Primary Valor, Jack Mars [black female authors .txt] 📗

as a good friend. He had trusted Ed with his life many times, and neverregretted it. But in their personal lives, they tended to keep it jokey andlight. It was easier that way.

“No. I guess we don’t.”

Ed looked at the ground. “I knew agirl when I was a kid. Cynthia. Just a girl from the neighborhood, but with afancy name. Not Cindy. Cynthia. She insisted on that, even when she was ten yearsold. I don’t know why.”

“Ed…”

Ed raised a hand. “Wait. Let mefinish. Cynthia was a good girl. But as we got older, teenagers, she fellthrough the cracks. Some kids do. Rough home life, problems in school, I don’tknow. In her case, it was drugs, then prostitution. I felt bad about it, but wehad drifted apart in high school, and I was a kid myself. I joined the Army,and then I was out of the neighborhood. I went on a long deployment one time,and after that I had some extended leave, so I went back to the old stompinggrounds.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“I was nineteen. Still a kid, butmore like a man now. I had been to war. I stood tall. I had filled out.”

Luke suppressed a smile at theidea of Ed “filling out.”

“When I got back, I looked peopleup. Cynthia was gone, snatched. Somewhere in my head, I had imagined hergetting clean and turning it around. People do that. But it wasn’t the case. Ihad just missed her, as it turned out. She had only been gone a couple ofweeks.”

He paused for a long moment.

“They had taken her. Thosepeople, man.”

He gestured with his head at thetruck.

“These people. You know. Thesepeople who think that it doesn’t matter. Other people ain’t nothing to them. Hopes,dreams. It doesn’t mean a thing. They’ll do what they want.”

Luke had a sinking feeling. He didnot want to hear the rest of this story.

“I found them,” Ed said. “Thereare no real secrets. This child here wasn’t a secret. People know about thesethings. People are sitting on information. The trick is to find those peopleand get them to speak. Which I did. I did not take no for an answer. When I gotto the apartment, when I got there, Cynthia was already dead, but they stillhad the body with them. They had put it in the bathtub. The things they haddone to her…”

His voice trailed off and hegritted his teeth.

“There were two of them. I’llnever forget them as long as I live. I don’t want to forget them. I always wantto remember them. The first guy resisted me and he died quick. Too quick. I wassorry about that. So the second guy…”

He looked up at Luke again. Tearswere streaming down his face. Luke didn’t know whether to hug him or arresthim.

“I kept that man alive for a weekwhile I killed him.”

Luke took his cell phone out. Hespeed-dialed Swann. He found himself suddenly angry at Ed. If Ed wanted to knowwhy they never talked about serious things, this was why. This.

This. Was. Why.

“You didn’t tell me that,” Lukesaid. “Okay? This conversation never happened.”

Ed nodded. “All right.”

“We need to call this in, andtechnically, we aren’t even here.”

Swann’s voice came on the line. Therewas hard rock music playing in the background.

“Mike’s Pizza,” he said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

5:05 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

A Safe House

Annieville, South Carolina

 

 

“Wake up.”

Clare had fallen asleep in thechair. His chin was on his chest. He opened his eyes a crack, and looked up atLuke and Ed.

Ed slapped him across the face.

“I said wake up.”

That got him. His head snappedsideways with the force of the slap, and his eyes popped open wide.

Luke went to the sink and ran somewater into the metal pot. It was time for stale instant coffee. It was thatdarkest point of night, in the hours right before dawn. Soon the sky wouldbegin to lighten. They had another day ahead of them.

He was going to let Ed do theinterrogating.

They had barely spoken the entire rideback down here. Ed was such a simmering volcano of rage that Luke almostoverlooked his own anger. There was going to be hell to pay. Swann had calledthem while they were driving. The local cops had found two more decayed bodiesinside the warehouse. The South Carolina Bureau of Investigation was already onthe scene.

Clare knew more than he wasletting on. Of course he did. He had given them the warehouse, maybe hopingthere’d be nothing to find—just an old warehouse that criminals once used in thedeep, dark past. And maybe that’s all it was, but they were going to find out. Lukewouldn’t allow Ed to kill Clare, but he was going to step aside and let Ed getthe information out of him.

“Why did you hit me?” Clare said.

Ed squatted down close to him. Edhad the crazy eyes now. The scariest thing about Ed was not his size. It washis eyes.

“You’re an accessory to murder,Lou.”

Clare took a deep breath. “I didn’tdo it. Whatever you found there, I didn’t do it. It’s just a place that I knewabout. I don’t know anything about…”

Ed slapped him again. And again. Ed’shands were huge. The slaps were hard, bone rattling.

Luke put the water on the burnerand turned it to high.

“Shut up,” Ed said. He spoke veryquietly, really just a little above a whisper. “Whether you know anything aboutthose bodies doesn’t matter. Three bodies, by the way. Children. Two in thewarehouse, one in a truck parked outside. Okay?”

Clare blinked. He said nothing.

“Whether murder, or conspiracy, orjaywalking would stick to you doesn’t matter. You know why?”

Ed leaned in very close to Clare’sface now. They were almost close enough to kiss. Or maybe Ed would bite him andtear the flesh from his cheek.

“Because I’m going to kill you,Lou. And I’m going to do it slow, right here in this house, starting now. Andit’s going to take a long time, and you’re going to cry and beg me to stop. Thenyou’re going to beg me to kill you. But I’m not going to do it like that. I’mgoing to do it nice and slow. You and I are going to get to