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
She hesitated for what seemed minutes. Then she unhooked the chain to let me in. She had changed to cutoffs and a thin T-shirt that showed her nipples. Her legs were long and tan, and she reminded me of when I was fourteen and read Erskine Caldwell, and the southern girls of my imagination were ripe and knowing and carried mysteries inside them. I was older now and hadn’t read Caldwell for a while; the girl seemed young.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Terry Kyle. What happened to your face?”
“Nothing with Jason.”
She watched me from in front of the door. I moved away from her to the couch and sat looking up. Softly I said, “There are things about this I don’t understand. I’m afraid.”
She waited silently. “I’m afraid of Jason,” I said with more emphasis. “For you and for my wife.”
Her mouth parted. “Why your wife?”
“Before we fought he said things about Kris Ann. The way he said them—how he looked and sounded—was more than getting back at me.”
She turned away as if hurt. Then she went to a chair across the living room and sat with the coffee table between us. “He hates you,” she said sadly.
I stared at her. “He hardly knows me.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She kneaded one slim wrist with the fingers of the other hand, staring at a half-finished needlepoint cat which lay by the chair. “He has this thing about Kris Ann Cade.” She looked at me with unhappy candor. “People are never with the people they want, are they?”
“Not always.”
“Not Jason, always. Maybe sometimes. I think with Kris Ann it’s just from being messed up when he was young.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “Look, I’m telling you this so you’ll leave, okay? It’s not good you being here.”
“I can’t leave yet. There are things I have to know, for my wife’s sake and for Jason’s father.”
“But that makes it worse.” Her frightened voice ran words together. “I know ‘Old Henry’s’ your friend and all, but he was no good for Jason—almost shunned him. Jason even used to pretend Henry Cantwell wasn’t his real father, that the real one was a tall man who watched him whenever he went outside, to see that he was safe.”
“He told you that?”
She nodded shyly. “He tells me everything.”
“How does that relate to Kris Ann?”