Page 55 of The Devil's Advocate

‘Eddie,’ she said, trying the name on for size. ‘Thank you for bringing home my son.’

‘My pleasure,’ I said.

Getting Andy out of jail wasn’t easy. Keeping him off death row was a whole other ball game. One that I was increasingly convinced I was destined to lose.

She fixed up the couch, then went to her room.

I was tired, but too damn hot to sleep. Instead I made tea, and went outside onto the small porch to take in the night. The thick, dense trees were alive with sound and the faint odor of decay came to me with the soft, warm wind. I took off my tie, unbuttoned my shirt and scanned the trees. It was almost one am. I knew I should go out and relieve Harry soon, but somehow it felt wrong leaving Patricia and Andy alone in the house.

The pull of New York City felt strongest when I was in places like this. I’d grown up in Brooklyn, amid the traffic, and the street kids, and the crime, and the music, and the long afternoons of laughter leaking out of barbershops and corner bars. Put me in a dark alley with three tough guys and I had no fear. Not like now. I didn’t like being away from the city lights, in the dark, with the animals, the snakes, the spiders and insects and Christ knows what else out there, slithering and scuttling around – making too much damn noise.

I slumped into Patricia’s rocking chair on the porch, sipped my tea.

When I opened my eyes again, the ice had melted in my tea. I must’ve dosed off.

It was so dark I couldn’t see more than a few feet beyond the thick set of trees that surrounded the property. The SUV was parked way up the dirt track. I didn’t know if I would be able to see it even if it had lights on.

I put down the glass, got to my feet and stretched.

That’s when I heard something. A noise that was unmistakable.

A car door slamming.

I took out my phone, called Harry’s cell. Maybe he was just going for a leak in the woods, and had stepped out of the SUV for a minute. Maybe not. The phone rang and rang.

Harry didn’t pick up.

Whatever dark reason there was behind the murder of Skylar Edwards, I had been pretty sure today that none of it could really have been part of some biblical plague theory. Harry was a lot older than me and, if I was honest, a lot smarter, but he was raised with the church and part of that had never left him.

I told myself he was fine. Maybe I’d imagined the car door slamming. He was probably asleep. That man could sleep through damn near anything.

He was fine. I was sure.

Pretty sure.

I tried him again. No answer.

I vaulted the porch rail and set off sprinting toward the dirt road.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE PASTOR

‘Did you grow up around here?’ asked the Pastor.

Francis Edwards gazed out of the passenger window of the Ford pick-up at the trees blurring by on the side of the road, somehow ghostly in the moonlight.

‘I was raised in Gold River,’ said Francis, flatly.

‘I know that town. Not far from here. Pretty good high school football team, if I recall,’ said the Pastor. ‘Did you play?’

‘Me? Of course. I was big and fast back then. That’s all there was to do in Gold River. Play football and chase girls.’

His chin dropped at that last word.

‘Tell me about Skylar,’ said the Pastor. ‘It’s good to talk things out now and again. And it’s just you and me. I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’

‘I know you won’t. I trust you that way, given your job and all.’