Michael Koryta - The Prophet

“I could get away with this. You can’t. After the night I’ve spent with the FBI, if I say he approached me and I killed him in self-defense, everybody buys it. Everybody.”

“Stop,” Adam said again.

Kent fell silent. They looked at each other for a long time, and then he said, “At least let me give the address to the police, Adam. Don’t let them get it from you. If it comes from you, everyone is looking at it different. If it comes from me, they’ll believe it.”

“How will you claim you got it?”

“I’ll say he called my cell. They’re hoping that he will. They don’t have it tapped, though, so they can’t record what’s said.”

“They’ll know whether a call came in.”

“Then I’ll call myself from somewhere. A pay phone, someplace in that neighborhood, whatever. What happens after that, they will believe.”

Adam felt sick, listening to him. He’d always hated their differences. He’d hated Kent for the way he approached Marie’s murderer, going into the prison and praying for the son of a bitch. It had seemed, back then, that no response could be worse. There was one, though.

This was worse.

“We’ll give the address to the police,” Adam said, “and let them take it from there.”

“That’ll end with you in prison. Maybe with Grissom there, too, but definitely you.”

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But we’ll let them finish it.”

Kent leaned forward and rested his forehead on the edge of the table. He looked exhausted. Worse than that, actually. He looked beaten.

“It’s on me, Adam. The whole damn thing. I brought it all here, and you were right all along. I should have been like you from the start.”

“It’s here despite you. Look at what you’ve done with your life, Kent. Look at what you’ve built for yourself, for other people. You actually wish you’d gone my way? Then you’re a stupid son of a bitch.”

Kent looked up but didn’t say anything. Adam said, “I don’t begrudge you, Kent. What you did with Pearce. It turned out well for you. It was the right thing.”

“Turned out well? Look at where we are now!”

“That’s got nothing to do with it, and the only person who wants you to think that it does is the sociopath who’s responsible for all of this. Don’t start agreeing with him.”

Kent leaned back in his chair with a weary sigh. Rubbed his eyes, got to his feet, and said, “Can I please have the gun?”

“I thought we were going to the police.”

“We are. Well, I am. Let me come up with a way to tell them where you saw Grissom. Maybe they find him there, maybe not, but let it come from me.”

“Fair enough. What do you need the gun for, then?”

“Protection. Just in case. The guy’s a killer, Adam, and he’s here for me.”

“Just in case,” Adam echoed. “Okay. Sure.”

“You’ll give it to me?”

Adam nodded. “It’s still in my car.”

“All right,” Kent said. “You give me the gun and the address where you took this picture. I’ll make a phone call to myself, just to log one so the story holds up. Then I’ll go to the FBI and I’ll give them the address. Say he asked to meet me there. Hopefully, he’s still there. If he’s not, then it’ll still be a clue. It will be a lead. Evidence. Somewhere for them to start.”

Kent had never been much of a liar. Just didn’t have the capacity for it, even when he wanted to. Gave himself away so easily, because he simply could not look you in your eyes and tell you a lie. He wasn’t looking at Adam now.

“That’s what you’re going to do?” Adam said. “Give the address to the police? You’re not going to do anything stupid? Not going out there by yourself?”

“I’ll give it to the police. Meanwhile, though, you need to go find Chelsea. Or someone. Just find someone to be with today, all right?”

“Why?”

“So they can’t blame the phone call on you.”

“The phone call.”

Kent nodded.

“All right,” Adam said. “Sure.”

He went to the door, and Kent followed. They walked across the yard, mud and leaves clinging to their shoes, everything saturated from the previous day’s rains, and out to the Jeep. Adam got the Taurus Judge out of the glove compartment, checked the cylinder, and then passed it to his brother. Kent took it almost eagerly. It seemed as if he’d grown comfortable with the feel of the weapon. Adam had never expected to see that.

Kent said, “I’m sorry, Adam. For all that’s happened, for getting you into this, I’m—”

“That’s not allowed in our family,” Adam said. “If anybody knows that, it’s me.”

“What?”

Adam waved a hand back at their childhood home. “No apologies accepted in the Austin house, Kent. Nobody ever let me say it. Not you, not Dad, not Mom. Nobody. I drove off and left Marie and then nobody would even let me say I was sorry.”

“That’s because it wasn’t your fault.”

“I was supposed to bring her home, and I did not. Of course I didn’t know what was going to happen, but that doesn’t change anything. Instead we all sat around pretending I wasn’t to blame.”

“You weren’t.”

“I was supposed to bring her home,” Adam repeated. He slammed the Jeep door shut. “She’s the only one I’ve ever been able to say it to. The rest of you wouldn’t let me, but I can say it to her.”

Kent was staring at him, the gun in his hand, not saying a word.

“So don’t you apologize for a damn thing,” Adam said. “None of this is your fault, Kent. You didn’t ask this sick bastard to come to town. Stop acting like you did.”

“Okay.” Kent nodded, then looked down at the gun and said, “I’m going to need the address.”

Adam thought of Rachel Bond, the firm set of her jaw when she’d told him she didn’t need advice, she needed an address. He’d given her the address instead of advice, and away she’d gone.

“Adam?” Kent prompted.

“Take it to the police,” Adam said.

“I will.”

“Okay,” Adam said, and then he gave him the address. Kent repeated it, murmuring the numbers like a prayer, and then he said that it was time for him to go, and repeated his request that Adam go find Chelsea and stay close to her.

“We’ll talk soon,” Kent said.

“I hope so.”

“Be safe,” Kent said.

“You, too. Keep your head down, Franchise.”

His brother nodded, and then walked to his car, got behind the wheel with the gun in his hand, and drove off down the street. Adam watched the taillights disappear.

“I love you,” he said aloud, but the car was gone then and the street was empty.

He went inside to say good-bye to Marie and put out the candles.

49

KENT WANTED TO TELL NO LIES. Never did, but certainly he did not want to now, and certainly not to Adam after all he’d endured. So he’d chosen the forked tongue of honesty again, had told true words and true facts and concealed the reality of his heart.

He would tell the police. He would give them the address.

But first he would go there himself.

He believed in his theory, he believed it would work. If Dan Grissom died at his hand today, Robert Dean and Stan Salter and every other investigator on the case would not be surprised. Kent was, after all, the target of the man’s assaults, and they also knew Kent. The whole town did. They knew him and believed in him, their understanding of his character was firm, and it would help him. Because he had made so many proper decisions for so long, the world would struggle to believe that he was capable of making so terrible a choice now.

The choice had been made, though. He was going to end it, for his family if not for himself. For Beth’s safety, and Lisa’s, and Andrew’s, he would remove Grissom from this world if he could. For Adam, who had already tried to do the same for Kent.