Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

You know it?'

The warden shook his head. 'But we'll have the troopers get some dogs over there. Hope it pans out,' he added, whispering, 'Lord, I hope that.'

So ended my grim task on this grim evening.

Prison chaplains always walk the last hundred feet with the condemned but rarely are they enlisted as a last-ditch means to wheedle information out of the prisoners. I'd consulted my bishop and this mission didn't seem to violate my vows. Still, it was clearly a deceit and one that would trouble me, I suspected, for a long time. Yet it would trouble me less than the thought of Allison Morgan's body lying in an unconsecrated grave, whose location Manko adamantly refused to reveal — his ultimate way, he said, of protecting her from her father.

Allison Kimberly Morgan — stalked relentlessly for months after she dumped Manko following their second date. Kidnapped from her bed then driven through four states with the FBI and a hundred troopers in pursuit. And finally… finally, when it was clear that Manko's precious plans for a life together in Florida would never happen, knifed to death while — apparently — he held her close and told her how there wasn't enough room in his heart for all the love he felt for her.

Until tonight her parents' only consolation was in knowing that she'd died quickly — her abundant blood in the front seat of his Dodge testified to that. Now there was at least the hope they could give her a proper burial and in doing so offer her a bit of the love that they may — or may not — have denied her in life.

Manko appeared in the hallway, wearing disposable paper slippers the condemned wear to the execution chamber. The warden looked at his watch and motioned him down the corridor. 'You'll go peaceful, won't you, son?'

Manko laughed. He was the only one here with serenity in his eyes.

And why not?

He was about to join his own true love. They'd be together once again.

'You like my story, Frank?'

I told him I did. Then he smiled at me in a curious way, an expression that seemed to contain a hint both of forgiveness and of something I can only call the irrepressible Manko challenge. Perhaps, I reflected, it would not be this evening's deceit that would weigh on me so heavily but rather the simple fact that I would never know whether or not Manko was on to me.

But who could tell? He was, as I've said, a born actor.

The warden looked at me. 'Father?'

I shook my head. 'I'm afraid Manko's going to forgo absolution,' I said. 'But he'd like me to read him a few psalms.'

'Allison,' Manko said earnestly, 'loves poetry.'

I slipped the Bible from my suit pocket and began to read as we started down the corridor, walking side by side.

The Widow of Pine Creek

'Sometimes help just appears from the sky.'

This was an expression of her mother's and it didn't mean angels or spirits or any of that New Age stuff but meant 'from thin air' — when you were least expecting it.

Okay, Mama, let's hope. 'Cause I can use some help now. Can use it bad.

Sandra May DuMont leaned back in a black-leather office chair and let the papers in her hand drop onto the old desk that dominated her late husband's office. As she looked out the window she wondered if she was looking at that help right now.

Not exactly appearing from the sky — but walking up the cement path to the factory, in the form of a man with an easy smile and sharp eyes.

She turned away and caught sight of herself in the antique mirror she'd bought for her husband ten years ago, on their fifth anniversary. Today, she had only a brief memory of that happier day; what she concentrated on now was her image; a large woman, though not fat. Quick green eyes. She was wearing an off-white dress imprinted with blue cornflowers. Sleeveless — this was Georgia in mid May — revealing sturdy upper arms. Her long hair was dark blond and was pulled back and fixed with a matter-of-fact tortoiseshell barrette. Just a touch of makeup. No perfume. She was thirty-eight but, funny thing, she'd come to realize, her weight made her look younger.

By rights she should be feeling calm and self-assured. But she wasn't. Her eyes went to the papers in front of her again.

No, she wasn't feeling that way at all.

She needed help.

From the sky.

Or from anywhere.

The intercom buzzed, startling her, though she was expecting the sound. It was an old-fashioned unit, brown plastic, with a dozen buttons. It had taken her some time to figure out how it worked. She pushed a button. 'Yes?'

'Mrs. DuMont, there's a Mr. Ralston here.'

'Good. Send him in, Loretta.'

The door opened and a man stepped inside. He said. 'Hi, there.'

'Hey,' Sandra May responded as she stood automatically, recalling that in the rural South women rarely stood to greet men. And thinking too: How my life has changed in the last six months.

She noticed, as she had when she'd met him last weekend, that Bill Ralston wasn't really a handsome man. His face was angular, his black hair unruly, and though he was thin he didn't seem to be in particularly good shape.

And that accent! Last Sunday, as they'd stood on the deck of what passed for a country club in Pine Creek, he'd grinned and said, 'How's it going? I'm Bill Ralston. I'm from New York.'

As if the nasal tone in his voice hadn't told her already.

And 'how's it going?' Well, that was hardly the sort of greeting you heard from the locals (the 'Pine Creakers,' Sandra May called them — though only to herself).

'Come on in,' she said to him now. She walked over to the couch, gestured with an upturned palm for him to sit across from her. As she walked, Sandra May kept her eyes in the mirror, focused on his, and she observed that he never once glanced at her body. That was good, she thought. He passed the first test. He sat down and examined the office and the pictures on the wall, most of them of Jim on hunting and fishing trips.

She thought again of that day just before Halloween, the state troopers voice on the other end of the phone, echoing with a sorrowful hollowness.

'Mrs. DuMont… I'm very sorry to tell you this. It's about your husband…'

No, don't think about that now. Concentrate. You're in bad trouble, girl, and this might be the only person in the world who can help you.

Sandra May's first impulse was to get Ralston coffee or tea. But then she stopped herself. She was now president of the company and she had employees for that sort of thing. Old traditions die hard — more words from Sandra May's mother, who was proof incarnate of the adage.

'Would you like something? Sweet tea?'

He laughed. 'You folks sure drink a lot of iced tea down here.'

'That's the South for you.'

'Sure. Love some.'

She called Loretta, Jim's longtime secretary and the office manager.

The pretty woman — who must have spent two hours putting on her makeup every morning — stuck her head in the door. 'Yes, Mrs. DuMont?'

'Could you bring us some iced tea, please?'

'Be happy to.' The woman disappeared, leaving a cloud of flowery perfume behind.