Chapters (42)
- Cover Page
- EARLY BIRD BOOKS
- Praise for the Writing of Richard North Patterson
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- About the Author
“I was sitting around the next day wondering what to do when it come on the radio she’d been murdered. It was crazy. Whole time I was workin’ there I wondered how it’d be when I’d killed her and the police came. I never decided—imagined it all kind of ways. Then she was dead and I hadn’t killed her, and I thought, ‘They’re comin’ like they came for Daddy. And now I’m not ready.’”
For a moment I could almost imagine it: Lydia’s death as fate’s last trick, turning what redemption had passed between them into a tragic joke. I stopped myself. “What about the picture of my wife?”
He looked up, as if surprised I had spoken. “Mister,” he said indifferently, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“The person who killed Mrs. Cantwell threatened my wife.”
Lee’s eyes grew careful. “You’re going to the police, then.”
I nodded. “There’s too much on one side. Mrs. Cantwell. My wife. My friend and client. And what’s to balance that? Your word, and white man’s guilt.”
“Then why’d you come here?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ve come too far to not look you in the face.”
I sensed his weight shifting from his haunches to the heel of his boots. His eyes took me in, measuring, judging the distance. “That was stupid,” he said softly. “All this talk, all this tellin’ you how things was, and now I may have to kill you.”
“I wonder if you want that.”
Lee shrugged. “Won’t bother me none. Already done that to a V.C. with the knife I got in my back pocket. Come up behind him on the balls of my feet and hook his neck. For a second we’re so close I feel the pulse in his throat. Then I draw the knife across it. He don’t even scream. Just flops back quivering against my chest until I let him slip down me into the bush. Never thought their eyes could get that big. He was already dead.” He stood. “I killed that yellow man just because he was in the same stinking patch of jungle. But I got reason to kill you.”
“Then you’d better decide about me. Now.”
For a long moment we faced each other. Neither of us moved. Then I turned and began walking toward the police station.