True Evil

rest.'

'How much is the room?'

'Four hundred.'

'For two nights?'

Will chuckled softly. 'One.'

Alex summoned a mental image of her last surviving bank account, then shoved it out of her mind. She had to do whatever it took to get Chris Shepard on her side. 'Do it. I'll pay.'

'Are you going back to Natchez today?'

'I don't have a choice. Shepard's my only chance.'

'You making any headway there?'

'He'll come around. Nobody likes to find out their whole life is a lie.'

Will sighed in agreement. 'Tell your mama I'll be by sometime today.'

Alex looked at her mother's sagging face. Her mouth hung open, and drool ran steadily onto the pillow. Alex had the absurd impression that the fluid in the IV bag was being drooled out of her mother's mouth at exactly the same rate that gravity was pushing it into her veins. 'I will.'

'Hey, little girl…you okay?'

'Yeah. I just…I'm sitting here looking at Mom. And I can't believe someone would intentionally do this to another person. Much less a person they once loved.'

She heard the raking sound of Will's emphysema. When he spoke again, it was in the voice of a cop who had put in twenty years with his eyes wide-open. 'Believe it, darlin'. I've seen human beings do things God couldn't create a bad enough hell for. You look out for yourself, you hear? You're the last child your daddy left on this earth, and I don't want you throwing your life away trying to avenge the dead.'

'I'm not doing that,' Alex whispered. 'I'm trying to save Jamie.'

'We'll do that one way or another,' Will said with certainty. 'You just be careful. I got a feeling about this case. These are bad people we're messing with. And just because they've killed slow in the past don't mean they won't strike quickly if you threaten them. You hear me?'

'Yes.'

'All right, then.'

Alex hung up, her eyes on her mother's jaundiced face. What more could she do here? She stood and kissed a yellow cheek, then let go of her mother's hand.

Time to move.

CHAPTER 20

Andrew Rusk had finally hooked the big one. He knew it as surely as that time off Bimini when the big swordfish had hit his bait and run like a jet ski tearing across the waves. He had Carson G. Barnett himself sitting opposite his desk, a larger-than-life man of forty-six, a millionaire so many times over that he'd quit counting. A legend in the oil business, Barnett had made and lost three fortunes, but right now he was in an up cycle- way up.

For the past hour, Barnett had been describing his marital situation. Rusk was wearing his most concerned look and nodding at the appropriate places, but he wasn't really listening. He hadn't had to listen for quite a few years now. Because the stories were all the same: variations on a theme-a very tired one. The only time Rusk pricked up his ears was when Barnett slid into the business side of things. Then the lawyer made sure he recorded every syllable. But right now was the worst part…a melodramatic soliloquy on how misunderstood Barnett was.

Rusk knew where the oilman was going long before he got there. Rusk could recite the lines of this movie without even thinking. She hasn't grown at all since the day we got married. Not emotionally or psychologically or intellectually or sexually, the softer ones would qualify. Quite a few would add, Her ass, on the other hand, has grown like a goddamn baby elephant. Another universal refrain was She doesn't understand me. And of course the grand-prize winner: She doesn't even know me!

In Rusk's experience, the opposite usually proved true. In most cases, the wife knew the husband too well-knew him more deeply than he wanted to be known, in fact-and understood him better than he did himself. Therefore she did not ooh and aah every time he bragged about his latest business triumph, and she complained long and loud when he disappointed her, which was often. She no longer thought he was brilliant (or even smart), or imaginative in bed, and he certainly wasn't funny anymore-not to someone who had long ago heard every pathetic joke he'd ever memorized, and most of them twice.

And then of course there was the mistress. Some clients came right out and admitted they were having an affair; others tried to hide it, to appear noble and self-sacrificing. Rusk had come to respect directness more than anything else. Men and women who were considering divorce were always walking time bombs of frustration, guilt, lust, and near-psychotic levels of rationalization. But no matter who sat in that chair opposite him-a brilliant physician or a redneck barely able to total up his investment portfolio-they finally figured out a couple of things. One, there was no pain-free choice. Whatever they decided to do, someone was going to suffer. The only real question was, would they endure the suffering themselves by giving up their paramour and staying in the marriage? Or would they pass the suffering on to their spouse and children by breaking up the family? Rich or poor, here was the essential agony of divorce.

Rusk had come to believe that once children entered the picture, women were less inclined to sacrifice family in the search for happiness than men. This didn't mean they wanted happiness less-only that they were less willing to buy it at the expense of others. But this was based on anecdotal evidence from a limited geographic area. Rusk had no interest in the dynamics of divorce in New York or Los Angeles-he didn't live in those places. Besides, he figured that the motives of a bunch of damn Yankees were about as neurotic and self-obsessed as a Woody Allen movie, only without the laughs.

Carson Barnett's marital problems had their own particular twist, and would not be without interest to an anthropologist or sociologist. But to a lawyer, they meant little. However, Carson Barnett was very rich, and in Rusk's view-as in his father's-the rich were entitled to a fuller hearing than people of more limited means. Mrs. Barnett-Luvy, Carson called her-had begun the marriage as a Baptist, but this had played no bigger part in her life than the fact that she was a Chi-Omega. But sometime after the kids were born, Luvy's interest and involvement in the church had increased exponentially. Around the same time, her interest in all matters sexual had decreased in direct proportion. Carson had suffered through this as best he could for a while, and then, like any red-blooded male, he had sought relief wherever he could find it.

'If there ain't no food in the freezer, you go to the store,' he boomed. 'Ain't that right, Andy?'

'Yes, it is,' Rusk agreed.

'I mean, even a dog knows that. If there ain't no food in his dish, he goes on the prowl. Don't he?'

'He does indeed.' Rusk gave an obligatory laugh.

He had seen this pattern many times. Men who sought sexual relief went through a period when they would screw anyone who'd drop their pants for them. And surprisingly, this didn't usually impact the family at all. In fact, things seemed to run more smoothly all around. The trouble started when the man-or woman-found someone who was 'different' from the rest, a 'soul mate' (this term could almost trigger spontaneous vomiting in Andrew Rusk), or a relationship that was 'meant to be.' When love reared its ugly head, divorce was soon to follow. Barnett was telling a similar story right now, and his 'soul mate' had proved to be a sweet young thing who worked over at the barbecue place on Route 59, a restaurant where he'd done quite a few oil deals in the past- big deals, too-scribbling out a map of the prospect on a cocktail napkin and sealing the agreement with a handshake.

'Anyhow,' Barnett said, as big drops of sweat rolled down his neck, 'I love that little girl like nobody's business. And I aim to marry her, one way or another.'

Rusk liked Barnett's choice of words. Because despite the man's crude way of expressing himself, Barnett