So Cold the River (2010) (40 page)

All you got to do is listen, Josiah. All you got to do is listen to me.

Yes, that was a promise.
Consistent as clockworks,
that’s what Campbell had called himself, and who cared that he was a dead man—he was a stronger friend than Josiah had left
among the living.

He wiped the rainwater from his face and turned his head and spat and looked up at the hill he’d just climbed down, a slow,
painstaking climb. No way he could carry that box of explosives all the way to Anne McKinney’s house. Not if he had all day,
and he didn’t. He’d have to take the truck, and that was one hell of a risk.

“That shit won’t even be good anymore,” he said. “No way it’s still good.”

And yet it was there. As if it had been waiting for him. And all he had to do was listen…

He was halfway back up the hill before the rain started again in earnest.

T
HERE WERE NO VISIONS
.

Eric couldn’t believe it after the first hour—and half of the bottle—had passed, went back and drank the rest down, waited
thirty minutes, and started on the second bottle.

Nothing.

The headache might have faded.
Might have
. It didn’t worsen, but didn’t disappear either, and his hands shook unless he held them clenched together. A tremor had taken
hold in his left eyelid, too, made it hard to watch Claire, the damn thing fluttering constantly, twitching. This was not
good.

He got back into bed as dawn rose, lay behind Claire’s tightly curled body and stroked her arms and smelled her hair. Her
presence was comforting, but still the water’s lack of impact nagged at him. He could go for Anne’s water in a few hours.
Maybe that would help. But he was no longer sure that it would,
and he
was
sure that it wouldn’t be enough. Not after the way he’d gone through it tonight.

So it was the spring, then. The source itself. He had to find it.

He did not sleep. About an hour after he got back into the bed, Claire woke slowly, letting out a soft groan before stretching
and rolling over to face him, and he leaned over and kissed her. When he did that, her eyes opened for the first time and
he saw a flicker in them, a trace of anger.
What am I doing in bed with you?
her eyes seemed to say.
You left. Why am I here with you again?

It would be that way, though. It would have to be. A smooth return wasn’t reasonable; too much had happened, there would have
to be awkward, painful moments. But he could minimize them. He could try to do that.

“Morning,” she said, and he had a feeling she was thinking the same thoughts.

“Morning.”

She sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover herself, and ran both hands through her hair, then held them to her face, eyes lost
in thought.

“Is that a
What have I done?
look or a
What do we do now?
look?” Eric said.

“Neither,” she said, and then, “both.”

But she smiled, and that was enough. He kissed her again and this time she returned it without the same flicker in the eyes.

“What we do now,” she said, “is the simple part. Today, at least.”

“Yeah?”

“We go home.”

He looked away.

“Eric?”

“You said we would talk it out in the morning,” he said. He
had his hands pushed hard against the mattress, to still the shaking lest she notice.

“I also said that I
would not
stay.”

“There’s something I need to do,” he said. “Something I need to resolve first. Once it’s resolved, I’ll leave with you. I
promise I will leave with you. But first there are a few things I need to know. Document who the boy’s uncle was, for one.
That will be a
legal
help, Claire, maybe an important one.”

She didn’t respond. He felt desperation creeping on.

“I need you to understand, Claire, that what I’m going through, what’s happening to me, it’s powerful. It is
strong
. So I’m just struggling to deal with it, figure it out.”

“I know that.”

“Twelve hours, then. Give me that much. Give me
one day
.”

“What can possibly be accomplished in a day?”

“I can try to get the answers I just told you I needed,” he said. “If I can’t do it by then, we’ll leave, go home, and figure
the rest of it out from there.”

I can find that spring in twelve hours. I better. I sure as shit better.

“My preference,” she said slowly, “would be to get in the car and head north. No pausing for loose ends, breakfast, even a
shower. Just go. That would be my preference.”

He waited.

“But if you need the day, take the day,” she said. “We’ll leave tonight, though?”

“Yes. We will leave tonight.”

She stared into his eyes for a long time before nodding. “All right. In that case, I guess I’ll go ahead and take the shower.”

She slipped out of the bed naked and walked into the bathroom, beautiful and elegant as she moved through the dim light,
always comfortable in her own skin. He watched her go, thought,
my wife,
savoring the sound of it.

She’d just closed the door when the phone rang.

He rolled onto his side and lifted the phone, said, “Yeah?”

“Eric. How you holding up, son?”

“Hello, Paul,” Eric said, voice flat, and the bathroom door opened and Claire peered out.

“I’ve heard that you ran into some trouble down there.”

Ran into some trouble, yes. Just like I did in California, just like you’re sure I’ll do again, and you want to play the role
of the protector for your daughter now, prove to her yet again that I was a mistake, you passive-aggressive prick.
He wanted to shout it all, but Claire was standing there at the bathroom door, watching him as if he were taking a test,
and he said only, “It hasn’t been a real good week.”

“So I’ve gathered. Claire is with you?”

“Yes.”
And she’s going to
stay
with me, Paul, and I will stay with her, your influence be damned.

“Good. Listen, I’ve been trying to help. I’ve been trying to find out who hired this man Murray, the one who was killed.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The investigations firm has been hiding behind attorney-client privilege so far, but when I called them, I said I’d be representing
you—”

“You did
what?
I haven’t asked you to—” Claire stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her now, and Eric stuttered for just
a moment, interrupted by her return. It was all the gap Paul needed to plunge ahead.

“I thought it was imperative that you know who hired this man before you made any decisions on how to act, so I pointed out
that their client might be protected by his attorneys but that
they had to disclose said attorneys, if nothing else. If anyone was going to stonewall, it had to be the law firm. They didn’t
like that but I mentioned a district attorney friend who’d be happy to call them and clarify the issue and possible repercussions,
and they gave me the name of the firm: Clemens and Cooper.”

“Terrific,” Eric said. “But if all they’re going to do is keep up the secrecy—”

“Well, the thing is, I have a few friends at Clemens and Cooper. I put in a call to one and said, without any explanation,
that I understood they represented a man named Campbell Bradford and I needed to know which partner handled his interests.
He just called me back this morning to tell me I was wrong—they don’t represent Campbell, but they do represent his son.”

His son. Alyssa’s husband.

“His full name,” Paul said, “is Lucas Granger Bradford. Does that mean anything to you?”

Claire was at Eric’s side now, her hand on his arm. Her touch seemed hot on his skin, a cold shiver rippling through him.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it does.”

“He’s married to the woman who hired you, correct?”

“Yeah,” Eric said, but that wasn’t the point of interest—the first and middle names were far, far more fascinating.

“Okay. Well, I called Lucas this morning. He told me you had called him last night and threatened him?”

“What? Paul, that’s insane. I’ve never spoken to the man. And Claire was with me, she was here the whole—”

“I believe you, son. Of course, I believe you. I told Lucas he had some issues he was going to need to respond to, explained
the criminal charges that could be brought his way if any withholdings put you or my daughter in jeopardy or sent undue police
pressure your way. He was resistant. I was persistent.”

Eric almost grinned despite himself. About damn time Paul’s abrasive personality worked for him instead of against him.

“Did he tell you anything?”

“Not much. But he did say that the reason he hired a detective involved a letter written by his father, who is now deceased.
The letter made some unusual claims, and he wanted to have it checked out before it hit the legal system. Evidently, the old
man wanted this letter attached to his will, part of his estate order.”

“What did it say?”

“He won’t disclose that. He just said that he was sure the letter was the ravings of senility and that’s what he intended
to prove with the detective. He told me that he had not informed his wife of the situation, and he was unaware of her hiring
you. When he found out she had, he asked his investigator to call you off.”

“There’s a hell of a lot more to it than that,” Eric said. “He didn’t try to call me off, he tried to
pay
me off. It’s not so innocent, Paul.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. This is all that I’ve got so far, though. I’m trying to help.”

“You have helped,” Eric said. “Paul, you absolutely have helped.”

Lucas Granger Bradford.

Yes, this was help, indeed. Paul was still talking, but Eric could no longer focus on his words. He was carrying on about
the need for an attorney and people he could recommend, and Eric cut him off.

“Look, Claire really would like to talk to you. I’m going to pass the phone over to her. But Paul… I appreciate this. Okay?
I want you to know that I appreciate this.”

“Of course,” Paul said, and there was a sense of genuine surprise in his voice, like he didn’t understand why he’d be thanked,
like he’d forgotten the conflict that had existed between the two of them for years. He and Claire were good at that sort
of thing.

Eric passed the phone over to his wife and then got to his feet and went into the bathroom, closing the door to mute the sound
of her voice. The headache was nudging around again, and enough nausea that he had no appetite, but right now those things
didn’t matter. He’d been given a gift, a piece of understanding. He used his cell phone to call Kellen.

“I was right,” he said. “We were right. The old man in Chicago who was calling himself Campbell Bradford was actually named
Lucas. And he was the nephew of the moonshiner, Thomas Granger.”

“How’d you determine that?”

“My father-in-law just called. He found out that the PI firm was retained by my client’s husband and gave me his name. It’s
Lucas Granger Bradford. He gave his son his own real name, and that middle name was his uncle’s last name. You think we can
find the spot where he lived?”

“We’re damn sure going to try,” Kellen said.

A
NNE
McK
INNEY WOKE EARLY
, as was her custom the last few years. Her body just didn’t tolerate long stretches of sleep anymore. For three seasons of
the year that wasn’t such a problem, but the winter mornings, when darkness lingered long after she rose, were a burden on
the heart.

She stayed in bed longer than she ordinarily would, let the clock pass seven and carry on till eight and then she sighed and
got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She washed and dressed and came out into a living room filled with strange gray
light. Not the light of predawn but the light of a cloud-riddled sky. It was long past sunrise but still the house was painted
with shadows and silhouettes. Stormy.

There was no rain now, but it had evidently come down hard throughout the night, because her yard was filled with puddles
and the tree branches hung heavy. The wind had not fallen off in the way that it typically did after a front passed through,
but
continued to blow, the porch a choir of chimes as she moved toward the front door. She felt the force of it as soon as she
got the door open, an unusually warm wet wind for dawn. Where was all that wind coming from? She put it at just below twenty
miles an hour.

She was wrong. According to the wind gauges, it was blowing twenty-two, this after the storm had finished its work. The barometer
was still falling, but the temperature had risen overnight. That and the wet, rain-soaked earth would give this new front
lots to work with. There’d be storms aplenty today, and some of them might be fierce.

Down at the end of the porch a flash of white caught her eye, and she took a few shuffling steps and leaned over the rail
and stared into her own backyard. Way down by the tree line, parked close to the woods but carefully positioned behind her
house, was an old pickup truck. Now, who in the world could that belong to? It had come in during the night, clearly, but
there was no one behind the wheel.

“Get the license and call the police,” she said softly, but the truck was a long way off across the muddy yard, and suddenly
she didn’t feel like being exposed out there, wanted to get back inside with the doors locked and the phone in her hand.

Her hearing wasn’t what it used to be, and the yard was noisy with the wind and the chimes, but still the man must have moved
silent as a deer because she was absolutely unaware of his presence until she turned back to face the door. He was standing
in front of it with a shotgun hooked over his forearm. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him just yet. She gave a
start, as anyone would, took a small step backward. He gave a cold smile, and it was then that she recognized him.

Josiah Bradford.

A local ne’er-do-well, not one she’d have troubled her mind
over in the past, but he was more than that to her today. He was Campbell’s last descendant, and something mighty strange
was going on with Campbell.