David Baldacci: Hour Game

"East to the dam?" he said again, even more loudly.

"You know your lake," said Eddie, who took another swig of his warm beer, seeming to savor every drop.

"I know why you killed all those people, Eddie."

"No, you don't."

"I figured it out. Tyler, Canney, Junior, Sally. And Hinson and Pembroke to throw us off. One tick off, right? One tick."

"You don't know shit."

"Your father was a horrible man, Eddie. I know he drove you to this. You killed because of him, what he did to your mother, your brother."

Eddie pointed his pistol at King's head. "I said you don't know shit about why I did it."

King bit his lip, trying to keep his nerves in check, not exactly an easy thing to do right now. "Okay, suppose you tell me?"

"What does it matter, Sean? I'm a psycho, okay? If they don't burn me in the chair, they should just lock me up and throw away the key. Let somebody slit my belly while I'm asleep in my cell. Then everybody can just take a nice long breath. No more Eddie. It's cool, no more Eddie, and the world just keeps right on trucking." He eyed King and smiled. "Hey, at least when you die, there'll be plenty of people to mourn you. I don't have anybody."

"Dorothea?"

"Yeah, right."

"Remmy will."

"You think so?"

"You don't?"

Eddie shook his head. "Let's just not go there."

"Tell me about Steve Canney."

"What's to tell?"

"You're an honorable man, Eddie. You should've lived a hundred and fifty years ago. So grant a condemned man his last request. Talk to me."

Eddie finally smiled. "What the hell? Okay, here it is. I'd just gotten back from college. My parents were on the outs again. Savannah was about two years old, and Dad was already tired of her. I knew the bastard was screwing around again. I followed him and saw him with the Canney woman. When she had her son, I broke into the hospital, checked the blood-type records. Roger Canney wasn't the father. I knew who was."

"Was Savannah Bobby and Remmy's child?"

"Oh, yeah. I think Dad believed Mom was really going to divorce him this time. So she suddenly ended up very pregnant. Whether the sex was consensual or not, you'd have to ask her."

"Why the hell didn't they just divorce?"

"Bobby Battle's wife leaving him? No way that control freak would ever let that happen. That would've been a sign of failure. The great Bobby Battle never failed. Never!"

"Remmy could have divorced him if she'd wanted to."

"I guess she didn't want to."

King debated whether to ask the next question, deciding this might be the only chance he got. He was also thinking that the longer he kept Eddie talking, the longer he and Sylvia would stay alive. And who knew, he might just be able to persuade him to let them both live. "Why didn't you kill the boy, Eddie? Tommy Robinson?"

"Figured he'd set up his old man, make my life easier."

"Come on, you couldn't be sure of that."

"So there was no reason to kill him. So what? You think that makes me a Boy Scout because I managed not to kill one stinking kid? You saw what I did to Sally. What the hell did she ever do to me, huh? I smashed her face down to the bone." He looked down and eased back on the throttle.

The storm was growing fiercer by the minute, and even the FasTech was having difficulty cutting through the now massive wakes. Formula built some of the best boats in the world, and King prayed the fiberglass of this boat could withstand the beating it was taking. Yet they were only one lightning strike from being incinerated when the fuel tank ignited.

"And Junior?"

"That one I felt really shitty about. That stupid Sally. Why didn't she come forward? Hell, I liked Junior."

"He wouldn't let her tell the truth. He didn't want to hurt his wife."

"See, there you go. Always better to tell the truth. They'd both be alive if they'd just done that." Eddie sucked the last drop of beer out of the can and tossed it overboard. He rocked his head back and forth, loosening the thick muscles in his neck. "You've killed people before, Sean."

"Only when they were trying to kill me."

"I know that, I wasn't lumping us together. What did it feel like, right before you saw them die and you knew you'd done it?"

King at first thought Eddie was making light of this, but when he caught the man's gaze locked on the darkness ahead of them, he understand exactly what Eddie was really asking.

"It felt like a piece of me died with them."

"I guess that's where you and I are different."

"You mean you enjoyed it?"

"No, I mean I was already dead when I started killing." He flexed his arms and shook his head clear. "I wasn't always this way. I never hurt anyone or anything. I wasn't one of those people who started out torturing animals and worked my way up to humans. The kind of crap Chip Bailey went on and on about."

"I never thought you were a run-of-the-mill serial killer."

"Is that right?" Eddie smiled. "I wanted to play in the NFL. I was good enough, a damn good college player. Could've made it in the pros. Well, maybe I could, maybe I couldn't. Strong as an ox, good wheels, and I hated to lose-man, I hated that. But it didn't happen, just wasn't in the cards. You know, you're right. I was born too late. The 1800s would've suited me a lot better. I'm freaking lost in this century."

"When did you find out the truth about your brother?"

Eddie eased his gaze over to King and then checked the rear, where Sylvia had once more perched on the edge of the stern seat. Looking back at King, he said slowly, "Why are you asking that?"

"I think that's where all this started, that's why."

"Oh, what, my big excuse?"

"Most men in your position would be begging for justification, a legal defense, something to explain it."

"I guess I'm not most men, then."

"Syphilis. When did you know that's what it was?"

Eddie pulled back on the throttle some more, and the FasTech slowed to thirty knots. Still fast, but at least the boat's props weren't coming out of the water every furlong.

"When I was nineteen," Eddie said slowly, still looking out over the bow into the distance as though he were attempting a dead-reckoning calculation. "They didn't know I found out. They were just feeding me lies about why my brother was dead. But I learned the truth-oh, yeah, I did. They weren't going to slip that shit by me. No way."

"So shortly before the kidnapping scheme."

Eddie smiled. "I can't believe I was able to keep that secret all these years. I guess Chip was really surprised."

"To put it mildly." King glanced at Sylvia, but she was simply looking out over the dark waters, flinching at every burst of lightning and clap of thunder. King could feel his dinner coming back up on him, the seas were so rough. He fought through this urge to retch and said, "Did you ever confront your father about it?"

"What was to confront? He was the indomitable Bobby Battle. Bastard could do no wrong. He never admitted what he did to his own son. He rubbed his crotch against every hooker around, brought the shit home, killed Bobby and didn't even give a crap. That sure as hell didn't surprise me. He didn't give a shit that he'd murdered his own flesh and blood. Damn brain dissolving, eyes falling out, teeth rotting. His last years he was in agony all the time, I mean all the time. It was like someone had taken this beautiful painting and wiped turpentine all over it. I knew Bobby was still in there, but I couldn't see him anymore." Eddie blinked rapidly. "Every day, man, I just watched him waste away. When he started getting really ill, I said, take him to the doctor. Damn it, help Bobby, help him. Please! And they never would. I was just a kid, they said. I didn't understand, they said. I understood, man. I sure as hell did, just too late for Bobby."