Her voice had a little anger in it. “I never would have let you do half those things if I’d known.”
“Which is the other reason why I didn’t tell you.”
“They had to revive you twice,” she said. “The second time you almost didn’t make it.”
I struggled through my memory. It was all coming back to me now, the rolling chicken fight with Bill, seeing him dead. I looked up at CJ. “It was worth it putting that bastard to the metal. I’d do it again.”
She fought back a smile, and her eyes began to glisten. Then, barely above a whisper, she said, “He was going to kill me first.”
I turned my gaze toward the window and nodded, squinting against the harsh sunlight.
Then I felt CJ’s hand gently cup my chin. She turned my face toward her and looked into my eyes. Hers were full of tears.
She said, “Thank you, Patrick.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
It was time to head home.
Suddenly, the thought of going back to my empty apartment didn’t seem so bad anymore. I wondered why. Maybe Corvine, in some way, had managed to correct that distortion for me.
Maybe life had.
But there was still one final matter weighing heavily on my mind, and I couldn’t leave until I took care of it.
I rode Highway 72 to the 24 exit, parked in the lot, then went inside. The woman’s expression brightened as soon as I walked through the door.
“Is he still here?” I asked, worried she might say no.
She nodded. “He sure is.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Wonderful. Want to see him?”
I felt my smile widen. “Yeah.”
She got up, then hurried toward the back.
A few moments later, she was standing in the doorway, leash in hand, and one big happy-looking dog on the end of it.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was a completely different animal. About ten healthy pounds heavier now, he had a full-bodied coat that was slick and gorgeous, and an expression that told me he’d finally tasted happiness.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
I was smiling so big that my ears began to hurt, and then to my surprise, felt tears fill my eyes.
He brought his gaze to mine and jutted his head forward a notch, mouth hanging open, almost as if making sure he was really seeing things right. Then his expression changed into a flash of enthusiastic recognition.
A sudden burst of energy broke him free, propelling him right toward me, slipping and sliding his way along the slick, linoleum floors. He leaped up, threw his paws over my shoulders, and with furious excitement, began licking my face, my ears, my neck…anything he could cover. Then, he pulled back for a moment and held my gaze, watching me smile through tear-filled eyes. He gave one of those sideways tilts—the canine equivalent of a shrug —and then went back to work, licking the tears from my cheeks.
“I think he likes you,” the receptionist said with a wink.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to speak around his canine kisses, “who ever would have thought?”
She smiled. “Sometimes a little love is all it takes.”
No truer words…
She told me the poor thing had been abused and neglected for years. The talk around town was that Flint kept him chained to that post ever since he was a puppy. Day in, day out, nobody paying attention to his needs, physical or emotional.
All alone in this world.
“Where’s he go from here?” I asked, still kneeling and running my hands through his fur.
The receptionist shrugged and frowned.
And that was the beginning: A whole new life.
For us both.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The mighty lion tumbled.
Warren Samuel Strademeyer, the beloved senator, was exposed for the entire world to see. A kidnapper. A murderer.
The trial lasted nearly a month, and I sat through every minute of it, listening to all the lurid details. It would have felt like some horrific movie, only it was all about me.
Warren and Jean’s peculiar connection to the notorious Bill Williams was finally revealed. As it turned out, they both knew him. He also grew up in Rose Park, Georgia. While Warren and Bill were never friends growing up, he knew exactly who to call when he needed someone to carry out my kidnapping. Warren had the money, and Bill had the mind for it; they were a perfect match. I never figured out whether those horrible stories Jean had told about him were actually true, and to be honest, didn’t want to.
Flint Newsome was another one of Warren’s casualties, albeit, a very shady one. During my kidnapping investigation, Warren had paid him to lose the evidence—well, the boot print, anyway—but he couldn’t just take that; it would have seemed too obvious. So he paid Flint to take it all, hide it for a few days, then return it, minus one very important piece, of course.
Apparently, Newsome owed somebody money for a bad gambling debt and figured he could dig into Warren’s deep pockets to get it. Around the same time we started investigating in Corvine, he called Warren, trying to blackmail him, saying he still had the boot print, which he’d kept in his safe all these years. He chose the wrong man. Bill was already in town, and Warren gave the go-ahead to get rid of him. Bill took the print and then Flint’s life.
Camilla never had a son named Benjamin. It was Patrick, and he hadn’t died when I was two. He died while she was a pregnant, unwed sixteen-year-old. Warren convinced her to abort the child, then later sold her on the idea that I could be a replacement for him.
But I couldn’t, even after she gave me his name.
It only took the jury about four hours to come back with their verdicts. Kidnapping, murder for hire, obstruction of justice, and evidence tampering—guilty on all counts. No mercy from the judge, either, who gave him three consecutive life terms. The distinguished gentleman from Georgia became inmate number 23433-068 at Talladega Federal Correctional Institute in Alabama.
I watched as they loaded him into the van headed for prison. A horde of reporters and photographers jockeyed around me for a good position, all trying to capture the moment. Just before getting in, Warren looked up at the commotion, and our eyes met briefly. Somewhere in the unspoken conversation between us, we knew that this was really the end. Then he climbed inside and the door slammed shut.
I never saw him again.
Warren died of a massive heart attack after serving less than twelve months of his sentence. Of course, the press covered it heavily. I watched file video taken while he was in prison and barely recognized the man, saw a mere shadow of the powerful politician I’d once known. Though he’d only been there for the better part of a year, it might as well have been twenty. Bound, shackled, and shuffling along, he was at least fifteen pounds lighter, appearing disheveled, diminutive, and weak. The once-burnished silver hair had turned ashen, as had the flawless, tanned complexion. Gone too were the custom tailored suits, once his hallmark, now traded for a drab prison uniform. A pathetic image if I’d ever seen one: the picture of a man who’d lost it all. A man waiting to die.
