The man holding the gun released the close button, and the doors slid open. A crowd was waiting to get on. One of them, a reporter probably, recognized Ben and shouted something at him. Ben ignored him and walked on by.
“That’s it,” the man said. He had concealed his gun in his coat pocket, but Ben knew it was still trained on him. “Just stay quiet and keep walking.”
Ben walked through the doors onto the plaza outside the courthouse. It was dark now. They walked to his rental car without passing anyone Ben knew. He had secretly harbored hopes that they would meet someone who would realize something was wrong—Mike, perhaps, or Sergeant Tomlinson. But it didn’t happen.
Ben slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. The man with the gun in his pocket took the passenger side. “Good so far,” he said. “Now drive to the River Parks. And don’t try to be clever, understand? Don’t wave at a cop car or drive into a telephone pole. Try anything like that and you’ll find a bullet in your brain. And then I’ll take out your friends back in the hotel room and everyone in that goddamn boardinghouse of yours. Understand?”
Ben’s lips thinned. “I understand.”
“Good. Drive.”
Ben pulled out of the parking garage onto Fifth Street. His brain was racing. What was he going to do? There must be some way out of this, but for the life of him—literally—he couldn’t think what it was. What would Mike do? he wondered. Mike would probably refuse to cooperate, would throw himself at the man. Mike might get away with it, too. But Ben knew perfectly well that if he tried it, he would just end up a bloody blot in a Thrifty rental car.
“You know you’ve had it wrong from the start,” Ben said easily, never taking his eyes from the road. “Barrett isn’t guilty. He never was. There was no chicanery or deceit in that courtroom, at least not by me. Barrett was acquitted because he was not guilty.”
“I don’t give a damn about the Barrett case,” the younger man spat out. “I’ll leave that to the tabloids and housewives. The world obsesses on some stupid celebrity trial while important trials, things that matter, are totally forgotten.”
What? Ben was confused. If Sick Heart wasn’t stalking him because of the Barrett case, then what the hell was it?
“I don’t understand,” Ben said as he pulled onto Riverside Drive. “Why me? Why are you doing this?”
The young man’s eyes glistened. They seemed detached, manic. Ben had the unsettling feeling that his companion might not be entirely together. As if that should come as a surprise.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” the man said.
“No, but don’t you want to? Don’t you want me to know what I’m being punished for?”
“Pull over here.” With his gun hand, the stranger motioned toward a sloping driveway down into the River Parks. The River Parks were one of the loveliest parts of Tulsa—miles and miles of unspoiled land on the east bank of the Arkansas River. Jogging and bike trails lined the area between the river and Riverside Drive, as well as parks and band shells and exercise parcourses.
Ben parked a few slots down from another car; it was dark, but he saw two heads inside, both facing away. Making out? Whatever it was, they seemed to take no notice of him.
“Get out of the car.”
Ben obeyed. He stepped out, eyeing Riverside Drive. It was only a few feet away. If he made a run for it—
He’d be shot dead. It was that simple.
He followed the man with the gun to the bank of the river. They stood in the middle of a jogging trail. Unfortunately, at this time of night, there were no joggers. Even in a relatively safe city like Tulsa, smart people didn’t jog at night. The area was deserted.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Ben said. “Can’t you even give me a hint?”
The young man brushed his dark, curly hair out of his eyes. “Don’t you recognize me?”
Ben peered at the face, the wavy hair, the cold, bitter eyes. There was something about them … but what was it? He couldn’t make the connection.
“Think back,” the man said. “Think back a long time ago. Eight years ago, to be precise. Think back to another controversial trial in which you played a pivotal role. Another time justice was thwarted.”
“Eight years ago?” Ben said. “But I wasn’t even out of law school then.”
“That’s right,” the man said coldly. “You weren’t.”
The truth struck him like a thunderbolt. “You’re talking about my father’s trial.”
“Damn straight. Don’t act as if you don’t remember it. I know you do. I know you were there. I saw you.”
“You—but—” Ben stared into that face, trying to make a connection. He was sure he had never seen this face before. Maybe not this face exactly, But that would have been eight years ago …
“You’re the little boy,” Ben said, the light slowly dawning. “The little boy at the courthouse.” The one who spat in Ben’s face. The one who swore he would never forget. “Your father died.”
“My father was murdered!” His hand clenched tighter on the pistol. “Murdered by that defective cardiac valve. That sick heart that was sewn into his chest.”
Ben felt his knees sag. Sick heart. The clues had been right in front of him all along. And he had been too stupid to see them.
“My dad was wonderful,” the young man said, his voice trembling. “The best man I ever knew. The only one who ever really gave a damn about me. Was it his fault his heart was bad, that he hoped for a miracle cure? Did he deserve what happened to him?”
“No, of course not,” Ben said. “But if his heart failed—”
“He should’ve gone to Houston. They do heart transplants fairly regularly now. They have a success rate better than fifty percent. He would’ve lived. I would’ve had a father.” A dark cloud covered his eyes. “But no. Instead, he let those doctors convince him to go with the EKCV. The Kincaid special. And it killed him.”
“That’s horrible,” Ben said. “But surely you realize that no one intended to kill your father.”
“Of course they didn’t intend to!” He was shouting now, screaming. Ben could only hope he would attract some attention, even though he knew the odds were long. “They just didn’t care! They didn’t give a damn!” He swung his pistol wildly through the air, gasping, crying out. “They were more concerned about getting rich than they were about my daddy!”
Ben took a deep breath and tentatively extended his hand. “Look, I know how you must feel. It was a terrible thing. But it has nothing to do with me.”
The young man glared at him, eyes cold. “It was the Kincaid valve.”
“That was my father. He—”
“You were all in it together.”
“I wasn’t in it at all. Hell, I worked for the prosecutors.”
“You’ve lived off it. You’ve wallowed in the profits.”
“I haven’t wallowed in anything. I’ve never accepted a cent of my father’s money, from this project or anything else.”
“Don’t make your stupid excuses to me!” His eyes were blazing, wide as they could possibly be. “You killed my father!”
“It wasn’t me!” Ben screamed back. “It was my father! It was your father and my father. It doesn’t have anything to do with us!”
He placed the barrel of the gun against Ben’s chest. “The sins of the fathers are visited on the sons.” His hand was trembling, including the finger curled around the trigger. “Your father escaped the hands of justice. You won’t.”
Ben stared down at the cold steel pressed against his chest. “Why now? After all these years.”
“I didn’t know where you were!” Ben knew the man was losing control. The only question was whether he could stay alive long enough to take advantage. “After your father died, I looked for you. But I couldn’t find you. You left the DA’s office, disappeared from Oklahoma City. It seemed I had been robbed again, or so I thought. I grew up, I joined the army, but I never forgot. And then one day, I turned on the television and there you were. God had delivered you to me. The coverage of this Barrett case was everywhere; you were on almost every day. How could I miss it?” His voice dropped; his eyes narrowed. “So I came to Tulsa. And I started laying my plans.”