Some emotion moved in the sheriff. Color flooded his face. Grantham appeared over his shoulder, paler, more distant.

“That’s it,” the sheriff said. “Time to go.”

I studied Dolf: the straight back and the bent neck; a sudden, racking cough and his arm in that orange sleeve wiping across his mouth. He spread his fingers on the mirror and lifted his head so that he could see my reflection. His lips moved, and I could barely hear him.

“Just go,” he said.

“Come on, Chase.” The sheriff reached out with his hand, as if he could pull me from the room.

Too many questions, no answers; and Dolf’s plea a clatter inside my head.

I heard a plastic rattle, and two deputies rolled in a video recorder on a tripod.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The sheriff took my arm, pulled me through the door. The pressure eased when the door clanged shut; I shrugged my arm out of his grip. He let me watch through the narrow glass as deputies aimed the camera. Dolf moved to the table, looked once in my direction, and sat. He lifted his face to the camera as the sheriff turned the key and dropped the bolt.

“What is this?” I asked.

He waited until I looked at him. “A confession,” the sheriff said.

“No.”

“For the murder of Danny Faith.” The sheriff paused for full effect. “And all I had to do was let him talk to you.”

I stared.

“That was his one condition.”

I understood. The sheriff knew how much Dolf meant to me and he wanted me to see it: the camera, the old man in front of it, the sudden complacence in his collapsed frame. Parks had been right.

“You fucking bastard,” I said.

The sheriff smiled, stepped closer. “Welcome back to Rowan County, you murdering piece of shit.”

CHAPTER 20

We left the detention center and stood in wind that brought the smell of distant rain. Lightning flashed silent heat and went dark before the thunder rolled over us like cannon fire. They wanted to know about Dolf, so I stripped my voice down and told them almost everything. I did not mention his plea to me because I could not leave Dolf Shepherd to rot. No way in hell. I told them that the last thing I saw was Dolf sitting in front of a video camera.

“It doesn’t make sense,” my father finally said. “Dolf took you to the knob, Adam. He all but held the rope. You’d have never found the body without him.”

“Your father’s right,” Parks said, and paused. “Unless he wanted the body to be found.”

“Don’t be absurd!” my father exclaimed.

“Guilt does strange things to people, Jacob. I’ve seen it happen. Mass murderers suddenly confess. Serial rapists ask the court for castration. People twenty years in the clear suddenly own up to killing a spouse decades earlier in a jealous rage. It happens.”

I heard Dolf’s voice in my head; what he’d said to me at the hospital: Sinners usually pay for their sins.

“Bullshit,” my father said, and the attorney shrugged.

The wind gusted harder, and I held out my hand as the first raindrops clattered down. They were cold, hard, and hit the steps with a sound like fingers snapping. In seconds, the drops multiplied until the concrete hissed.

My father spoke. “Go on, Parks. We’ll talk later.”

“I’ll be at the hotel if you need me.” He dashed for his car, and we watched him go. There was a covered area behind us and we moved out of the rain. The storm was fully engaged. Rain hit hard enough to float a cold mist under the shelter.

“We’re all guilty of something,” I said, and my father looked at me. “But there is no way that Dolf murdered Danny.”

My father studied the rain as if it held a message. “Parks is gone,” he said, turning to face me. “So, why don’t you tell me the rest?”

“There’s nothing else to say.”

He ran both hands over his hair, squeezing the water away from his face. “He wanted to talk to you for a reason. So far, you haven’t said what that reason is. With Parks here, I could understand that. But he’s gone, so tell me.”

Part of me wanted to keep it locked up, but another part thought that maybe the old man could shed some light. “He told me to let it go.”

“Meaning what?”

“Don’t dig. He’s worried that I’ll look for the truth of what really happened. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want me to do that.”

My father turned from me and took three steps to the edge of the shelter. One more step and the rain would swallow him whole. I straightened and waited for him to look at me; I needed to see his reaction. Thunder clawed the air as I spoke, and I raised my voice. “I saw his face when we found Danny’s body. He didn’t do it.” The thunder abated. “He’s protecting someone,” I said.

Nothing else made sense.

My father spoke over his shoulder, and the words he cast at me may as well have been stones. “He’s dying, son.” He showed me his face. “He’s eaten up with cancer.”

I could barely process the words. I thought of what Dolf had told me about his bout with prostate cancer. “That was years ago,” I said.

“That was just the start. It’s all in him now. Lungs. Bones. Spleen. He won’t make it another six months.”

Pain struck so hard it felt physical. “He should be in treatment.”

“For what? To win another month? It’s incurable, Adam. Every doctor says the same thing. When I told him that he should fight, he said that there was no need to make a stink of it. Death with dignity, as God intends. That’s what he wants.”

“Oh, my God. Does Grace know?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

I took the emotion and shoved it down deep. I needed a clear head, but it was hard. Then it hit me. “You knew,” I said. “As soon as I told you that he’d confessed, you knew why he was doing it.”

“No, son. I knew only what you knew; that Dolf Shepherd could never kill anyone. I have no idea who he’s protecting; but I do know this. Whoever it is, it’s someone he loves.” He paused, and I prompted him.

“So?”

He stepped closer. “So, maybe you should do what he asks. Maybe you should let it go.”

“Dying in jail is not death with dignity,” I said.

“It could be. Depends on why he’s doing it.”

“I can’t leave him there.”

“It’s not your place to tell a man how to spend his final days-”

“I won’t let him die in that hole!”

He looked torn.

“It’s not just Dolf,” I said. “There’s more.”

“More what?”

“Danny called me.”

He was vague in the gloom, dark hands at the end of long, pale sleeves. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Danny tracked me down in New York. He called three weeks ago.”

“He died three weeks ago.”

“It was a strange thing, okay. The call came out of nowhere, middle of the night. He was hopped-up, excited about something. He said that he’d figured out how to fix his life. He said that it was something big, but that he needed my help. He wanted me to come home. We argued.”

“Needed your help with what?”

“He refused to say, said he wanted to ask me face-to-face.”

“But-”

“I told him that I would never come home. I told him that this place was lost to me.”

“That’s not true,” my father said.

“Isn’t it?”

He hung his head.

“He asked for my help and I refused him.”

“Don’t go there, son.”

“I refused him and he died.”

“Things are not always that simple,” my father said, but I would not be swayed.

“If I’d done what he wanted, if I’d come home to help him, then he might not have been murdered. I owe him.” I paused. “I owe Dolf.”

“What are you going to do?”

I looked at the rain, reached out my hand as if I could pull truth from the void.

“I’m going to turn over some fucking rocks.”