~ Excerpt ~
Attica
Cold, sterile walls. Harsh lights. Worn furniture and ugly
floors. Violence buzzed outside like a cloud of angry wasps.
Hopelessness hung thick as a shroud. Decades of misery and bad
news, broken hearts and hate lay as coats of yellowing varnish
on this room he had never seen before.
After almost twenty years in prison, this was the first
visitor Lucas Michael Walker had ever had.
Twentysomething, bad goatee, eyes sharp and sly, the visitor
picked up the receiver. Pasted on a smile. "Lucas Walker? I'm
Brian DeForest from the New York Post."
Lucas looked at him but didn't respond.
DeForest's dark eyes twitched to the side, then back. He
sucked in a quick breath, wiping one palm on his pants. "Bet
you'll be glad to be out, huh? Not long now."
Lucas had been fresh kill for these carnivores twenty years
ago. He would walk out on this lowlife right now, except that
time dragged on forever the nearer he got to the end.
And because he wanted to hear why he was news again.
But he was much less impulsive than he'd been at seventeen.
Lucas knew waiting the way he knew his own skin.
So he watched the kid sweat.
DeForest's hand slid into his pocket. A tape recorder emerged
in white-knuckled fingers.
Lucas's eyes narrowed to slits. He rose, slammed down the
receiver, kicked back the chair. Heads swiveled in their
direction. The nearest guard lifted his hand toward his belt.
"Wait—don't go." DeForest's dark eyes shifted toward the
recorder. "Is it this thing? Okay—all right. I'll put it away."
Lucas glared until the silence stretched into a twanging,
catgut scream. Then slowly he settled back into the chair but
didn't pull it close. Arms crossed over his chest, he stared the
man down.
DeForest gripped his receiver, darting hummingbird-fast
glances at the one on the other side of the glass.
Finally, Lucas picked his up. And still said nothing.
"You wonder why I'm here?" When he got no answer, DeForest
continued. "Martin Gerard's seventy-fifth birthday is coming up
soon. Lots of hype. Kennedy Center award, that sort of thing.
He's going to do his first performance in years, King Lear, two
weeks each in New York and Washington. Tickets are being scalped
for ungodly prices—the leading Shakespearean actor of our time
returns to the stage for one last run."
Lucas's gut clenched. He wanted nothing to do with Martin
Gerard. All he wished for was to be left alone.
"So I'm working on a piece about his life. Checked out your
case, wondered if you might have a comment."
Goddamn vultures—when would they forget? With effort, Lucas
merely shook his head.
DeForest's face reddened, but he pressed on. "In talking to
the guards, I ran across mention of a letter." His eyes turned
sly once more. Lucas dug his fingers into his thigh.
"I hear you almost killed a man for stealing it. Word is,
Gerard's late wife wrote it after you murdered their only son.
Care to tell me what it says?"
Lucas lunged for the glass. His chair crashed backward. The
phone he'd dropped bounced off the shelf.
Footsteps pounded behind him.
Lucas grappled with fury he couldn't afford. He gripped the
desk and shut his eyes. Raised one hand to the guard in
reassurance. Shooting one glance at the reporter's ashen face,
Lucas prepared to leave.
"Walker—" DeForest yelled. "There's a rumor that the other
twin might be marrying a friend of Gerard's. Look—I've got a
picture."
Lucas's head whipped around. His gaze settled on the grainy
black-and-white photo of three figures. Martin Gerard and his
longtime benefactor, Carlton Sanford, flanked a slender blonde
Lucas had tried very hard to forget.
"She's a recluse. Most people have forgotten she exists. Why
does she hide, Walker? What's wrong with her?"
Lucas ignored the questions shouted over the partition. He
couldn't take his eyes from the picture. Tansy hardly seemed
older than she'd been at age sixteen, when he last saw her. For
the first time, Lucas spoke. "Married—" He cleared a suddenly
clogged throat. "To Sanford?"
DeForest nodded.
Oh, God, Tansy, no. Lucas shot the reporter one
murderous scowl. Everything he'd spent twenty years trying to
bury had just roared back to life. Slowly, he picked up the
receiver again.
"Tell me where she is."
MERCY
