Russell Andrews - Hades

Definitely back to the gym, he decided.

He decided to try the door without knocking. It was open, so he stepped inside. As he did, he pulled his gun.

Quentin Quintel was cooking in the open kitchen. His back was to the front door, but he must have sensed Justin's presence because he put his mixing bowl down and turned slowly. He looked shocked to see Justin, then the surprise seemed to fade quickly, replaced by a look of resignation and, Justin felt, the tiniest bit of relief. Justin waved his gun, just to make sure that Quintel saw it, and he put his fingers to his lips. The dean's eyes shifted ever so slightly toward the stairway. Justin nodded and headed up the stairs.

Evan Harmon was in one of the two upstairs bedrooms.

He was lying on a single bed, not sleeping, just staring up at the ceiling, his hands clasped behind his head. Justin stepped into the room, his gun in his hand. Evan did not look shocked to see Justin. He did not look resigned or relieved, either. He just smiled and shrugged, as if a long game of chess had come to an end.

"I was wondering who'd figure it out," Evan said. "I have to admit, I didn't think it'd be you."

"I guess you were wrong about a few things," Justin said.

Evan stood up from the bed and he let Justin handcuff him without a struggle. Justin led him down the stairs and out the front door. As they walked down the driveway, Evan leading the way, Justin saw that there was an almost buoyant spring to the man's step.

He's not unhappy, Justin thought. Now everyone will know what he did. Everyone will know the scam he almost pulled off. He's happy to be caught.

And that's when he heard the noise. From the woods to the right of the driveway. A twig snapping, maybe. A footstep.

Justin turned. Saw a shadow, a massive shadow, but that's all he saw. The blow came quick and hard and Justin went down to his knees. The second blow caught him behind his left ear and things went fuzzy. He wasn't out completely, wasn't out for long. Maybe a few minutes. But his world was a blur for those minutes. While he was down, he heard a pop, quieter than the snapping twig, but closer. He couldn't get his eyes open to see what was happening. And by the time he was able to clear his head, to stagger up to his hands and knees despite the brutal pain radiating behind his eyes and at the top of his skull, it was too late.

Justin sighed and quietly said, "Oh shit," when he saw that Evan Harmon was lying on the driveway right next to him, a small hole in the back of his head, blood still pouring out of the wound.

Justin managed to turn his head but there was no sign of anyone else around. There were footprints in the dirt next to the gravel of the driveway. A man's footprints. Justin saw that the prints were embedded into the dirt and crushed twigs. The man was not petite. He was large and heavy.

Justin closed his eyes, but that was a mistake because he was overcome with dizziness, so he opened them, forced himself to forget about the nausea and the pain, and he picked up Evan Harmon's dead body, carried it down the driveway to the car, put it in the backseat, and drove back to East End Harbor.

The morning of Evan Harmon's funeral, Long Island District Attorney Larry Silverbush resigned his post. He publicly apologized to David Kelley, and both New York tabloids had a front page photograph of Kelley and Silverbush shaking hands outside the Riverhead jail.

Lincoln Berdon did not attend the funeral. The day before, Special Agent Zach Fletcher went to bring Berdon in for official questioning. He was told that Berdon had left the country. When records were checked at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, the FBI was told that Berdon's private Challenger had gone to London. The plane never landed at Heathrow, however, and by the time of the funeral, Berdon's whereabouts were still unknown.

H. R. Harmon did appear at his son's service at the T. J. Klein Mortuary. Local police and the FBI were working with the New York City district attorney's office to determine if they had a viable case against Harmon. The initial determination was that they did not.

Attendance at the service was sparse. There were more paparazzi than mourners. No one from Ascension showed up. Nor did anyone from Rockworth and Williams.

H. R. sat next to Abigail Harmon. Abby wore a short black summer dress and her legs were bare. The day was way too hot and steamy for stockings. Justin, who sat with Reggie Bokkenheuser two rows behind and across the aisle from H. R. and Abby, noted that the widow Harmon always looked her best in black.

When the service was over, Justin stepped into the aisle just as Abby passed him by. H. R. ignored him, refused to even glance in his direction, but when Justin touched Abby's elbow, she turned and flashed him the faintest of smiles. She slowed enough to let him draw even with her and he said, quietly, "When did you know?"

She didn't say a word until they were outside on the street, and then she said, "The day before I called you."

"Not from the beginning?" he asked.

Abby shook her head. "No. I didn't know until Lincoln and H. R. told me. They came to my apartment, told me that Evan was alive. When I saw him… when I saw the body in our bedroom, I thought… well, I didn't know until they told me."

"And what did you do?" he asked.

"I did what I told you people like me always do."

"You made a deal," he said.

"I did what was easiest," Abby Harmon said.

She leaned over, kissed Justin gently on the cheek, said, "Good-bye, Jay," then she disappeared into her father-in-law's waiting limo.

That afternoon, he flew up to Providence. He met with his parents, told them as much as he thought they would want to know. He thought that, somehow, they both were dealing with him differently than they'd dealt with him over the past decade or so. He didn't know if they were more respectful or just softer, but there was something about the way they spoke to him and listened that touched him. When he kissed them both good-bye-maybe the first time in thirty-five years that he'd kissed his father-he said he would see them soon. And he meant it. And he was glad to mean it.

Justin drove to Victoria LaSalle's house after that. There were other people there when he pulled up. Justin didn't know any of them and, when he was ushered into the living room, he wasn't introduced to any of them. Victoria excused herself, took Justin into a den and closed the door. She didn't say anything, just waited for him to talk. All he said was "You were married to a very good man."

He told her what he knew, sparing her any ugly details of his investigation, focusing on her husband and his role. He told her that he had died through no fault of his own. And he told her that Ronald had been trying to do the right thing. The moral thing.

Vicky waited until he was finished. She said, "Goddamn him. He was a goddamn fool and damn him to hell." Then she started to cry. Justin didn't move an inch toward her. He just waited for the crying to stop. She used her sleeve to dry her eyes. She said, "Who killed Evan Harmon?"

Justin said he didn't know.

Victoria nodded at him and went back to the living room. She didn't thank him. She didn't say anything else to him.

He showed himself out.

Justin had told Victoria LaSalle that he didn't know who killed Evan Harmon. Even though he did.

Evan was killed by a man whose job it was to kill people. Whose job it was to kill Evan. Evan had stolen from the wrong people and when he was about to get caught, he'd run for his life. But the man he was running from was good at finding people. He'd used Justin to help him find Evan, even though Justin hadn't realized it. And he could have killed Justin at the same time he killed Evan. He probably should have. But he didn't. Which is why Justin knew who'd pulled the trigger in the driveway.