“Here,” he said,“and here, and here. All around here. I probably don’t know all the spots anymore.”
“This clearing’s it?” one of the deputies asked.
“No, not quite. There’s another one.” Dennis moved over to a pile of brush and lifted it up, revealing another dirt trail through the trees. “This leads to another spot we cleared out, and there’s some there, too. I don’t know which he’ll use when he meets the dude that buys for Bradley Central. ”
“Okay, let’s check it out, too,” said the Deputy. “We need to have both spots ready.”
Dennis took them to the second site, about half a mile down the trail.
Ria pulled him away from the deputies. “Dennis! For God’s sake! Did y’all have to use this spot?”
Three crumbling markers marked old graves from a private family cemetery, long forgotten. Once upon a time, the now-faint lettering almost invisible in the soft, disintegrating stone might have been a ‘T’, another possibly a ‘J’, another a probable ‘D’. All else was hopeless.
“I didn’t like it much,” Dennis admitted. “Seemed disrespectful, somehow. But Justin said—”
“Damnit, Dennis! If Justin’d suddenly developed a passion for gang rape, would you have just gone along with that, too, for God’s sakes?”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, and walked away.
Ria expelled another exasperated breath and moved to one of the deputies.
“These spots going to give you any special problems?”
“I don’t think so. We’ll be a lot closer to the place than Dennis’s buddy Justin will be when he heads out. If he leaves from home, that is. And if Dennis sees him soon enough and calls us quick enough.”
“Can’t promise about the seeing part, but he’ll damn sure be calling if he does.”
* * *
The call came two nights later. Ria raced down to the Law Enforcement Center.
“Miss Knight, no offense, but we can’t take civilians.”
“Deputy Taylor, no offense, but I’ve got a personal interest here. Your informant’s practically my baby brother. He messed up bad, he knows it. He’s a good kid at the core. I need to be able to tell him I saw Justin go down. I can’t ride with you, I know, but can I please, please, follow you?”
“We haven’t forgotten to read anybody their rights in a long time, Miss Knight.”
“I know you haven’t.” Ria put on a pitiful face and batted her eyes. Feminine weapons deployed by a master. “Please? I’ll sign any release you want. I mean, lawyers are officers of the Court, I won’t screw anything up.”
“Oh, hell! But you stay back out of the way.”
“Yes sir!”
From the background, Ria watched the spotlights hit the clearing.
“Sheriff! Freeze!”
Handcuffs clicked. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you…”
Justin made one statement. Just one.
“You tell Dennis Billings he fucked up. Bad. And so did that bitch lawyer friend of his. Had to be her.”
* * *
Cain paced the sleazy room in the sleazy hotel on Broadway. Something was wrong. Fool had gotten caught. He felt it. Throughout the course of his extensive career he’d been plagued with fools. And he’d thought this boy had possibilities. Shiiiiiitttt. Well, best check it out. And there were other fools out there. That never changed. He stood in the center of the room, raised his arms, relaxed his thoughts. He disappeared.
Chapter Eight
The antique hall clock, an office warming gift from her parents, signaled 1:00 a.m. as Ria trudged wearily into the foyer. A good night’s work but damn, she was tired. She started up the steps and stopped. Joshua stood outside her office door holding a tray in his hands. He shifted it to balance it between his arm and his hip while he knocked.
“Leave me the hell alone!” Paul shouted from behind the door.
“Mist’ Paul, you gots to come out sometime! You gots to eat!”
“I don’t gots to do nothing, Josh! Now go away!”
“Mist’ Paul—”
“Don’t make me open this door and throw you down the hall!” The voice was rough and harsh and full of pain.
“Paul! I ain’t gonna leave!”
Paul? What? Black servants in the 1880s didn’t call their employers by their first names without the ‘Mist’ or ‘Miss’. They just didn’t.
Joshua knocked again and looked down both sides of the hall. Checking for listeners?
“You told me one time, you said, ‘we’ll take care of each other’. You remember that, Paul?”
Ria’s mouth literally fell open as she watched from her spectator mode. Where had the distinctive black cadence gone?
“Well, I remember that. So I’m tellin’ you now, I’m goin’ to take care of you whether you want me to or not. You been in that room five straight days and nights, Paul! And I’m tellin’ you, Doc Everett told Sadie you had ‘til tomorrow noon to come outta there or he’ll take the door down! You want your father to do that? Haul you out and clean you up like a baby?”
Joshua waited for a response that didn’t come.
“Fine. You just stay there, then. And I’ll stay right here. I ain’t goin’ nowhere!” Joshua sat down by the door and leaned his back against the wall. When the door opened, Paul Devlin’s appearance matched his voice, exhausted and brimming with pain. His clothes were rumpled and stained, his eyes black under the sockets. Ria’s heart twisted. Chloe was dead. For the first time, she regretted her private movies. She really didn’t want to see this.
Paul stood in the doorway and glared down at Joshua. “Stubborn little bastard, aren’t you?”
“Well,” said Josh, speech still devoid of any black cadence, “I suppose that’s fair enough. I am stubborn, and we both know I’m a bastard.”
“Impudent, too.”
“Door’s open, though, ain’t it?”
“Not for long. Go away. Tell Papa to leave me the hell alone, too.”
Josh jumped to his feet and thrust his arm through the open door.
“No,” he said. “Enough.”
“Move your arm.”
“No.”
“I’ll break it!”
“Go ahead, I’m real worried about it,” said Josh.
“Stubborn bastard,” Paul repeated.
“So you said. You need a bath. C’mon,” Josh said, and pulled Paul’s arm.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“I won’t go back in that room. Not ever.”
“Don’t have to. We got plenty of rooms.”
They disappeared. Ria resumed her weary trudge up the stairs, still mindboggled at Joshua’s change of speech pattern, at the entire tone of the encounter. Unheard of in 1888. What was going on in this house?
* * *
Three days later, Ria returned to the office, another appointed criminal case finished. The client wasn’t thrilled with the plea bargain she’d negotiated. The client’s victim hadn’t been thrilled by the twenty-two stitches closing the gash on his face inflicted by the broken liquor bottle either, so she wasn’t sympathetic. Johnny knocked perfunctorily on her door and came in to sit on her sofa.
“Took a message for you while you were out,” he said. “You won’t much like it.”
“I won’t?”
“Ted Dorry called from the DA’s office. When you weren’t in, he asked for me. Told him you were at the Courthouse, he musta’ missed you.”
“I guess so. What is it?”
“Justin Dinardo’s skipped bail. He’s gone.”
Ria sat down heavily in her chair.
“Shit!”
“He’s just a kid, Ria, he can’t stay out of sight all that long.”
“Did he take his truck?”
“Nope. Didn’t take anything. They’ll pick him up.”
“Don’t bet on it. I figure he’s got a good bit of cash stashed.”
“Y
eah, but he’s not going to stick around, Ria. Too risky. And for sure, too risky for him to try anything on Dennis. And you and I both know, he’s a kid from a good family, first time he’s ever been in trouble—”
“Yeah, but it’s big trouble.”
“I know, but the Judge wouldn’t have thrown the book at him, Ria. He’d have let him off as light as possible. Fact of life.” Johnny shrugged. “Now that he’s skipped bail, if he ever slips up, that sort of alleviates the sympathy factor. You know?”
“Yeah,” Ria sighed. “I guess.”
“Well, nothing we can do about Justin. Had lunch?”
“Not hungry.”
“I am.”
“So go eat.”
“I’m ‘bout to go grab something and bring it back. What do you want? ‘Cause I don’t need a partner who’s anorexic,” Johnny said.
“Very funny.” Ria’s metabolism had been a running joke since childhood. She could eat any two men of her acquaintance under the table and never gain an ounce.
“I’ll split a sub with you. The foot-long one. With everything.”
“Hell, no! I’ve never in my life eaten half a sub! Get me a whole one!”
* * *
Just when Ria began to think her private movie, having moved past Chloe’s death, had played itself out, she woke to the sound of someone crying. No, that wasn’t right, exactly. A man was crying. The sobs were rusty, as they so often were when men cried, as though the tears were wrenched from deep within, released under great protest.
She moved softly to her door. The bedroom she’d viewed the night of their housewarming was there, not her living room. Paul stood in front of Chloe’s dresser, one of her negligees lifted to his face, muffling the sounds.
She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers passed right through the seemingly solid shoulder and he disappeared entirely.
Chapter Nine
Enough was enough. She didn’t want to sit home and watch long-ago grief two nights in a row. Ria took herself to the mall. She needed crowds, lights, action. And besides, one of her favorite books had finally succumbed to years of thumbing and turned-down pages and totally disintegrated the other night when she’d picked it up, whole sections of pages parting company with the spine. For convenience, you couldn’t beat an e-reader, but some books you just had to hold in your hands. She’d get a replacement and look over the new crop of novels.
Then maybe she’d hit the clothes racks at the fun stores and get a new outfit or two, something bright and fun that didn’t look a bit like a lawyer. Grab dinner in the Food Court. A milkshake on the way out. Exactly what she wanted tonight. Crowds without interaction.
She stood near the back of the mall’s one remaining bookstore—that e-pub revolution was taking a toll on conventional booksellers—and glared up at one the higher shelves. It would be up there, of course. Hardly a current bestseller. She stood on tiptoe and stretched, but even at five foot eight she couldn’t quite make it. And customers weren’t supposed to climb the ladders and there wasn’t a clerk in sight. She stretched again and succeeded in knocking a book off, but not the one she wanted.
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath, bending to retrieve it.
The resonant voice sounded beside her.
“Here, let me help,” it said. She started. That voice. Impossible. No way. Her eyes traveled slowly upward, taking in the well-cut tan Dockers, the long-sleeved denim shirt rolled casually up to reveal the lightly tanned forearms. They moved higher and settled on the face of the man beside her. No way.
“The one you want is always out of reach,” the voice continued. Ria was staring, she knew she was. But the man she thought was there wasn’t really there. In just a minute, her mind would clear itself out and replace the image she thought she was seeing with reality. But it was sure taking a hell of a long time for her mind to cooperate.
“Which one are you after? I’ll be glad to get it for you.”
“The—uh—” Ria stammered and stuttered, infuriated with herself. “I’m sorry, I’m not usually so muddled, but—have we met?” Oh, God. She sounded like a pickup in reverse.
He smiled. “No, I don’t think so. I’m certain I’d remember.”
“I—uh—” she stammered again and furiously told herself to get a grip. She pointed. “That hardback edition of the collected Shakespeare plays.”
“Really?” he asked, surprise in his voice. “You read Shakespeare? For pleasure? Excuse me, that didn’t come out right. It’s just—he’s not casual reading these days.” He stretched his six-foot frame upward and pulled the volume down.
“No,” she said, accepting the book. “I know he’s not, it’s just that he’s soothing sometimes, when I’m real tired or irritated, the flow and rhythm and beauty of the words calm me down.”
“Lots of humor in with the dark there, too. Always thought he’d get a real kick out of it if he could see how seriously the English professors take him. Personally, I think he just intended to tell a good story.”
Ria laughed. She’d always thought the same.
The man wearing the impossible face held out his hand. “I’m Paul. Paul Everett.” Ria’s eyes widened. She froze in position, her mind repeating a name over and over again. Paul Everett Devlin, III. Then she shook her head slightly and held out her hand.
“Ria Knight,” she said. “Are you from Macon, Mr. Everett?”
“Paul. No, I’m not from Macon. I’m—listen, did you want to look for anything else? I haven’t eaten yet, and I was just about to grab something if you’d like to join me. I’m safe, I promise. ‘Course, Jack the Ripper’d say the same thing.”
Ria tried to make some sense of the kaleidoscopic jumble of thoughts and focused on the obvious. She’d lost her mind. Very simple. She was standing in a bookstore talking to empty space.
“I, uh—no! I mean yes! No, I wasn’t going to look for anything else and yes, I’d like to join you.”
He strode easily beside her back up to the cashier and slipped the volume of Shakespeare out of her hand, adding it to the two books he carried.
“Oh, no, that’s so not—”
“It’s not every day you run into somebody reads Shakespeare for pleasure. Consider it my support for the arts, why don’t you?”
She stood aside and waited and as they walked out into the mall, she stopped suddenly.
“Oh, that was stupid of me!”
“Pardon?”
“I ordered an out-of-stock book the other week and I meant to check on it tonight. I won’t be a minute,” she said, and dashed back to the counter.
“Excuse me,” she said, homing in on the cashier who’d rung up Paul Everett’s purchases. “That last man you checked out. What did he look like?”
The clerk stared. Customers. They were crazy and here was proof.
“Aren’t you with him?”
“Well, yes, but what does he look like to you?”
“Real fine, honey, I’d say you’re lucky.”
“Yes, but what—”
“Blond hair, blue eyes. Tall, lean, great voice. Looks sort of like—no, that’s not it. Reminds me of Matthew McConaughey when he first got big. You got good taste, I’ll say that. He’s a looker.”
“He didn’t pay with a card, did he?”
“Nope, used cash.”
Shit. No way to confirm he’d really said his name was Paul Everett. Oh, well. At least she wasn’t talking to thin air.
“Thank you,” she said, and went back out. The clerk shrugged and returned to her duties. Customers. Crazy.
“Your book’s not in?”
“No. Oh, well. Where do we eat?”
“You pick,” he said, and spread his hand out towards the fast-food kiosks standing cheek by jowl in the Food Court. Ria didn’t hesitate.
“Atlanta Bread Company, please. Roast beef on French,” she said, “but if you’d rather have something else, please feel free.”
“That’s great. Why don’
t you claim a table and I’ll be right back.”
“Can’t I buy dinner? You already bought my book.”
He smiled. “I’m a little old-fashioned. Be right back.”
* * *
“So you’re not from Macon?” she asked again when they settled in with their sandwiches.
“No.” He shook open his napkin. “Actually, I’m in town on sort of a research trip.”
“Research?”
“I’m on a leave of absence from a very small newspaper you never heard of. Sounds sort of self-important so I don’t usually tell anybody but seeing as how you’re a fan of fine literature, I’ll tell you anyway. I’m working on—trying to work on—my first novel.”
“Really? Here?”
“Yes, here. To be honest, I put my finger on a map of the south and it landed closer to here than anywhere else.”
Ria laughed. “You’re joking?”
“No. And you?”
“I’m an attorney.”
“Now you’re joking.”
“No. Male chauvinism much?”
“None at all. You just look too young to be an established attorney.”
“I said attorney, I didn’t say established. Actually, I’ve been practicing a little over two years and a couple of months ago I went out on my own with a friend of mine. It’s our office and home, we redid the second floor into two apartments. The first floor is Bishop & Knight, Attorneys at Law.”
“You didn’t get top billing?”
“Always start with the name that goes first in the phone book. Sound business practice. Johnny says we should have made up a silent partner. Aabco, Bishop & Knight. So folks thumbing through the phone book see our name first.”
He laughed just like Paul Devlin laughed. Coincidence. Nothing else. Or maybe his people came from Macon after all and he just didn’t know it. Maybe he was a Devlin descendant. She’d always heard everyone had a double.
“Johnny? Your partner’s not another lady lawyer, then?”
“Not hardly. We go back a long way, friends from the cradle. Our mothers are best friends, we were sort of automatic brother and sister.”
Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) Page 4