She laughs, but then her bosom begins to heave and shudder against my chest. All I can do is hold her tight. After a while, she draws back her head and fixes me with her liquid brown eyes, now shot with blood. “I guess we’ll just have to see what happens in court tomorrow.”

“I guess we will.”

She walks with me to the head of the near staircase, then lets her hand trail down my arm as we separate. When I’m halfway down to the sidewalk, she says, “You told Quentin earlier you’d give him half a day to turn things around. What will you do if he keeps going the way he has so far?”

“Whatever it takes to have him removed from the case. Help me help him, Doris. Any way you can think of. Can I count on you?”

After several seconds of what must be agony, she nods three times. Then she turns and walks to the tall doors that lead back to the bed where Quentin Avery sleeps.

Chapter 35

Walking back up Washington Street, I pass between the courthouse and the sheriff’s department once again. I hope Dad has found a way to sleep in his cell three floors above Billy Byrd’s office. He’s never slept much, and with his joint pain he needs a lot of medication to find any rest. Medications and dosages have become a source of squabbling between Quentin and the sheriff, and I’m betting Dad is sitting up there pondering dimensions of this case that remain unknown to me.

The specter that Doris raised—that Quentin might allow Dad to be convicted in exchange for a painless death—has stuck with me. I’m tempted to go in and ask to see my father, if only to confront him about that. But even if she’s right, he would never confess it. The real question is why he would want to be convicted in the first place.

The lesser of two evils, answers a voice in my head.

“Did you say something?” Tim asks from behind me.

“No.” Taking out my phone, I check for text messages, hoping for word from Serenity. But there’s nothing. “Let’s get home, man. You want to run it?”

Tim grins. “Oh, yeah! Let’s do it.”

He breaks past me, then spins and starts backpedaling, waiting for me to come after him. Filling my lungs with cool night air, I dart forward and pass him, sprinting like I once did on these same streets when I was a much younger man. Tim’s footsteps pound up behind me, and I know he could easily pass me, but for a few seconds I enjoy the illusion that I’m winning, that I’m actually outrunning the darkness that has followed me for as long as I can now remember.