“How was the trip?”
Leaning in over Sneakers, he just managed to plant a kiss on Charlotte’s mouth.
“Very productive. Did my men behave while I was gone?”
“What do you say, Sneaks, did we behave?”
The dog was already on his side, his tail thumping the floor. Charlotte crouched and asked in a baby voice, “How’s my little boy-child today? Did you miss me? You did? Well, I missed you more.”
She looked at Luke and raised her eyebrows, as if it was his turn. Then straightened.
“Something’s on your mind.”
“Yeah.” He had been wondering if he should share Amy Hunter’s problem with Charlotte. Now, seeing her concerned eyes, he recognized that of course he would. Charlotte would have an idea. Who knows? If nothing else worked out, maybe she’d decide to write the story herself. Charlotte still had the ability to surprise him, to lead them into unexpected directions like a sudden wind that picks up seeds and carries them to new life.
HUNTER DRANK SEVERAL glasses of red wine, sitting barefoot on her back porch. She watched the sky darken around the marina, working out a new plan in her head.
Later, deep in the night, she heard voices across the water, through screen windows and open patio doors, the sounds that always came with warmer weather—drunken bursts of laughter, uninhibited crescendos of conversation.
She dozed for a while with the window open, waking to a cool silence and feeling Winston breathing against her arm. Wondering if Luke was awake. Remembering what he’d told her that afternoon.
But then she began to hear a different voice, this one in her head: The strange intonations of August Trumble on the day they had finally caught up with him. Trumble’s voice as disorienting to her as his appearance—a slightly high pitch, sprinkled with odd, lilting words and inflections that seemed to belong to some earlier time in history.
She blinked in the darkness, wide-awake, recalling their brief exchange once again. A conversation heard by only two people.
What time do you have?
Time? Twelve forty-seven.
Really? No, Trumble said. I don’t believe that’s right. I daresay it’s much later than that.
Then she had turned away and stepped outside the car, deciding not to engage with August Trumble again. Because something about the man wasn’t right. Something she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to think about. The way he had spoken to her felt like a summons, sent from the recesses of some ancient, unrequited yearning, from the subterranean places he dwelled, dreaming his dark dreams of redemption, places Trumble would never really be able to leave despite his efforts to live in the open, to be one of us. Sometimes, your curiosity lets you go through those doorways; sometimes, your instincts tell you to stay on this side, knowing the door may close behind you and never open again.
Trumble wasn’t finished, though. He had spoken to her one more time, saying, I’ve got one thirty-eight or seven.
Those were the words Hunter couldn’t get out of her head now. The peculiar, distinct way he pronounced them—the second part, or seven, more drawn-out than the first, like a recording that had been slowed down.
One thirty-eight or seven.
Only now, in the darkness, she heard it differently: Without the or.
One thirty-eight. Seven.
138:7.
“Shit!” She clicked on the nightstand lamp and threw back her bedspread. “Sorry,” she said to Winston, who was now covered to his head. “I have to look this up.”
As Hunter paged through the Book of Psalms, Winston sat and watched her.
And then he purred, for reasons that only Winston understood.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Laura Gross for your support, enthusiasm, and many suggestions along the way.
And to Emily Krump, whose editorial guidance was invaluable and helped to shape several of the characters in this book/series.
I am also grateful to Joseph Gamble, commander of the homicide unit of the Maryland State Police, who answered my many questions about murder investigations and provided the Chesapeake Bay “fog” comparison for cases without an ID or a suspect.
Also by James Lilliefors
The Leviathan Effect
Viral
About the Author
James Lilliefors is the author of the geopolitical thriller novels The Levianthan Effect and Viral. A journalist and novelist who grew up near Washington DC, Lilliefors is also the author of three nonfiction books. He writes the Bowers and Hunter series for Witness. For more information go to www.jameslilliefors.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE PSALMIST. Copyright © 2014 by James Lilliefors. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition July 2014 ISBN: 9780062349682
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062349699
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