Page 93 of On Your Knees

I’m still standing just inside the closed door. The gun is in my waistband at the back, hidden by my black canvas jacket, but my hands are in my pockets. I won’t need the gun, not here, not with him.

Jensen’s fingers latch onto the back of the chair. “I want you to help me.”

“Why the hell would I help you?”

“Because of what they did to you.”

Ice water pours through me. I go still. I go silent.

Then I manage to say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you want them to be punished?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jensen’s fingers whiten as he grips the back of the chair. “I left the church too. Like you. It was a smaller church, but it was still the same.”

It shows in his eyes for a second. It’s a flash, but I see it. I recognize it. The space that’s somehow hollow but also full of anger.

When I don’t reply, he says, “I have nothing on my own church, but I have something on High Castle. On John Clifford.”

“If it’s Clifford you’re after, then why have you been threatening me?”

“I haven’t been trying to threaten you. I’ve been trying to talk to you.”

“So you blackmailed me with that photo from ten years ago? And you must have taken that one of me outside the church.” I don’t mention Levi because I don’t want him dragged into this.

Jensen is shaking his head, denying my words even as I speak them. “That picture outside the church wasn’t me. And the one I sent you isn’t blackmail. But John Clifford thinks it is. He’s got pictures of you even from boarding school. He’s got a lot. Because he’s scared of what you know and what you might say.”

Now I’m the one shaking my head. “I’ll never get to say anything. I’ll be dead, and so will you, and anything we’ve said will be twisted around into something else anyway. That’s what these people do.”

“That’s why we have to get ahead of them. If we work together—”

“There’s no we here. I’m not working with you. I want nothing to do with any of this.”

My phone starts vibrating inside my jacket. I slide my hand into my pocket and silence it.

Jensen presses, “Don’t you want them punished? Don’t you hate that they’ve gotten away with it?”

“You say you have nothing on your own church, but you have yourself. You could tell your story. But you don’t want to tell your story. You want to tell mine. You want to hide comfortably behind it and let the spotlight and the questions fall on me. You want to do that but still feel like you’re doing the right thing.”

Jensen’s face hardens. “Clifford deserves to be exposed. And you weren’t his only victim—”

“I don’t give a shit about Clifford.”

“Why, because most of it was Paul?”

“Fuck you. Get the fuck out of my business. Go after the others if you want stories told. You’re after me because I’m high profile. You’re not fucking righteous. You’re pretending to be, just like them. Oh, look at my good fucking works, what a good goddamn Christian I am. Fuck you. You’re not using me for that.”

Jensen scowls, not liking that. “That’s not what this is about. It’s very obvious that John Clifford killed Paul Castle.”

A humorless laugh escapes me. “Oh, is it? Is that what Grigson told you?”

“He said Clifford was a sinner and that he was involved in Paul’s death.”

“And how did Grigson supposedly know that?”

“He wasn’t clear on that. He was in and out of lucidity at the end. But if Paul was about to confess what he and Clifford had both been doing, then Clifford had reason to silence him. I need your help to expose Clifford. I need you to tell people what he did. Why should he get away with it? And you’re not the only one he hurt.”