He was vomiting, though he felt only vaguely connected to the throat clenching and burning as bile fell to his feet. Such bright new floorboards down there, he noticed, so out of place in this moldy old trailer.
“Don’t you ever say Broadlock’s name again, you fucking faggot.”
Parter stood so close his spit struck Joel’s eye.
“You’re only alive out of the goodness of Mr. Boone’s heart, Whitley.” Parter jabbed a finger into Joel’s chest. “Me? I’d have killed you the minute I heard you’d found out about Mason’s arrest, but our beloved County Attorney said we should at least offer you a deal. All we’re doing here is keeping hold of the past for a little while longer, Whitley—we’re just a few folks trying to get some satisfaction out of life, alright? So here’s our offer. We take you from here, safe and sound, and we put you on the first plane back to New York. You drop this. You never come back. In return, your family is safe—your mother, that little oil slick of a boyfriend she has now, they go on living like nothing’s happened. But if you ever say a word to them, if you so much as step foot in Pettis County again, well—you’ve seen what we can do.”
Parter took a step back. Joel thought of Deputy Grissom, burned alive in his bed. He started to vomit again.
“For Christ’s sake,” Boone said. His arrogance had fallen away. He sounded near to tears. “Why’d you hit him like that?”
Hearing the quaver in Boone’s voice, the bottom fell out of Joel’s stomach. He looked from one man to the next, went very cold. This deal of Parter’s was an empty promise. He’d already seen too much, heard too much: this place—these men—they would never be safe while Joel was still alive. Joel thought of the scowl Parter had fixed on Boone a few minutes before, the disgust and the frustration. He saw the way Boone was cracking up before his eyes. The county attorney, Joel realized, was the sort of man who had to be backed into a corner before he could commit to something unsavory.
All of this had been a pretense, hadn’t it, the latest round of some old argument between the two men? Boone’s proud sales pitch, Parter’s angry offer, they could have done it all back at the hardware store if they’d really wanted to. No: these Old Boys had brought him (and Kimbra, sweet Jesus) out here to kill them. There was no better place to commit a murder in Pettis County. If they’d been smart and buried Dylan then the boy would have never been found. Joel knew they wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
He did the only thing he could think of. He let his head fall, burped up a little bile, tried to look more dazed than he felt, if that was even possible.
It worked. He felt the cuff on one wrist come free, then the other. Parter murmured something and a moment later Joel’s arms prickled with heat as Browder lowered them from the spread-eagle bar. Joel’s hands were cuffed back together above his crotch. He wished they would give him a chair to sit in, but he supposed this was better than standing like he’d been crucified. His hands tingled as blood slipped back into his fingers.
Joel opened his eyes. He saw where Kimbra lay, motionless, on the kitchen floor. What had she learned? What had he done?
“But what about her?” Joel said, his voice slurring. Delaying these guys seemed as smart as any other strategy.
Boone cocked his head like a stuffed bison. “What about her?”
“I’m not leaving this place without her.”
Browder made a disgusted noise. “He’s wasting time. Clark might be on her way already.”
“Then we take care of her,” Parter said.
The ground shook again, so violently Joel nearly lost his balance. Mr. Boone studied the shaking tools on the wall, shook his head. “And what would that accomplish? For God’s sake, ain’t we dug this hole deep enough? Why let it grow?”
Parter rounded on him. “The fuck did you just say?”
“You can feel that damn thing moving down there.” Boone pointed to the floor. “If we stop feeding it now it’s bound to calm down again like it did the first time. If we don’t—”
Parter strode back into the kitchen and struck Boone with the back of his hand. “Don’t you dare tell me what I can do on my property. In my town.”
Boone held a hand to his cheek. He looked pathetic, deflated, though whether out of sadness or fear Joel couldn’t say. The man shook his head at Parter, at Browder. “You’re dealing with a beast from the absolute depths of hell and you want to ride it like a bull.”
Parter shrugged, straightened his jacket. “How else do you expect to keep tradition alive?”
The big coach nodded to Browder. The deputy turned his attention from Boone back to Joel, swiveling the knife in his hand like he was using it to twist open a lock in the air. In the stark light of the trailer’s single red bulb, Joel caught a glimpse of something much more dangerous than excitement in Browder’s eye. A brief, black shimmer. A momentary appraisal from something not entirely human.
“We tried it your way,” Parter said to Boone. “Now let’s do what needs to be done.”
Blood leaked from Boone’s lip. He looked away. Browder crossed the threshold of the kitchen.
A moan of pain rose behind him.
Every man in the trailer froze. Kimbra Lott struggled to rise from the kitchen floor only to collapse again.
Oh Christ, Joel thought. What was she doing?
When Kimbra moaned again, Browder and his knife turned back in her direction.