Page 3 of The Devil's Advocate

After another five seconds the current was shut off. When it reconnected, it was much lower – just seven hundred volts. This would remain on for thirty seconds and then the machine would shut down automatically. If Robinson wasn’t dead in that time, then the whole process would be repeated.

Korn stood at the window and watched the entire time, never taking his eyes from Robinson.

His gaze did not break from the man in the chair.

Not even when his skin began to smoke. Not even when the current fractured his left shinbone. Not even when the bloody foam erupted from his mouth.

All the while, Korn felt as if there was electricity flowing in his own veins. An elemental power that coursed through him. As district attorney, he had the power of life and death in his long, crooked hands. And he loved it. He had killed this man as surely as putting a bullet through his head, and the thought was intoxicating. Shooting or stabbing someone wasn’t the same for Korn. Too animalistic. Korn killed using the power of his office, and his mind, and his skill. And that gave him more pleasure than he could ever have imagined. All the while he was willing Robinson to stay alive, just a little longer.

Long enough for the suffering to last.

When it was done, a cloud of smoke sat above Yellow Mama, and Korn was breathless.

It took nine minutes for Darius Robinson to die.

And in those nine excruciating minutes, Randal Korn felt truly alive.

FIVE MONTHS LATER

SKYLAR EDWARDS

Skylar Edwards sheltered in the corner of the kitchen in Hogg’s Bar and used both thumbs to type the message on her phone. The clicks that she heard with every tap on the screen were just effects, mimicking the noise from an old keyboard, but even those sounds carried the anger she’d just put into the text. She finished the message, hit send, stuffed the phone in the pocket of her jeans before the bar owner came looking for her.

It was almost midnight, the kitchen had closed hours ago and the chef, who wore that title loosely, had left shortly after wiping down the grill with a dirty cloth. There was no good reason for her to be in here, other than to get five minutes’ privacy with her phone. It wouldn’t take long to get a reply. Her boyfriend, Gary Stroud, never sent long messages. He used emojis, or GIFS, to hide his bad spelling. But Skylar didn’t have time to wait. She pushed through the double doors, into the hallway, past the bathrooms and through another door into the bar.

Just three customers left. Locals from Buckstown. Soft rock still played on the speaker at one corner of the bar, but the customers were ignoring it. Instead, they were looking at the TV.

‘Say, Ryan, can you turn that up?’ asked the big man at the end of the counter. He’d sat there most of the night, after he’d finished his meal, and drank club sodas and ginger beer while he worked. She’d seen him here before. He usually came in when it was quiet, did some paperwork and watched a game. Not a handsome man, but he was well built and he always tipped well.

‘Sure, Tom,’ said Ryan as he put down two full beers in front of the other customers.

Tom. That was his name. She knew he worked as a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office. Seen him on TV, and they’d even discussed one of his cases, about five months back. The man who got executed up in Escambia County. Tom had helped convict the man. He said very little about it, but then again, Tom didn’t talk much. Ryan Hogg, the bar owner, was always extra nice to him.

She glanced up at the TV as Ryan turned down the stereo and turned up the volume on the flatscreen on the wall above the bar. The new governor, Pratchett, was on the news, talking about the plant again.

‘… I will do whatever it takes to save those jobs at Solant Chemicals …’

‘They closing the plant?’ asked Ryan.

‘They’ve been threatening to do it for years,’ said Tom. ‘Looks serious this time if the governor’s involved.’

Skylar began collecting glasses from the tables, keeping an eye on the TV. Her father, Francis, worked at the plant. He drove trucks for them. Had done so for twenty years and he was earning enough to help Skylar with college. While Skylar was smart, she wasn’t able to secure a scholarship, and her father was paying her tuition fees. If he lost that job, she might have to drop out. Just something else to worry about.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She turned away from Ryan as she slid it out of her jeans. Ryan Hogg wasn’t a bad boss. He paid a little more than most, and he didn’t skim her tips. While he never said anything inappropriate, and he certainly never put a hand on her, she sometimes caught him looking at her. And not in a way that a boss checks that their employee isn’t wasting time texting her boyfriend. It was only a look, but it still made her feel a little sick in her stomach.

She opened the text message. A heart emoji andPlease come over soon.Gary’s sister, Tori, was having a party that night and he’d begged her to call in sick. She’d told him she had to work and he’d been sour about it. Bugging her to quit early and join him. Skylar didn’t want to give Gary false hope. She was tired and didn’t feel much like partying. He’d been going on about the party for days, and so she texted Tori and asked if the party would still be on when she finished her shift.

‘Is that a double-thumb conversation?’ asked Andy.

She knew his voice and turned to smile at him. Andy had a handful of dirty beer glasses. He’d cleared the rest of the tables while she had been distracted.

‘What do you mean, a double-thumb conversation?’ she asked.

‘When you and Gary are fighting you use both thumbs to text. Sometimes I think you’re gonna break that screen, you type so fast,’ he said.

She smiled, warmly. Andy Dubois made working at Hogg’s Bar much more tolerable. He was younger than her, just a little. Starting college in September. A smart kid, with a warm heart. Smarter than Skylar, because he’d won a full scholarship. She didn’t begrudge him, because that was the only way Andy could go to college. It was just Andy and his mom, and in Buckstown there were the white middle classes, like Skylar’s folks, who got by and had enough to put money away, and then on the other side of town were the poor black and immigrant families who seemed to have it harder than most. Once Skylar graduated college, she was going to get the hell out of this town. She knew Andy would too, and he’d bring his mom with him.

Andy turned away with a smile and returned the dirty glasses to the bar. She saw a paperback novel sticking out the back pocket of his jeans. Any spare moment on the job, and Andy was reading. He didn’t have a cell phone. Skylar thought that if she spent as much time reading as Andy, instead of staring at her phone, she might have gotten that scholarship after all. Still, it reminded her she could upgrade her phone next month. She had already decided to give her old model to Andy, with some credit.