One Deadly Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

asked.
    Fred took a rumpled envelope out of his pocket. Turned it over for everyone to see.
    “Well, hell, Fred,” Dennis Runkle said, “Isn’t even stamped. Someone stuck it in your mailbox. A prank.”
    “What kind of prankster would know?” Fred insisted. “You’re the only people who do. Did one of you send this?”
    They avoided each other’s gaze. It had been years since they’d spoken about any of this and the habit of silence was hard to break.
    “Of course not,” Ken Parsley said at last.
    James looked down at the little toy in Fred’s hand. He, too, avoided touching it. “What is it? Some kind of plastic?”
    “Probably,” Fred said.
    Runkle scratched his neck uneasily, an allergic habit he’d had since first grade. “It’s a prank, I tell you. Some kid. You’re getting all worked up over nothing.” Who was he trying to convince—Lyle or himself?
    “A week from now I’m due in Chicago,” Fred Lyle said. “I’m taking over IAT’s entire North American operation. Do you know what would happen if this gets out?”
    Thick silence rocked the quarry. Only the sound of the hot breeze whistling between the stones could be heard.
    “Maybe it’s time we told,” Kenneth Parsley said at last.
    “And then what?” Fred said. “Aside from what it would do to me personally, there are implications for the plant. IAT is looking for sites to close. That threat is still as potent now as it was twenty years ago.”
    “That’s what we told ourselves then,” Parsley said. “We can’t keep using the same excuse. One day the truth will come out. Better to hear it from us.”
    “No. Absolutely not,” Runkle said. “Do you know how much money I have riding on this Jansen thing? I need that plant to stay open. The past is over and done. I say we leave it buried.”
    “James?” Fred Lyle turned to him. “You’re the lawman here. What do you think we should do?”
    “First off, I’m only an ex-lawman.”
    “I don’t suppose you’d relish being arrested by your son,” Runkle said with pinpoint accuracy.
    James’s lips tightened. The thought sent an ice pick of dread through him. “You leave Holt out of this.”
    “I’m just saying—”
    “Don’t,” he snapped. “My son has nothing to do with any of this. And he never will. Never.” He forced the angry fear out of his voice. “I’m sorry, Reverend, but I’m with Dennis on this. Digging up the past won’t help anyone and it will hurt us and the town. Then everything we did will be for nothing.”
    “Besides,” Runkle said. “We took an oath, remember? Never to tell. Never to betray any one of us.”
    Parsley sighed, but nodded.
    “So, we’re all agreed?” James looked at each of the group in turn.
    “Silence is golden,” Runkle said.
    “That still leaves us with who sent this and why,” Fred said.
    James nodded. “Let me look into it. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a source. Find the seller, you’re one step closer to finding the buyer.” James gave them a taut smile. “Now, go home. All of you. I’ll let you know when I find out anything.”
    He walked them to their cars. Organized their departure, making sure a good ten minutes passed between vehicles. Runkle was the first one gone. Hurrying back to close more deals, James guessed. Fred left next, and finally Ken Parsley. Then there was only James’s dusty pickup left. He checked his watch. A few more minutes and he could leave like the rest. Put this behind him. But he walked to the edge of the old quarry instead and faced what he wanted to avoid.
    He hadn’t been here in a long, long time. Not since… well, he didn’t want to think about that day. Finding the body at the bottom, broken and bloody. It had been a scorching summer, triple-digit temperatures, and there’d been no water in the basin to break his fall. The whole ordeal of climbing down, rigging the body to lift it out. The terrible scream of that poor young widow.
    He shivered in the heat.
    He still