The Prophet

47

HE CALLED GRISSOM AT SIX in the morning, after some coaching from Robert Dean, who liked the feel of an early call, the sense of need it would create.

“If you seem emotionally desperate,” he said, “it could be very appealing to him.”

Seeming emotionally desperate was not a difficult task for Kent. Keeping his voice steady and not shouting at the son of a bitch who’d taken photographs of his family less than twenty-four hours earlier, this monster who’d left a beautiful girl dead in a ditch and then sent Kent tokens of the horror, that was the difficult task.

He got through it. Called from his cell phone while Dean listened. Kent had told Dean that admission of fear would matter. If Sipes had been acting at Grissom’s request, then fear was paramount. They’d wanted to break him. Dean suggested that Kent ask Grissom to pray for him. That was the only thing Kent refused to say. His voice did not waver as he left the short but carefully choreographed message.

Dan, it’s Kent Austin. You’re probably asleep, and I’m sorry if I woke you, but… I could use you right now. If you have a chance, I’d appreciate a call back. Clayton Sipes is dead, Dan, but this thing is not. I don’t know what to say or what to do. The police seem to be blaming me, almost, but I saw Sipes, so I don’t know how they can fault me for what I told them. Whoever’s doing this is targeting my family. I’m afraid for them, Dan. I’m truly afraid.

If you’ve got time to get together, or at least time for a phone call, it would mean a lot to me, he told the murderer, and then he disconnected.

“We’ll see if he bites,” Dean said.

Yes. They would see.

Dean wanted him to go about his routine that day. To coach his team, play his games. Police would be watching, he said.

And so he did. He stopped by the hotel where they had his family, he held Beth in an exhausted embrace, and he kissed his children and told them that it was all going to be fine soon, it was just a bad day and they’d have to get through it. Part of growing up, he said. They were going to have some bad days now and then, and it was important to learn how to get through them. You had to keep your head down. You had to endure.

He coached in a fog. His staff had heard about the chaos at his home in the night, and half the kids had, too. He was a well-known man in a small town. It was not a situation for privacy, let alone for secrets, and still he had tried, and hoped. He told his coaches that he couldn’t talk about the matter, as required by the police, and asked for their help in keeping the kids focused. They tried. Everyone tried.

It should have been a euphoric few hours on the field. They were coming off the biggest win in their careers, they’d defeated the second-ranked team in the state, they were two wins away from a championship. Instead, the mood was hushed, everyone sharing whispers about what was going on with Coach, everyone confused and uncertain. Kent’s involvement was minimal. Byers ran most of the practice, while Kent stood on weary legs and chewed on his whistle and watched his undefeated boys. When practice was through, he began to walk directly to his car. The team gathering at midfield confused him somehow, even though it was the daily routine, and it wasn’t until he saw players taking a knee that he realized he still had the prayer to lead.

The words didn’t come easily. He prayed for their health and thanked God for the opportunity to be surrounded by this group for another week. Kept it short, then tried to disappear from the field, but didn’t make it. Colin Mears caught him before he could, and told him that he wanted to be benched.

It would have mattered, once. It would have been extremely important, a star player suggesting that he no longer deserved to be on the field during a playoff game. This morning Kent looked at him and could hardly register why anyone might think that this football field and what happened on it was significant.

But it is, he reminded himself, thinking of the days after Marie disappeared, of the long walks to watch film with Walter Ward, of the hours spent wearing his shoulder down to rubber, flinging a football at nothing. It had mattered to him then, and it mattered to Colin now.

“We’re not benching you, son,” Kent said.

“I’d like you to. Please. I’m not helping the team out there anymore. You know it, Coach, everyone does. I promised we’d win state for her. I promised that. I’m not going to help us. I wish I could, but I’m not going to.”

Kent hadn’t slept in thirty hours, had gone from the biggest victory of his career to the most stunning of personal horrors, and he had nothing left in the emotional tank. He was emptied, or as close to it as he had been in many years.

“We’ve got all week, Colin. We’ll talk things through. Okay?”

He squeezed the boy’s shoulder, moved past the locker room without entering, and went into the parking lot to find Chelsea Salinas waiting at his car. He was a few steps away from her still, far enough that he wasn’t ready to speak himself, when she said, “How could you give him the name?”

“What?”

Her eyes were red and her usually mocha skin looked like a winter sky. She said, “You knew what he wanted to do, Kent. He’d told you. And you just gave him the name and stepped aside, you didn’t even think to warn me? I might have been able to help. You might have been able to help. Instead you just let him go out there and—”

Her voice was rising to a scream, and Kent put his hand on her arm and whispered, “Stop shouting, Chelsea. What are you talking about? What happened to Adam?”

She shrugged off his touch. “So far? Nothing. Soon, though? Soon you’ll get to visit him in prison. And you could have stopped it.”

He’d been lost from the start—this morning, the act of thinking was like wading against a strong current—but suddenly it took shape and he saw it clearly and was horrified.

“Sipes,” he said. That was it, just the last name, and she did not respond, but her eyes told him all that he needed to know.

“Where is he?” he asked. “Where is my brother?”

“He’s gone to talk to your sister,” she said. A tear had seeped free and was gliding over her cheek. “And, Kent? You damn well better help him.”

“How can I help?”

“By giving him an alibi. Whatever he says he was doing when Sipes was murdered, you better be prepared to back him up.” She saw something in his face that seemed to infuriate her and said, “Yes, you’d better be prepared to lie. You better lie your ass off, Kent, because it’s the only thing that might save him, and you owe him that much at least. You let him go on when you could have stopped him. I know you’ll never forgive either of us for driving away from Marie that night, but you let him drive away this time.”

“Chelsea, I didn’t have any idea—”

“Bullshit, Kent. He told you exactly what he intended to do.”

“And I told him not to do it.”

“At first,” she said. “When Sipes showed up for you, though? What did you do then?”

“He offered to help. He offered—”

“You came to him for a gun,” she said. “And you were looking for one, all right, but you also were looking for someone to pull its trigger for you. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I didn’t think he would actually do this.”

She shook her head in disgusted disbelief. “It’s worse than what we did to you, Kent. It’s worse. Back then, we didn’t know what might happen. This time? You knew.”