“Hello, Kevin.” She took her seat again, and he pulled up a plastic chair that screeched coming across the floor and sat beside her. Not all the way at the opposite end of the table, but not too close, either. Purgatory distance.
“Are you well?” he said.
“Yes.”
Her voice took that distance between them and melted it like ice in a fist. It was so knowing, so intimate, she might as well have been sitting in his lap. The ache in his back pulsed urgently, like an overprotective mother shrieking dire warnings to her children as they danced off to play on the railroad tracks, heedless of that whistle in the distance and what it meant.
“You look good. I mean… healthy.”
Looked healthy. Shit. If all she looked was healthy, then there were starlets all over Hollywood who looked sickly. She was the kind of beautiful that scorched. Tall and lean, with gentle but clear curves even in the loose orange inmate garb, cocoa-colored hair that somehow held an expensive salon’s sheen after five years of prison care, cheekbones and mouth sculpted with a master’s touch. Full lips that looked dark against her complexion, which had once been deeply tanned but was now so white he could see the fine veins in her slender neck. Blue eyes that he could not, even after several years, meet for more than a few seconds.
“They treating you okay?”
“Yes, Kevin. As well as a place like this ever can treat someone.”
Kevin. She said it in the sort of voice that should carry hot breath against your ear. Nobody called him Kevin. He was Kimble, had been since childhood, one of those boys who inexplicably becomes identified by his last name.
“Good,” he said. He was staring at the floor to avoid her eyes, but now he saw that she had hitched those loose prison pants up slightly, so that her ankles were exposed above the thin sandals. Her ankles and a trace of legs. Long, sleek legs. She leaned back in the chair now and crossed her feet, pushing them closer toward him, which made him flush and lift his head.
“How is your back?” she said.
He was silent for a moment. His jaw worked but he didn’t speak and this time he was able to meet her eyes.
“Fine,” he said, willing down the desire to reach behind him and touch the scar.
“I’m glad.”
“Sure.”
She smiled at him, those rich lips parting to show her perfect teeth, a smile you were never supposed to see in a place where faces were supposed to be dark and threatening or unbalanced and psychotic.
“I’m so glad. I always worry, you know. I worry that it pains you.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
This was the game. This was the perfected exchange, performed each month as if they were rehearsing for some stage show and needed to keep sharp. Why did he drive up here? Why in the hell did he make these visits?
“I’m sorry I don’t remember,” she said, and he wondered how many times he’d heard those five words now. First in a handwritten letter to him in the hospital, then in interview rooms, then the trial, and every visit that had been made since. More than sixty visits now. She was always sorry that she didn’t remember.
“You’ve told me, Jacqueline,” he said, his voice stretched. “Let’s not worry about that.”
“You know how badly I wish I could, though. For you.”
“I know.”
She smiled again, this time uncertainly. “I appreciate you making the trip. I always do.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You’ve been so good to me. The one person above all others who shouldn’t be, and you’re the one person above all others who is.”
“You don’t belong in here,” he said.
She sat up straighter then, sat up with an excitement he’d never seen from her before, and said, “Didn’t they tell you I get to leave?”
He cocked his head and frowned. “Leave?”
“I thought for sure they’d tell you,” she said. “I mean, I’m always sure they talk to you about me. They have to wonder about us, don’t they?”
If there was one date Kimble knew absolutely, knew surer than Christmas or his own birthday, it was the scheduled parole hearing of Jacqueline Mathis. She was not leaving this prison. Not yet.
“Jacqueline, where are—”
“I’ve been approved for work release. It might not seem like much to you, but still… you can imagine how exciting it is for me. There’s not much change around here.”
“What? Where?” He was embarrassed by the evident concern—check that, evident fear—in his voice. He liked to know where she was. He needed to know.
“It’s a thrift shop,” she said. “Some little store just down the road. I don’t care where or what, though—it’s not in this place! I’ve made the petition three times. They finally approved it.”
“Why did they now?”
“Because I’m so charming,” she said, and laughed. He waited, and she said, “Oh, take off the cop eyes, Kevin.”
She sat up straight now, dropped her voice into a baritone.
“They approved me, Officer, because I’ve shown myself to be nonthreatening and of sound mind and character.”
He stared at her, rubbing one hand over his jaw. It wasn’t an abnormal decision, not at this stage of her incarceration. They’d be readying her for release, assuming she made parole. She would make parole—there had been no problems and many were sympathetic to her—but that was still a year away. He had thought he had another year to get used to the concept.
“So you’re happy,” he said finally, just to say something.
She laughed. “Of course I’m happy. You think I’d prefer to stay in here?”
“Probably not.”
“Probably not. Master of the understatement.” She shook her head, then said, “I’ll be working the mornings, though. That will change my visitation hours. I hope that wouldn’t stop you, if you had to visit later in the day? I’ve always wondered if you’re ashamed of me after the sun comes up.”
“No, Jacqueline. It’s just… well, you know, it’s a long drive. If I come early, I beat the traffic.”
“The Sawyer County traffic,” she said. “Yes, that area around the courthouse gets pretty gridlocked for about two minutes each morning. Particularly now, with the students home for the holidays? Why, you might have to sit through one entire red light.”
He didn’t answer.
“You don’t like the idea,” she said. “Do you? Me being out of here, even for a few hours.”
“That’s not true,” he said, and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he liked the idea an awful lot.
“Well, I like it,” she said. “Out of these walls, out of these clothes. Do you know how long it’s been since I wore something other than this?”
She grasped her orange shirt between her thumb and index finger and tugged it away from her body. He got a glimpse of her collarbone and beneath it smooth, flawless skin, and he knew that further beneath still he would find…
“You could drop by there sometime,” she said. “You know—see me on the outside.” She shifted her tone to a theatrical whisper and capped it off with a wink. He could feel his dick begin to stiffen, performing against his will, his own body laughing at him. He got to his feet abruptly, making his arousal even more evident.
“Kevin?”
“I’ve got to get started back,” he said. “It’s a long drive. Too long.”
“Why are you leaving so early? Did I say something—”
“Be safe,” he said, the same thing he always said, and walked for the door, using his hand to adjust himself within his pants, not wanting the attendant CO to see that development.
“I thought you would be happy for me. I thought if there was one person in the world who’d be happy for me, it would be you.”
“I am happy for you, Jacqueline. Goodbye.”
By the time the guards opened the door, he had his police eyes back.
It had been a long drive for a short visit. That was how it went with her. He
could never stay too long.
Be careful with her, Wyatt French had told him.
Yeah, buddy. Listen to the old drunk. Watch your ass, Kimble.
Be very careful with her.
Also by Michael Koryta
So Cold the River
“A chilling supernatural tale…. Michael Koryta’s novel is being compared to the writings of Stephen King and Peter Straub. He lives up to the comparison in this dark novel.”
—Carol Memmott, USA Today
“An icy, terrifying winner.”
—Dennis Lehane
“A supernatural mystery that intensifies the suspense by thickening the atmosphere. So Cold the River is a superior specimen, with its eerie tale of a lovely valley in Indiana where at one time an elixir known as Pluto Water bubbled up from the underground springs.”
—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
“A fast, eerie chiller of a book that will make you shiver in the sun.”
—Daryl Chen, Parade
“Creepy…. Michael Koryta swigs from the fount of Stephen King with So Cold the River.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“An engaging supernatural thriller…. The material is so fresh and the characters so appealing that my interest never flagged.”
—Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post
“This book builds like a summer storm…. So Cold the River is guaranteed to put the cold finger down your spine.”
—Michael Connelly
Back Bay Books
Available wherever paperbacks are sold
Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Reading Group Guide
A Conversation with Michael Koryta
Questions and Topics for Discussion
Michael Koryta’s: Playlist for The Cypress House
A Preview of The Ridge
Part One: Sojourners
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part Two: Corridor County
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part Three: Owen
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Part Four: Dead Man’s Errands
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part Five: Fayette County
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Acknowledgments
Also by Michael Koryta: So Cold the River
About the Author
Also by Michael Koryta
Acclaim for Michael Koryta’s The Cypress House
Copyright
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Koryta is also the author of So Cold the River; Envy the Night, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best mystery/thriller; and the Lincoln Perry detective series, which has earned nominations for the Edgar, Shamus, and Quill awards and won the Great Lakes Book Award. His work has been translated into twenty languages. Koryta is a former private investigator and newspaper reporter who now divides his time between Bloomington, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida. For more information visit www.michaelkoryta.com.
ALSO BY MICHAEL KORYTA
So Cold the River
The Silent Hour
Envy the Night
A Welcome Grave
Sorrow’s Anthem
Tonight I Said Goodbye
The Ridge
Acclaim for Michael Koryta’s
THE CYPRESS HOUSE
“The Cypress House is a unique and entertaining blend of noir and paranormal suspense, with a tightly controlled supernatural thread as believable as the gunplay. Mr. Koryta is at the start of what will surely be a great career. He’s now on my must-read list.”
—Dean Koontz, author of Lost Souls
“A suspenseful treat…. A healthy helping of noir crime novel, a swirl of supernatural horror, a spoonful of historical fiction, a dollop of old-time western, and a dash of finely tuned observation of the natural world. But Koryta isn’t simply following a recipe. He’s a creative chef, capable of crafting a dish greater than the sum of its ordinary parts…. When it comes to plot and suspense, Koryta knows what he’s doing. He paces the novel masterfully, allowing it to steam for a while, simmer as threads from the past are added to the mix, then come to a rolling boil for the last hundred pages. When violence enters the picture, and it often does, Koryta lets the horror speak for itself rather than exploiting it…. The Cypress House proves that So Cold the River wasn’t a one-hit wonder. Koryta is quickly taking his place among the top American writers of supernatural suspense.”
—Margaret Quamme, Columbus Dispatch
“You’ll be hooked from the first sentence of this haunting thriller that twists like a water moccasin through the swamplands of Depression-era Florida, drenched in rain, blood, and evil. Jim Thompson noir with Stephen King spookiness.”
—Neil McMahon, author of Lone Creek and L.A. Mental
“There is an otherworldly quality to the Depression-era South in Michael Koryta’s The Cypress House, and not just because the hero, Arlen Wagner, knows when people are going to die…. The depiction of Florida’s panhandle, an overgrown backwoods years before developers arrived, and the isolated inn on the Gulf Coast beach where Arlen ends up with young Civilian Conservation Corps coworker Paul Brickhill, are equally eerie…. Deftly blending all genres, Koryta balances the scary violence of Judge Solomon Ward and his tame sheriff—a nightmare of despotic small-town lawmen peculiar to a later South—with the sexual currents stirred up among the three people effectively trapped in the house…. However counterintuitive, he makes this curious mix of supernatural prescience and gothic noir work with a seamless atmospheric certainty.”
—P. G. Koch, Houston Chronicle
“Koryta’s masterful follow-up to So Cold the River effectively combines supernatural terror with the suffocating fatalism of classic American noir…. Koryta excels at describing both scenery and his characters’ inner landscapes. It’s hard to think of another book with equal appeal to Stephen King and Cornell Woolrich fans.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An enthralling novel that easily melds mystery fiction, the supernatural, and just a touch of the old-fashioned western and historical novels without losing the conventions of each genre. Yet The Cypress House is so grounded in reality that no plot turn or character rings false. It works as a novel about postwar stress, small-town corruption, and the dusty Great Depression. Koryta dredges up the dread that festers below the surface of the characters who reside at the Cypress House…. Koryta’s powerful storytelling depicts believable characters and a view of Old Florida that is seldom seen outside of old postcards.”
—Oline H. Cogdill, Sacramento Bee
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br /> “Michael Koryta is one of our new dynamos in the world of books, and in The Cypress House he spreads his range, wedding suspense with the supernatural in the eeriness of 1930s Florida. He uses the psychology of place to penetrate the human heart and delivers his tale of hurricanes and love and hauntings with great narrative force. Koryta’s becoming a wonder we’ll appreciate for a long time.”
—Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone and The Bayou Trilogy
“A gripping noir thriller–ghost story.”
—Colette Bancroft, St. Petersburg Times
“Michael Koryta grabs readers with tales of gripping suspense and just enough touches of the supernatural to keep them nervous on two levels…. He does match Stephen King for storytelling, and he creates characters who come alive for readers…. Koryta, who made the jump from crime writing to crime writing with a twist, knows how to build suspense. He paints dark and dangerous times with hurricanes and murderers threatening Wagner, Brickhill, and Rebecca. His thriller is graced with masterly descriptions of the area and the pending storm that is another killer the trio must survive. In his taut and atmospheric story, Koryta keeps readers guessing right up to the end on how things will turn out.”
—Mary Foster, Associated Press
“Koryta blends gritty noir and ghostly visions in a novel that seems custom-designed for Nicolas ‘Ghost Rider’ Cage…. The novel builds to a richly satisfying climax in which Arlen is guided by the spirit of his father and voices of the recently departed. A commanding performance in the field of supernatural noir.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Michael Koryta has fashioned a great character in his reluctant prophet, Arlen Wagner, a good man who ends up with an awful lot of blood on his hands before the denouement of this deliciously dark tale. Koryta is a fantastic storyteller, and the many admirers of his previous novel, So Cold the River, will find similar chilly pleasures awaiting them here.”
—Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan and The Ruins
“A delicious setup…. The Cypress House begins with pulse-racing promise…. sprinting to a filmic, white-knuckled finish.”
—Andrea Simakis, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“The second half of The Cypress House picks up steam, building to a seriously tense and twisted final act. With its evocative Gulf Coast setting, the book makes for a warm beach read in midwinter.”
The Cypress House Page 37