“Said it was safer not to. Less said, the better.”
A weighty silence lingered between them before the stranger spoke again. “Let me see in the bag.”
“Do you have the money?”
The man pulled his hand from his pocket, a thick wad of bills clutched in his long fingers.
With trembling hands, Terrance untangled the hurriedly tied knot. He opened the bag so the man could see inside.
Approaching slowly, the man looked and nodded. He held out the roll of bills with one hand as he reached for the bag with the other. Eyeing the stranger, Terrance took the money and shoved it in his pocket. As much as he wanted to count it, he had no idea what he’d do if it were short.
The man turned, and for an instant, moonlight illuminated the side of his face. Terrance froze, transfixed as a memory elbowed free. Before he could rein in the question, he asked, “Hey, man. Do I know you?”
The buyer paused but didn’t look up. A grin washed over stony features. “Do you?”
Don’t talk. Grab and go. “Sure. Seen you around our town.”
The man clutched the bag tighter. “That so?”
“No worries, dude. I’m no snitch,” Terrance said, mustering false bravado. “As far as I’m concerned, this never happened.”
“No, it did not.”
Terrance patted the money in his pocket. “We’re good. That’s it?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
Terrance stepped to the side, expecting to walk past the man and out of the alley. As he passed, the guy asked, “Your name is Terrance, right?”
Hearing his name sent a chill down his back. He didn’t want anyone knowing he was here either. Shit. If his grandmother found out, she’d go nuts. And fuck, he was due to hear any day about the scholarship. He should have kept his mouth shut.
Terrance halted midstep. “Hey, man, I said I wouldn’t tell.”
“I know.” He smiled.
Terrance’s nerves eased.
The man moved with the blinding swiftness of a snake. Moonlight glinted briefly on a knife blade before he jabbed the sharp tip into Terrance’s belly and twisted hard, then removed the cold metal quickly before stepping back. Terrance staggered. For a moment, he was stunned and simply stared at the hole in his jacket. Shit. A hole in his jacket.
With trembling fingers, he unzipped it to find a bloodstain blooming and growing wetter and warmer across his belly with each beat of his heart.
Terrance touched his stomach and pressed. Wincing, he studied his crimson-stained fingertips as if they belonged to someone else. Blood gushed from his gut. His head spun, and he dropped to his hands and knees. His fingers dug into the gritty cobblestones lining the alley.
Terrance looked up at the guy. “I said I wouldn’t tell.”
Long fingers clung to the blood-tipped knife. “I know, kid.”
Terrance’s body twitched. The heat raced from his limbs toward his torso. Somehow, he knew he was dying.
Carefully, the man knelt and slowly wiped the blade on his own pant leg before sheathing the weapon in a holster on his belt. Gently, he lowered Terrance to the ground.
“It’ll be over soon. Close your eyes, Terrance. It’s like going to sleep.”
Terrance gripped the man’s arm, his fingernails biting. “I don’t want to die.”
“We all die, kid.”
He could feel his heart pumping hard, struggling now. “Not me. Not now.”
“Death isn’t terrible. Death is stillness. It’s peace. I’ll pray for you.”
Terrance tried to sit up, but his body wasn’t responding any longer. His skin had turned icy cold. He had no choice but to lie there listening to his killer’s whispered prayers. He thought about his grandmother. His girlfriend.
“My grandmother’s going to hear I got knifed in a drug deal,” Terrance said.
“I’ll see to it she doesn’t know about this.”
“Why me?”
“This isn’t personal, kid.”
“My old man told me not to talk.”
“Jimmy was right.”
How many times had his grandmother warned him about Jimmy? She was going to be so pissed and heartbroken.
Terrance’s vision grayed, and his last image was of this man praying for him as his life bled out onto the dirty, gray cobblestones.
CHAPTER ONE
Monday, October 3, 9:00 a.m.
Agent Dakota Sharp with the Virginia State Police stood apart from the paltry gathering of mourners. Hands clasped. Feet braced. He wondered if guilt or loyalty had tipped the scales in favor of the twenty-mile drive north to this small town to attend his stepfather’s funeral. They’d never been close, their relationship a study in toleration. And after Sharp’s half sister died from an overdose, they rarely spoke again. And yet here he stood, carrying the banner for what remained of their family.
Roger Benson, RB to his friends, a talented artist and former chair of the local college’s art department, would have been embarrassed by the low turnout at his final tribute. Two decades ago, when Roger was in his prime, he had been a showman who’d inhaled attention and devoured the limelight. He once joked his memorial would be a festive event. He’d envisioned hundreds in attendance, a New Orleans–style brass band, and an open bar. Or course, there’d be a proper prayer or two. Tears from the ladies. Bemused male laughter over past exploits. And, in the end, a fitting celebration of a life well lived.
Sharp scanned the cemetery’s gray headstones, which skimmed the sloping hill toward a hedge and a stand of oaks ripe with orange and red leaves. The sky was a thick gray, and a southwesterly wind blew at ten knots.
A gleam of light glistening on a cross affixed to the coffin drew his attention to the four people behind the priest who stood at the head of the simple casket. To think so few had shown for the old man’s closing performance; that had to sting for whatever incarnation of Roger hovered in the ether.
To the right of the funeral attendant stood Benson’s former agent, Harvey Whitcomb, whose frequent cell phone checks undercut his bereaved expression. Benson’s attorney, Donna Conner, wore a dignified black pants suit, a strand of pearls, and an expression that looked more bored than bereaved. Last was Douglas Knox, the town’s former police chief, who’d shoehorned his expanded frame into a wrinkled gray suit.
Sharp had been ten when his mother, Adeline, a stunning woman with auburn hair and an infectious laugh, had been hired as Roger’s office assistant. Four months later she was pregnant, she and Roger were married, and Sharp and his mother moved to Roger’s lake house near the small college town north of Richmond.
From day one, Sharp and Roger had been at odds. Roger thought in shapes, sensations, and colors. Sharp clung to hard facts. Roger painted. Sharp shot empty bottles off a fence with a BB gun. Abstract versus linear lines. Joie de vivre met bull in a china shop.