So Cold the River

“Really?” Josiah said. “That’s what you’d like? Because I have some interesting documents in my possession, Lucas. And your detective, he had some interesting things to say before he died.”

That last bit was improvisation, but it silenced the prick’s tirade, seemed to take a little of his heat away.

“I’m not worried about that,” he said, but there was no strength in his voice.

“Here’s what I understand,” Josiah said. “Some funds have been authorized to resolve what you perceive as a crisis. One hundred thousand dollars, I believe.”

“If you think you’re getting that now, you are out of your mind.”

“I’ll get what’s owed to me.”

“There’s nothing owed to you.”

“I disagree, Lucas. I firmly and vehemently disagree.”

As he heard the words leaving his mouth, Josiah frowned. Danny was right—he was starting to talk funny. Not like himself, at all. That probably wasn’t a bad thing on a call like this, though. A disguise of sorts, albeit unintentional.

“I’m not interested in the hundred grand,” he said. “I don’t find that sum to be satisfactory. In fact, I haven’t determined what will be satisfactory. I’m still considering.”

“If you think we’re in a negotiation, you’re mistaken. I know my wife had no idea what she was doing when she hired you, but she regrets it now, and any further contact you have with this family will be done through attorneys. I encourage you to find a good one. My recommendation is that it be one with criminal defense experience, too.”

When my wife hired you? This was interesting. This was different.

“Never call this house again,” Lucas Bradford said.

“Now, Lucas,” Josiah began, but the line had clicked and gone dead. He switched to the other cell phone and called Danny.

“What happened?” Danny said, his voice choked with either alcohol or sleep or both. Hell of a guy to have working for you on a stakeout. “What’s going on?”

“I think you best get your eyes open,” Josiah said. “I do believe there may be a police appearance at the hotel shortly.”

“Why? What are you talking about?”

“Eric Shaw should be getting some visitors,” Josiah said, and then he hung up and sat in the dark with a grin spreading across his face. Shaw would buy him some time, and that was good, but moreover he’d enjoyed this first brush with Lucas G. Bradford. He liked the rich bastard’s tone, the sense of control, the belief that he could run this world and everyone in it. He thought he was strong, and Josiah was pleased by that. Let it turn into a battle of will, Lucas, let us see who breaks first.

45

FOR A LONG TIME Eric sat on the balcony, sipping the water he’d taken from the faucet in the spa and waiting for visions, but none came. Eventually, he went back inside and pulled the curtains shut and turned off every light before he got into bed. Around him the room existed in shadows and silhouettes and nothing changed within it or entered from outside. At some point consciousness slid away from him, folded beneath sleep.

The thumping on the door woke him.

He let out a grunt and sat up, blinking at the dark room and trying to get his bearings. Just when he thought he’d imagined the sound, he heard it again. A knock.

The clock beside the bed said it was twenty past one.

He sat in bed, supported by the heels of his hands, and stared at the door. It’s Campbell, he thought, and then he turned and looked at the door to the balcony, as if he could run out there and hide like a child or fling himself from it and sail down to the floor below and escape.

Another knock then, louder this time.

“Shit,” he said under his breath, and then he got to his feet, wishing for a weapon. He’d never had any interest in guns as an adult, though he’d hunted as a boy, but he wanted one now. He ignored the peephole because he was afraid to peer out and see what waited, chose instead to unfasten the lock quickly and jerk the door open.

Claire stood in front of him.

“I didn’t think it was a good idea to wait until morning,” she said, and then she stepped past him and into the room.

He closed the door and locked it, then pulled on jeans and a T-shirt while she sat on the edge of the bed, regarding him like an engineer inspecting a building’s structural integrity, searching for cracks. He had not seen her in more than a month. Her beauty struck him now just as it always had, or maybe even harder because it had been so long. She was wearing jeans and a black tank top over a white one, no jewelry and no makeup, and her hair was tousled in the way it often was after a drive because she liked to have the windows down. He’d always loved that about her, had always liked a woman who didn’t mind being windblown. There were laugh lines around her mouth, and he remembered telling her he was proud of them when they began to show because he could take credit for plenty of them. There were also lines on her forehead now, though, creases of frowns, of sorrow and pain. He could take credit for plenty of those, as well.

“What are you doing here, Claire?”

“Like I said, I didn’t think it was good to wait until morning. The conversations we had today were getting progressively worse. Scarier.”

“What did you do, climb out the window and rappel down from Paul’s penthouse? There’s no way he would’ve wanted you to be a part of this.”

“Actually,” she said, “he encouraged it. He thought it was a dangerous idea for you to be alone. Medically, and legally.”

He grunted.

“Can I see it?” she said.

“See what?”

“The bottle.”

“I don’t have it, remember? Kellen took it up to Bloomington to have it tested.”

“I didn’t realize you sent the whole thing. I thought maybe he just took a sample. I wanted to see it.”

“Well, it’s gone.”

She’d given him an odd look when he told her the bottle was gone, and he wondered if she was searching for proof, looking for some sort of sanity test.

“You’ve stayed here tonight?” she said. “Haven’t left the hotel?”

“That’s right.”

“I looked for your car in the parking lot. If you were gone, I was going to hunt you down and kick your ass.”

He couldn’t find anything to say. It felt so out of place to be in the room with her, to be looking her in the eye again. She sensed the response.

“You may not want me here. I understand that. But I’m worried. If you come back to Chicago, if you go to see doctors and lawyers and people who can help, I will step aside. But I want to make sure you do that.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Just protecting my reputation. Reflects poorly on me if my husband gets arrested for murder or locked up in a hospital for the insane.”

He smiled. “People would gossip about you.”

“Point their fingers and whisper. I couldn’t bear that shame. Just taking social precautions, that’s all.”

Say, “I miss you,” he thought. Say it, you dumb shit, it’s all you want to tell her, so just put the words in your mouth and let them go.

“How long was the drive?” he said.