. The clerk sprang back. Warty green pickles rolled across the formica and plunked to the floor. I swept my phone and damp change into my purse and almost ran out the door, praying that no one had heard the clerk.
“Jesus H. Christ!” and “Oh, shit, I’m sorry!” followed me out of the deli.
Two blocks away, I paused to take a deep breath, not minding the exhaust fumes held at street level by the oppressive humidity that slicked my skin. In another half hour, this part of D.C. would quiet as the commuters fled to suburbia. Jason and I could enjoy dinner on the balcony, have a glass of wine, talk. I picked up my pace. Ten minutes brought me to the one-way quiet of G Street Southeast. Townhomes lined both sides of the street, cooled by mighty oaks old enough to remember flames shooting from the White House just three miles away, the eerie quiet of the streets during the flu pandemic, and windows darkened by blackout curtains.
A block from home, I heard the faint brrr of a cell phone, a plain ring, not my “Rhapsody in Blue” ring tone. I looked around. No one in earshot. Funny. It trilled again, from inside my purse. I knew what must have happened even as I set the deli bags down and found the phone. It was a simple pay-as-you-go model. I hadn’t had a cell phone contract since my account got hacked by unscrupulous journalists when my relationship with George made the headlines. A man’s voice started speaking before I could even say “hello.”
“There are some new parameters to the Montoya job. It’s got to look like an accident. And there’s a bonus if you take care of it before the election.” The voice was terse, accentless, male.
“I’m—”
“Payment as previously arranged. Make it happen.” Click.
two
Paul
Paul Jones hailed a taxi outside Sol’s Deli. He reeked of pickle juice, a splash of tomato soup marred his white shirt, and Moira had called to tell him his father had started a small fire in the kitchen, but not to worry. Not to worry! How was he supposed to not worry when Pop’s behavior grew more erratic every day? When he eluded Moira and wandered off, sometimes dressed, sometimes in bathrobe and socks, when he started to fill the tub and got caught up watching Judge Judy so the water overflowed and soaked the linoleum so it had to be replaced, when—
“Address?” the taxi driver asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror. His fingers tapped the steering wheel to the beat of a rap song on the radio.
Paul closed his eyes and took a deep breath through flared nostrils. Calm. He had a job to do. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Moira could handle his pop. Concentrate. After a moment he opened his eyes and gave the driver the address of his motel.
With a grunt, the driver started the meter and pulled into traffic, making the hula girl suction-cupped to the dash vibrate.
Paul eased his head back against the vinyl seat. He wasn’t sure what smelled worse—the mildewy plastic of the cab or his clothes. His ability to blend in with a crowd, to rate no more detailed a description than “middle-aged white guy,” was key to his success. Smelling like a pickle factory jeopardized his anonymity. As the taxi sludged along in the stop-and-go traffic, he concentrated on clearing his mind, emptying it of all thought and emotion. It was a trick he’d developed working with a Buddhist monk in Laos when he was in country for the third time in the early ’70s. It kept him focused.
The opening glissando of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” trilled from his pocket, almost drowned out by the cabbie’s rap crap. What the—? He pulled out the cell phone, conscious of the driver’s gaze, and answered cautiously,“Yes?”
A recorded voice said, “This call is for Sydney Ellison from Dr. Field’s office to remind you of your dental appointment on Monday, August 5th, at eight o’clock. If you need to reschedule, please call 555-1324.”
“Go back,” he told the startled cabbie.
“Huh?”
“To the deli. And turn off that fucking noise.”
Paul’s fingers worried at the curling end of duct tape that patched a foot-long tear in the seat beside him. Every red light and delay twanged his taut nerves. There was no relief at the deli—his phone wasn’t there. No one remembered seeing it. He should never have set it on the counter, not for an instant, he berated himself. He didn’t give a damn about the phone—it was pay-as-you-go and replaceable—but he needed to make sure his client didn’t call and say something that could incriminate both of them if the Sid Ellison guy answered. He’d have to alert his client via email—that was safer and quicker than a face-to-face with Ellison to trade phones.
He climbed back into the cab and pulled his laptop out of its case. “Starbucks. The closest one.”
The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense Page 30
