The Covenant Read Online Free PDF Page A

me off more than anything had all day.
    *   *   *
    I wanted to call the preacher, but I had lost my cell phone at the lake, so I drove back to my room at the Deertick Motel. The cockroaches met me at the door like dogs. Everything was pretty much as I had left it. The mildew stains might have grown a bit.
    The room actually had a working telephone. It was padlocked to a chain that was bolted to a heavy staple set in the wall. The handset was likewise chained to the body of the phone. You had to sit on the floor with your head about three inches away from the keypad. I called the preacher to try to salvage that photography job. Another week with no work and I’d be living in my car.
    A giant answered on the third ring. Even through the phone I could feel the booming power of his voice. “God bless you for calling, this is Deacon Falgoust.” He pronounced it “Fall-goo.”
    â€œJackie Lyons. I’m sorry I missed our meeting yesterday.”
    â€œYes, I know. Isn’t it terrible?” He didn’t have the exaggerated “Missippi guvnah” voice of your typical Southern Baptist preacher. I couldn’t place his accent at all. “If it weren’t bad enough already, they put you in jail, and after you tried to save that man. I asked Sheriff Stegall, is this how we reward our heroes? By arresting them?”
    â€œThey let me out this morning. Thanks for vouching for me.”
    â€œBeing as how I was late for our rendezvous, it was the least I could do.”
    After we finished apologizing to one another, I asked if there was any way I could see the house today. “Actually, I was hoping you would call,” he said. “I’m sorry to ask you to return to this house of grief, but it’s the only place I have to meet with you, and Jenny doesn’t mind. If you could be here around four-thirty, I would be much obliged to you.”
    That gave me enough time to scarf down a sandwich from the convenience store, followed by a short nap in which I dreamed I was drowning in a burning house.

 
    6
    A FTER A QUICK SHOWER and a change of clothes, I was passing the German gatehouse and returning to the scene of the crime. As much as I needed the money, I was starting to dread seeing Jenny Loftin again. I wasn’t ready for her questions, her grief, her kids, any of it. I just wanted the job. I parked on the street in front of the house, looked up at the levee where everything had happened. For the hundredth time, I pictured it in my mind, watched him wave, stumble and fall, then go headfirst into the lake. It didn’t make sense.
    There were no cars parked in the drive and it looked like no one was home, but I rang the bell anyway. It didn’t take them long to answer. The man who opened the door was dressed like an undertaker in a suit nearly as black as his hair. He was fortyish and handsome in a hard way, his long arms making him look taller than he really was. His smile pushed up the soft wrinkled corners of his eyes. “Hello Mrs. Lyons, I’m Deacon Falgoust.”
    â€œMiss.”
    When we shook, his hand felt almost fleshless. It was all bone and sinew and calluses, its strength born of something other than muscle. “I’m glad you could come,” he said. “Won’t you follow me?”
    The house was velvety quiet and dark, shades drawn. The hall led away from the door toward the back of the house, past an empty dining room on the left, half bath under the stairs on the right. I noticed that the back of the preacher’s neck above his collar was creased and sunburned. “I’m looking forward to seeing the place. How far away is it?” I asked as he led me into the spacious living room.
    Before he could answer, I was enveloped in arms. “Thank you for trying to save my Sam,” Jenny whispered in my ear. I nodded and said something about being sorry. I didn’t know what else to say to her. She