[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
between his own huge hands, taking aim at Jack s head.
That s right, Theo. One little squeeze.
Jack s heart skipped a beat. Theo was a friend. He d never shoot his buddy,
the lawyer who d saved his ass on death row. Not in a million years. Not for
anything.
Except maybe twenty-three million dollars.
Theo, said Jack. This is crazy, pal. Tatum screwed you before, he ll screw
you again.
Do it! shouted Tatum.
In a flash, the gun jerked, a shot whistled across the room. Tatum s gun was
airborne, and his head snapped back violently. Jack dived forward to the
floor. Theo rushed to his wounded brother.
Tatum was flat on his back, gasping and holding his throat. The bullet had
passed through his neck. Blood was pouring from the severed carotid artery,
pumping in surges with each beat of his fading heart until he was surrounded
by a growing circle of red. His eyes glazed over with a helpless expression, a
look that Jack hadn t seen since his days of defending death row inmates, that
unmistakable, almost incongruous look of fear and bewilderment in the eyes of
a murderer who was suddenly forced to come to grips with his own mortality.
Tatum looked up at Theo. He could barely speak, his throat filled with blood,
but the bullet had passed through his neck off-center and had spared his
voice. You piece of shit, he said in a thick, distant tone, choking on his
own blood. You shot your own brother.
Theo looked at Jack, then back at Tatum, his expression deadpan. Wrong
Page 242
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
again, Tatum. I saved him.
Tatum s head hit the floor, and his body was suddenly still.
Sixty-three
Jack watched from the helm as Theo walked alone to the bow of the fishing
boat and scattered the ashes. It was early Sunday morning. The horizon was
still orange from the rising sun, and a warm wind carried the ocean s whispers
from the east from Nassau maybe, which seemed fitting, since Tatum used to
love to go there and gamble. Seagulls trailed their boat across the deep blue
swells, ready to steal a fisherman s bait. One of them splashed into the
waves, snatched up a floating fragment of bone in its beak, and then dropped
it from mid-air.
Not even the scavengers want him, said Theo, his voice falling off in the
breeze.
The burial at sea had been Theo s idea. Fishing out on the boat was the one
place he d felt connected to his brother, miles of blue water between them and
a world that hadn t exactly welcomed the Knight brothers with open arms, a
world that seemed to have known all along that it would be better off without
Tatum. He was a badass, to be sure, but his death was no cause for
celebration. Theo needed time, not so much to grieve but simply to come to
terms with his brother s betrayal. Jack was determined to give Theo the space
he needed.
The two of them had told all to the police at the crime scene. Jack took the
media calls in the ensuing frenzy, not because he enjoyed the publicity but
because Theo hated it even more. Within hours, it was all over the evening
news that Tatum Knight had shot Sally Fenning to death in a strange murder for
hire in which the victim was her own target, and that Miguel Rios had murdered
Sally s daughter in a crime of jealous rage that had gone unsolved for five
years. The details played out differently depending on which newscast you
watched, but the newspaper got it mostly right, thanks largely to the
background work of the late Deirdre Meadows. TheTribune s final, lengthy
feature ran in the Sunday edition. It relied heavily on excerpts from
Deirdre s unpublished manuscript, which was preceded by a glowing tribute to
Deirdre from her editor, and included dubious assertions that the editors were
behind her pursuit of Sally Fenning s story one hundred percent from the very
beginning all of which seemed just a wee bit calculated to set her
upposthumously for the Pulitzer nomination she d so desperately wanted in
life.
I m ready, said Theo, wiping the salty sea spray from his brow.
Let s go in.
This is a good thing you re doing, said Jack.
Yeah. At least this way I won t be tempted to come piss on his grave.
Jack started the engine and steered for home. The ride back took almost an
hour, completely in silence. Jack thought it would do Theo some good to get
out of the house, and Theo was always up for eating, so they went for a
leisurely breakfast at Greenstreet, a sidewalk café in Coconut Grove. Before
the Sally Fenning matter, Greenstreet had been a favorite Saturday lunch spot
for him and his Little Brother, Nate, after rollerblading along the bicycle
paths on Main Highway, a shady and windy way that emptied into the little
shops and restaurants in a part of the Grove that still bore some resemblance
Page 243
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
to the tree-lined hippie village it had once been. Thoughts of Nate still
saddened him, though he was optimistic. Kelsey no longer worked for Jack, and
the budding romance between them was dead, but after the way Kelsey had helped
out Theo in the end, everyone seemed cool with each other. Jack and Nate might
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]