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Back The Outside Man Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover Page
  2. EARLY BIRD BOOKS
  3. Praise for the Writing of Richard North Patterson
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-one
  28. Twenty-two
  29. Twenty-three
  30. Twenty-four
  31. Twenty-five
  32. Twenty-six
  33. Twenty-seven
  34. Twenty-eight
  35. Twenty-nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-one
  38. Thirty-two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-four
  41. Thirty-five
  42. About the Author

There was something in her tone I couldn’t place. “It still sounds good. I just wonder whether Birmingham might have more of a future for us. And it is where you’ve grown up.”

She looked away. “Of course Daddy’s here,” she said slowly.

“I’ve thought of that. The other way you wouldn’t see him very much.” I smiled. “Fortunately, once we’re married he won’t be sleeping next door. What do you think?”

She turned to face me. “It’s up to you, Adam. Please, just think about what you really want. I need to know that.”

I nodded. “Then I’ll consider what your father said.”

For a long time she was silent. “If you like.”

She sat straighter, facing toward the windshield so that her face was in shadows. The rain beat down. “Let’s go in now,” she said abruptly. “I’m getting tired.”

She didn’t come to my room that night. The next morning she said nothing about it, nor in all the years since, living in the house her father bought us.…

When I got there, Cade’s car was next to hers.

Thirty-five

THIRTY-FIVE

I parked and circled the house to the front. Rain soaked my clothes and hair and ran down my face. I reached the porch, slowed, and went noiselessly up its rain-slick steps.

Cade and Kris Ann were framed in the living room window, close together on the couch, their backs to me. Cade talked urgently, index finger jabbing his palm. Kris Ann’s face in profile was strained and attentive. Their lips moved, but on the other side of the glass I heard only rain beating on the canopy and the steps and the leaves of trees. I moved to the front door, opened it, and walked inside.

Cade stood quickly. Kris Ann turned pale. “I know about New Orleans,” I told her.

Her mouth opened. Cade moved between us, eyes hooded and watchful. I looked past him. “We’re going to the police, Krissy.”

Her glance moved between us. “For what, Adam? Why?”

“Lydia Cantwell’s murder.”

She shrank from me in horror. Cade was still, almost expressionless, watching me with his back to the mantel where Kris Ann’s revolver was. “We have to go,” I told her softly.

Cade’s voice was tight. “I can’t let you do that, Adam.”

I shook my head, speaking to Kris Ann. “I’ve got no choice, Krissy. Maybe you can explain to Rayfield why you got home so late the night Lydia was killed. But now I know that Henry never left Anniston, and that the black Mercedes Joanne Mooring thought she saw in the Cantwells’ drive was a navy blue Audi like yours.”

“Adam, that’s not right—”