Redemption Road: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

visionary.”
    “Yet, you have insights as rare as any poet’s gift. You see deeply and understand. You would not have killed those men unless you had to.”
    “Look, Mom—”
    “Inspiration.” Her mother drank, and her eyes watered. “Breathed upon by God himself.”
    *   *   *
    Thirty minutes later, Elizabeth drove back into the heart of downtown. The city was of a decent size for North Carolina, with a hundred thousand people inside the limits and twice as many spread across the county. It was still rich in places, but ten years into the downturn the cracks were starting to show. Storefronts were shuttered where none had ever been shuttered before. Broken windows went unfixed, buildings unpainted. She passed a place that used to be her favorite restaurant and saw a group of teenagers arguing on the street corner. There was more of that now, too: anger, discontent. Unemployment was twice the national average, and every year it got harder to pretend the best times weren’t in the past. That didn’t mean parts of the city weren’t beautiful—they were: the old houses and picket fences, the bronze statues that spoke of certainty and war and sacrifice. Pockets of pride remained, but even the most dignified people seemed cautious in expressing it, as if it might be dangerous, somehow, as if it might be best to keep one’s head down and wait for clearer skies.
    Parking in front of the police station, Elizabeth stared out through the glass. The building was three stories tall and built of the same stone and marble as the courthouse. A Chinese restaurant filled a narrow lot on the side street to her right. The Confederate cemetery was a block farther, and beyond that was the train depot, with the tracks running north to south. When she was a kid, she’d follow those tracks into town, walking with her friends on a Saturday morning to see a movie or watch boys in the park. She couldn’t imagine such a thing, now. Kids on the tracks. Loose in the city. Elizabeth rolled down the window, smelled pavement and hot rubber. Lighting a cigarette, she watched the station.
    Thirteen years …
    She tried to imagine it gone: the job, the relationships, the sense of purpose. Since she was seventeen, all she’d wanted was to be a cop because cops didn’t fear the things normal people feared. Cops were strong. They had authority and purpose. They were the good guys.
    Did she still believe that?
    Elizabeth closed her eyes, thinking about it. When she opened them, she saw Francis Dyer walking down the wide stairs that stretched across the front of the station. He made a beeline across the street, his face familiar and frustrated and sad. They’d argued a lot since the shooting, but there was no bitterness between them. He was older and soft and genuinely worried for her.
    “Hello, Captain. I didn’t expect to see you here this late.”
    He stopped at the open window, studied her face and the car’s interior. His eyes moved over cigarette packs and Red Bull cans and a half dozen balled-up newspapers filling the backseat. Eventually, the gaze landed on the cell phone beside her. “I’ve left six messages.”
    “I’m sorry. I turned it off.”
    “Why?”
    “Most calls I get are from reporters. Would you prefer I speak to them?”
    Her attitude made him angry. Part of it was anxiety, and part was the whole cop-control thing. She was a detective, but suspended, a friend but not close enough to justify the kind of frustration he was feeling. The emotion was in his face, in the pinched eyes and soft lips, in the sudden flush that stained his skin. “What are you doing here, Liz? It’s the middle of the night.”
    She shrugged.
    “I’ve told you about this. Until your case is cleared…”
    “I wasn’t going to come inside.”
    He waited a few beats, the same angles in his face, same worry in his eyes. “Your follow-up with the state police is tomorrow. You remember that, right?”
    “Of course.”
    “Have you met