Michael Koryta - The Prophet

“They were in her room, weren’t they?” he said.

“Whose room?”

“My sister’s,” Kent said.

TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN! THANKS, BOYS!

“I’m not certain. Do you intend to bail him out?”

Kent blinked at him in surprise. “That’s what he does.”

“For other people, yes. He might need help when the situation is reversed.”

It was so obvious that it was embarrassing, but somehow Kent had just expected that Adam could handle the process on his own.

“I guess he’ll need me to, yeah,” he said. But who was he supposed to call? Adam bailed people out; Adam was the one you called.

Salter unlocked the handcuffs and tossed them on the table, then went and sat on the other side and ran a hand over his face and through his close-cropped hair.

“The hell were you thinking, Austin? It was a damned search warrant, and we had permission from your brother, who is one of the homeowners. What were you thinking?”

“That’s the wrong way to back me off,” Adam said. “You don’t like me doing what I’m doing, but trying to intimidate me by forcing bullshit warrants and—”

“It was not a bullshit warrant.”

“I suspect I’ll disagree on that point.”

“Whoever killed Rachel Bond may have been in your home,” Salter said, voice quiet.

Adam had always played football fast, had required a high motor, a sense of savagery. But there were times, few and far between, when the gears stuck. When everything went slow and syrupy. Those were the times when the offense fooled him completely, when he roared into a play expecting one thing only to be given another. Now, staring at Salter, he felt it again.

“Explain that,” he said.

“Someone wrote your brother a letter. Included in it were two items: your business card and a football card with your picture and what appears to be your sister’s handwriting.”

Adam said, “Top left drawer of the desk.”

“What?”

“Top left drawer of the desk. That’s where it should be. Is it not?”

Salter shook his head.

Under the table, Adam folded his hands like a man in prayer, squeezed the left tightly against the right, trying to find the old ache, to use the pain to ground the electrical current of his rage. The bones had knitted so long ago, though, and he could not call up the pain now.

“It was sent to Kent?” he said.

“It was left for your brother, yes. We’re not prepared to say that it was from the killer, but we have to acknowledge—”

“Yes, it was. You know damned well that it was.”

Salter looked at him, tapping a pencil on the edge of the table, and said, “Who could have gotten into the house?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is in it regularly, other than you?”

“No one.”

“Come on. Give me a starting point, no matter how vague. Friends, visitors. Who comes over to watch a ballgame or have a beer, who—”

“No one,” Adam said again. “That house is not where I socialize.”

“Your brother has a key.”

“Yeah. The one he gave to you.”

“No one else? You couldn’t call someone to, say, let you in if you were locked out?”

Adam started to answer, then stopped. Salter’s eyes glimmered at the hesitation, having seen Adam observe first the bait and then the trap.

“The letter went to Kent. Not to me.”

“Correct. But the football card came from your house. That’s your own statement, not mine. You believe it was in the desk.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Okay. So let’s stick with that. Who else has a key?”

“Chelsea.”

“Chelsea Salinas. Let’s talk about her a little, yes. She has access to the home?”

“It’s not worth discussing, Salter. This has nothing to do with Chelsea.”

“But she does have access to the home?”

“She’s got a key.”

“Now, we’re being honest here, so let’s avoid the bullshit and get this out in the open—Chelsea Salinas is a married woman, and you’re sleeping with her. And her husband is in jail. I believe you held bonds on him in the past?”

Adam felt a bristle of anger. “Travis Leonard is in jail,” he said. “You’re right about that. So he’s not a suspect, and this isn’t worth discussing.”

“Does he know that you’re sleeping with his wife?”

Adam stared at him. It was the first time anyone had directly challenged him on his relationship with Chelsea. Of course Salter would know, of course he’d have done that much checking, and it was not a hard thing to determine, but still it made Adam uncomfortable.

“Not to the best of my knowledge. She hasn’t told him. I haven’t told him.”

“We’ll have to look at it.”

“He’s in jail, ” Adam repeated.

“He has friends who are not.”

“Friends who would kill a seventeen-year-old girl to, what, screw with my head? Punish me? No, Salter. No, that’s not the scent you want to chase. It’s the wrong direction.”

Salter didn’t respond.

“The letter,” Adam said, “went to Kent.”

“I understand that.”

“Rachel’s contact with her father started from Kent’s suggestion. Am I correct?”

Salter gave a small nod.

“Then why aren’t you interviewing Kent?”

“Other people are.”

“Who?”

“We have multiple investigators working on—”

“You’re the lead, Salter. And you’ve been at my house, and now you’re here with me. That’s a waste of time that you can’t afford. You should be talking to my brother.”

“The FBI is talking to your brother.”

Adam opened his mouth to say more, then shut it. He was finally understanding what Salter was looking for. He was not a dumb man, was Salter, he was probably a pretty damned good detective, in fact, far too smart not to understand that if Rachel Bond’s killer had wanted to antagonize Jason Bond or Adam Austin, he would have gone directly to them. Instead, he’d gone to Kent. It was about Kent. It had been from the start.

But why?

“They’re talking to him,” Salter said, watching Adam, “and you and I can talk about him. You have any thoughts on people who would want to take this sort of head shot at your brother?”

Adam nodded. “Sure. Pick a murderer. He’s made friends with plenty of them.”

“Sounds like that bothers you.”

“Yes. He started with Gideon Pearce. It bothered me then, and it continues to bother me.”

“My understanding is that you threatened to kill Mr. Pearce.”

“No,” Adam said. “I promised to do it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t given the chance.”

“Your feelings on that situation… who have you discussed them with? Who understood the depth of your feelings about him?”

“Who understood the depth of my feelings about the man who murdered my sister?” Adam stared at him. “You think I needed to discuss those feelings to have them understood?”

“I’m asking. Who did you talk about the idea with?”

“My father. Who is dead. And my mother. Who is dead.”

And my brother, he thought, who is not dead. And who is currently with the FBI. I’m not, but he is. So when the FBI floated in here and pulled rank, they went to Kent. Why? Because they think he’s of more importance than me.

“Do you know if anyone you’ve held bond on ended up meeting your brother in prison? On his, um, speaking tours?”

Adam studied him. “No. Was that indicated in the letter?”

“It was not.”

“But the prison visits are important to you?”

“It’s just a question, Austin.” But Salter’s eyes danced away when he said that.

26

IF CHELSEA SALINAS WAS ANY happier to see Kent than he was to see her, she hid it well. There was a moment of frigid silence when she opened the door for him, and when he put out his hand, she hesitated. Held his eyes the whole time—she’d always been steady like that, so contained and cool, he remembered her at Marie’s funeral, remembered thinking, I wish that bitch would at least cry— but seemed not to trust his hand. Finally she took it, though, her grip stronger than half of his defensive backs’, and said, “He doesn’t want you to be involved, but you have to be.”