Turning Angel by Greg Iles Page B

dread.
    “What? What is it?”

“For a second offense, it’s forty years. Timmy would be—”
    “Turn off that computer! That’s not the real world, Drew.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Hell, yes. I was a prosecutor for fifteen years. That’s why you wanted my advice about all this, remember? And my advice is to go to sleep and let me do the worrying for you. That’s what you’re paying me for.”
    “Twenty bucks doesn’t pay for much worrying.”
    I don’t reply for some time. Then I say, “You saved my life. And you risked your own to do it. If you hadn’t, my daughter would never have been born. That buys you a lot of worrying.”
    “You never asked for this.”
    “No, but I can handle it. You’ve got to stay in control for me, though.”
    “You’re not leaving town or anything tomorrow, are you?”
    “No way. Now, what are you going to do about the blackmail issue? Are you going to come clean with the cops?”
    “After what we just learned? I don’t know.”
    “You’re a smart guy, Drew. Let’s talk about probability.”
    “Okay.”
    “How often did you see Kate? I don’t mean platonically. How often were you alone with her, intimate with her?”
    “Every day. Or night, rather.”
    Unbelievable. “For how long?”
    “For the last seven months, I guess. Ever since the mission trip to Honduras. After that, we couldn’t stand to be apart.”
    “Get out ahead of this thing, Drew. It’s your only chance.”
    “I hear you.”
    I let the silence do its work for a while. “Do you?”
    “It’s Tim that’s holding me back. I don’t want him to have to know about this if he doesn’t have to. I don’t want him to have to go through the grief he’ll get at school because of it. I don’t even want Ellen to have to deal with it, now that Kate’s dead. There’s just no reason anymore.”
    “Yes, there is. This thing is beyond your control now. No matter what you do, it’s eventually going to come out.”
    “I’m not so sure. If Kate said she didn’t tell anybody, she didn’t.”
    “Then who’s blackmailing you?”
    “Kate’s killers.”
    I grunt noncommittally. “ I’m not so sure.”
    “I know. But I am.” He breathes steadily into the phone. “Thanks for tonight, Penn. I mean it.”
    “Night, buddy.”
    The open line hisses in my ear.
    I hang up.
    Chapter 7
    Drew’s blackmailers lost no time making him pay for his indecisiveness. At 11:10 the next morning, I was helping my mother paint some bookshelves in her garage when my cell phone rang. The screen showed Drew as the caller. I walked out of the garage under the pretext of getting better cell reception, then answered by saying, “Are you as sore as I am?”
    “You were right,” he said. “I’m fucked.”
    A current of anxiety shot through me, but experience kept my voice calm. “What’s happened?”
    “I just got off the phone with Shad Johnson. He got an anonymous call this morning.”
    “Let me guess. The caller said you were having an affair with Kate Townsend and that you might have killed her.”
    “Yep.”
    “Did he give any details?”
    “Johnson didn’t say so.”
    “What did Shad ask you during the call? Did he ask straight out if the accusation was true?”
    “No. He basically said, ’Doc, I hate to have to call you about this, but I got this call with an accusation, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t ask you about it.‘ He was pretty friendly, actually.”
    “Shad Johnson is not your friend.”
    “I understand that. I was just giving you his tone. He said he wanted to give me a chance to deny it as soon as possible, so that it doesn’t become any kind of thing.”
    “ ’Thing‘? That was his word?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s already a thing, Drew. You can bet your ass on that. Did you flat-out deny that you were seeing Kate?”
    “No.”
    I sighed with relief.
    “I acted stunned,” he said, “which I was. I told him I was too shocked even to respond to such an outrageous