Part 4
Carter agreed to meet the following evening.
He chose a closed logging yard north of Spokane, assuming privacy favored him. Eli let him believe that. He told Cal he was meeting Naomi about the house, and when Cal asked why he needed the pickup, Eli said his own truck had begun overheating.
It was the first direct lie he had ever told his friend.
Anna called before he left. Her voice sounded clearer each day, but she still paused before certain words as if checking whether she was permitted to use them.
“The detective says they may search Alder Street tomorrow.”
“That’s good.”
“They think the phone could be there.”
“I hope it is.”
“Will you visit afterward?”
Eli closed his eyes. “Yes.”
He hated himself for how natural the answer sounded.
Carter arrived with Reid and Mason in a black SUV. Reid carried a leather folder, while Mason stayed near the rear door and watched Eli’s face.
“Where’s the photograph?” Carter asked.
“Not here.”
Reid opened the folder. A deed returning the Alder Street property from the Wynn shell company and several releases sat beneath a cashier’s check. Their preparation showed how quickly wealthy men could move when the delay threatened them instead of someone else.
Eli looked through the papers without touching them.
“You signed away seven years with less reading than that,” Reid said.
It was the first honest criticism Reid had ever offered him.
Eli had allowed fear to make the original decision for everyone he loved. Ruth had paid for it. Anna had paid longer. The three men had built the trap, but Eli had stepped into it and called the act protection.
“That was my mistake,” he said.
Carter smiled. “Then don’t repeat it.”
Eli drew his father’s rifle from the moving blanket. Possessing it violated the conditions of his release; pointing it at three men crossed a line much farther away.
He made them switch off their phones and leave them inside Carter’s SUV. Carter parked the vehicle in a maintenance bay, and Eli lowered the metal door. Then he ordered all three into Cal’s old pickup.
What followed contained none of the satisfaction Eli had imagined during sleepless years. Reid measured distances and watched for an opening. Carter threatened, bargained, and invoked his father’s name. Mason obeyed before the others did.
Eli drove beyond the yard and onto an abandoned logging road. Several miles in, the road narrowed until the pickup could go no farther. From there, they walked.
The rifle kept them moving. Eli gave no speeches and answered no questions.
The forest floor was soft from spring runoff. Fallen needles muffled their steps, and resin scented the warming air. When the first ant mound appeared between the trees, Mason made a sound in his throat.
The three red pines stood at the edge of a shallow clearing. Carter looked from the trees to the metal cans beside Eli’s pack.
“What is this?”
Eli told them to stand beside the trunks.
Reid lunged once. Eli brought the rifle up, and Reid stopped before reaching him. Mason was the first to understand that another attempt might end with someone being shot.
At gunpoint, Eli made Carter and Mason secure Reid to the first tree. Carter then fastened Mason to the second. Eli bound Carter to the third and personally checked all three men, tightening anything they had left loose.
Carter began offering money. He named amounts that would have paid Ruth’s medical bills a hundred times over. He promised a new house, a restored garage, and enough for Anna to live anywhere she wanted.
“You made those promises already,” Eli said.
“That was business.”
“My mother died believing you were coming back.”
Carter’s face hardened. “You took the deal.”
Eli turned toward Reid. “And you made it.”
Reid did not deny it.
Eli spoke Samuel Dwyer’s name first. The shop teacher had been alive for several minutes after the impact. Mason heard him breathing but called Carter’s father. Reid dragged Carter away from the driver’s door and placed Eli’s work gloves inside the vehicle.
Then Eli spoke Ruth’s name.
Finally, he spoke Anna’s.
Carter blamed her. Reid said she should have left Spokane. Mason whispered that he had tried to make things easier.
“You held my wife down,” Eli said.
Mason began crying. “Once.”
“Once is what you remember.”
“I can testify. I’ll tell them Carter was driving. I’ll tell them everything.”
“You had seven years.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was she.”
Eli opened the first can.
The smell of honey spread through the clearing—warm, floral, almost domestic. Ruth had stirred honey into tea when Eli was sick. Anna once used it in bread that collapsed in the middle, and they had eaten the ruined loaf laughing over the sink.
Now Carter twisted against the pine as Eli poured the thick amber liquid over his hair and clothes.
Eli covered Reid next.
When he reached Mason, the younger man said, “If you do this after I offered to testify, it isn’t justice.”
“No,” Eli said. “It isn’t.”
That answer frightened Mason more than any threat.
Eli poured the remaining honey.
He placed three weatherproof cards against the trunks. Samuel Dwyer’s name hung above Carter. Ruth Mercer’s hung above Reid. Above Mason he fixed Anna’s name, followed by two words:
STILL LIVING.
Red ants moved along the base of the nearest mound. A few began changing direction.
Eli collected the empty cans, lifted the rifle, and walked back through the trees. Carter’s threats followed him. Reid shouted that the police would hunt him for the rest of his life. Mason called Anna’s name as if she might somehow hear and intervene.
Eli had switched off his phone before leaving the logging yard. When he turned it on again near the highway, there was one voicemail from Anna.
Her voice trembled, but the words came quickly.
“Eli, I remembered exactly where the phone is. It’s behind the loose panel beside the washer. The detective says they can get it tonight. Please come back. Whatever you’re planning, come back before you make me part of it.”
The message had been left forty-three minutes earlier.
The clearing was less than half an hour behind him…
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