Jeffery Deaver - Twisted - The Collected Stories of Jeffery Deaver

“He stormed up to me, all pissed off, red in the face. He threatened me. And then he begged me to tell him where she was hiding. But I just looked back at him. I didn’t say a word. And all his bucks, all his thugs... nothing. Money’s power, sure, but so is love. I didn’t even have to fight him. He looked me in the eyes and he knew that I’d won. His daughter loved me, not him. Allison was safe. We’d be together, the two of us. We’d beat Thomas Morgan — tycoon, rich son of a bitch, and father of the most beautiful woman on earth. He just turned around and walked back to his limo. End of story.”

Silence fell between us. It was nearly midnight and I’d been here for over three hours. I stretched. Manko paced slowly, his face aglow with anticipation. “You know, Frank, a lot of my life hasn’t gone the way I wanted it to. Allison’s either. But one thing we’ve got is our love. That makes everything okay.”

“A transcendent love.”

A ping sounded and I realized that Manko’d touched his cup to mine once again. We emptied them. He looked out the window into the black night. The rain had stopped and a faint moon was evident through the clouds. A distant clock started striking twelve. He smiled. “Time to go meet her, Frank.”

A solid rap struck the door, which swung open suddenly. I was startled and stood.

Manko turned calmly, the smile still on his face.

“Evening, Tim,” said a man of about sixty. He wore a rumpled brown suit. From behind him several sets of eyes peered at Manko and me.

It rankled me slightly to hear the given name. Manko’d always made it clear that he preferred his nickname and considered the use of Tim or Timothy an insult. But tonight he didn’t even notice; he smiled. There was silence for a moment as another man, wearing a pale blue uniform, stepped into the room with a tray, loaded it up with the dirty dishes.

“Enjoy it, Manko?” he asked, nodding at the tray.

“Ambrosia,” he said, lifting a wry eyebrow toward me.

The older man nodded then took a blue-backed document from his suit jacket and opened it. There was a long pause. Then in a solemn Southern baritone he read, “Timothy Albert Mankowitz, in accordance with the sentence pronounced against you pursuant to your conviction for the kidnapping and murder of Allison Kimberly Morgan, I hereby serve upon you this death warrant issued by the governor of the State of North Carolina, to be effected at midnight this day.”

The warden handed Manko the paper. He and his lawyer had already seen the faxed version from the court and tonight he merely glanced with boredom at the document. In his face I noted none of the stark befuddlement you almost always see in the faces of condemned prisoners as they read the last correspondence they’ll ever receive.

“We got the line open to the governor, Tim,” the warden drawled, “and he’s at his desk. I just talked to him. But I don’t think... I mean, he probably won’t intervene.”

“I told you all along.” Manko said softly, “I didn’t even want those appeals.”

The execution operations officer, a thin, businesslike man who looked like a feed-and-grain clerk, cuffed Manko’s wrists and removed his shoes.

The warden motioned me outside and I stepped into the corridor. Unlike the popular conception of a dismal, Gothic death row, this wing of the prison resembled an overly lit Sunday school hallway. His head leaned close. “Any luck, Father?”

I lifted my eyes from the shiny linoleum. “I think so. He told me about a cabin on Badin Lake. Western shore. You know it?”

The warden shook his head. “But we’ll have the troopers get some dogs over there. Hope it pans out,” he added, whispering, “Lord, I hope that.”

So ended my grim task on this grim evening.

Prison chaplains always walk the last hundred feet with the condemned but rarely are they enlisted as a last-ditch means to wheedle information out of the prisoners. I’d consulted my bishop and this mission didn’t seem to violate my vows. Still, it was clearly a deceit and one that would trouble me, I suspected, for a long time. Yet it would trouble me less than the thought of Allison Morgan’s body lying in an unconsecrated grave, whose location Manko adamantly refused to reveal — his ultimate way, he said, of protecting her from her father.

Allison Kimberly Morgan — stalked relentlessly for months after she dumped Manko following their second date. Kidnapped from her bed then driven through four states with the FBI and a hundred troopers in pursuit. And finally... finally, when it was clear that Manko’s precious plans for a life together in Florida would never happen, knifed to death while — apparently — he held her close and told her how there wasn’t enough room in his heart for all the love he felt for her.

Until tonight her parents’ only consolation was in knowing that she’d died quickly — her abundant blood in the front seat of his Dodge testified to that. Now there was at least the hope they could give her a proper burial and in doing so offer her a bit of the love that they may — or may not — have denied her in life.

Manko appeared in the hallway, wearing disposable paper slippers the condemned wear to the execution chamber. The warden looked at his watch and motioned him down the corridor. “You’ll go peaceful, won’t you, son?”

Manko laughed. He was the only one here with serenity in his eyes.

And why not?

He was about to join his own true love. They’d be together once again.

“You like my story, Frank?”

I told him I did. Then he smiled at me in a curious way, an expression that seemed to contain a hint both of forgiveness and of something I can only call the irrepressible Manko challenge. Perhaps, I reflected, it would not be this evening’s deceit that would weigh on me so heavily but rather the simple fact that I would never know whether or not Manko was on to me.

But who could tell? He was, as I’ve said, a born actor.

The warden looked at me. “Father?”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid Manko’s going to forgo absolution,” I said. “But he’d like me to read him a few psalms.”

“Allison,” Manko said earnestly, “loves poetry.”

I slipped the Bible from my suit pocket and began to read as we started down the corridor, walking side by side.

“Sometimes help just appears from the sky.”

This was an expression of her mother’s and it didn’t mean angels or spirits or any of that New Age stuff but meant “from thin air” — when you were least expecting it.

Okay, Mama, let’s hope. ’Cause I can use some help now. Can use it bad.

Sandra May DuMont leaned back in a black-leather office chair and let the papers in her hand drop onto the old desk that dominated her late husband’s office. As she looked out the window she wondered if she was looking at that help right now.

Not exactly appearing from the sky — but walking up the cement path to the factory, in the form of a man with an easy smile and sharp eyes.

She turned away and caught sight of herself in the antique mirror she’d bought for her husband ten years ago, on their fifth anniversary. Today, she had only a brief memory of that happier day; what she concentrated on now was her image; a large woman, though not fat. Quick green eyes. She was wearing an off-white dress imprinted with blue cornflowers. Sleeveless — this was Georgia in mid May — revealing sturdy upper arms. Her long hair was dark blond and was pulled back and fixed with a matter-of-fact tortoiseshell barrette. Just a touch of makeup. No perfume. She was thirty-eight but, funny thing, she’d come to realize, her weight made her look younger.