AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Beth stared at him. Her upper lip trembled. “Good.”
Beth Benton calmed a little then. She took Gus’s hand and held it tightly. Perhaps it was an apology of sorts—Mac couldn’t tell. They finished dinner and sat at the table together until closing time.
“You’re not going to try and drive back tonight?” Paul objected as Mac felt his pockets for the car keys.
“We’re flying home tomorrow,” Gus said.
“This is your home,” Beth said. “Even now.”
Gus didn’t argue. “We’re flying back to Kansas tomorrow.”
“Darling, you look exhausted,” Beth said placing her hand on his cheek. “You can’t drive—”
“Actually, I’m not allowed to drive yet,” Gus said, grabbing his walking stick from where he’d hung it on the back of the chair. “Mac’s doing all the driving.”
“Perhaps you should stay here for bit,” Paul suggested. “In Tassie, I mean, not here in the pub. Let your mum and I look after you.”
“I’ve got to get back to work, Dad.” He stood slowly, using both the table and the stick for support till he felt steady. “And Theo’s not here… We’ve got to keep looking.”
CHAPTER 34
The book was a runaway international bestseller, propelling the name of its Chilean author into general recognition. Translation rights became the subject of bidding wars, and the novel became available in over forty languages. Film and television deals had been signed before it was released, and despite its popularity among ordinary readers, the book had been nominated for a slew of literary awards, credited with creating a new genre of fiction.
Even so, Afterlife had been on the market for about six months before Mac Etheridge came across it.
He’d bought it because his mother had so roundly condemned its subject matter. Nancy Etheridge considered the book blasphemous, a dangerous promotion of devil worship and easy virtue to young and susceptible minds. She had written letters, called for boycotts, and rallied her fellow Christians to demand the book be banned. Mac hadn’t seen her quite this worked up since he’d been released from prison.
Sometime during the second year after the shooting, Gus Benton seemed to accept that he wasn’t going to find his sister, though he would never believe she’d killed anybody. Instead, he became convinced that Theo had fallen victim to whomever had killed Dan Murdoch, Burt Winslow, and Mary Cowell. He grieved for her. He missed her. And for a while he was consumed with thoughts of avenging her and clearing her name. But the killings had stopped. Mendes presented that fact alone as proof positive that Theodosia Benton had been the perpetrator, and try as they did, Gus and Mac had found no more likely suspect.
They talked less about what had happened these days, less about Theo. A mutual belief in her innocence was unsaid now, an unspoken alliance, a silent grief. Gus had been her big brother, Mac the man who’d kissed her on the night it all went to hell. Dual demons of guilt and regret had been subdued, even if they were not defeated.
And so, Mac had not been looking for Theodosia Benton when he opened Afterlife.
He began reading it on a flight between New York and Kansas City, expecting nothing more than a tale of Satan worship and easy virtue, the occasional line he could quote to torment his mother. He found a story of grief and separation and fear written from the perspective of those who had died. It was extraordinary and just familiar enough to unsettle him. And then the thread. Unmistakable even in the darkness. “Perhaps the dead are afraid to live as much as we are afraid to die.” They were her words, her exact words. When he reached Kansas City, he picked up his car and drove directly to the apartment that Gus rented on Tennessee Street.
He pulled up in front of the building and hesitated, questioned the kindness of bringing this book to Gus’s attention. Gus was only just emerging from the wreckage. Mac shook his head. As much as he still thought of Theo, as much as he wondered about what they might have had, she was not his sister. He had no right to keep this from Gus. It wouldn’t bring Theo back, but pursuing this might be one last thing they could do for her.
When he knocked, nobody answered the door. It was still light and so Mac elected to wait, taking a seat on the steps and opening the book once again. This was Theo’s plot. He’d seen it spread out on the kitchen table, pages taped together…scribbled in her hand with arrows and stars and little pictographs. There were variations, but the essential plot was the same. And those had been her words. He could hear her speaking them.
He became so engrossed in the book that Gus’s arrival caught him by surprise.
“Mac? I thought you were in New York.” Gus had been out running with Horse. He passed Mac the two pizza boxes in his arms, as he retrieved his keys. Papa Keno’s was not as convenient to the apartment as it had been to his house, but he picked up the pies nonetheless and ran the last half mile of his route carrying them.
“Just got back.” Mac stood. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. Stay for some pizza. There’s should be enough.” He glanced at the novel in Mac’s hand. “Isn’t that the book your mum’s all worked up about?”
“Yes. It’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“We’re forming a book club?” Gus opened the door and stood back as Horse charged in. “We’ve completely given up, then?”
Mac laughed as he followed him in. “Just this book.”
Gus begged off to shower, which he did in five minutes. He opened the pizza boxes and sandwiched a slice of Hawaiian to a slice of pepperoni. “So, what’s the story?”
“The story is the point.” Mac handed him the book. “This book has sold over half a million copies in this country alone.”
“So?”
