Chapter Four
Austin, Texas
The barkeep closed the walnut blinds, thwarting the searing afternoon Texas sun. Shadows deepened. Cheap interior lighting engulfed the bar in a superficial amber haze—not that anyone inside The Yellow Rose gave a crap. The patrons, there since before noon, had bigger problems than the less-than-idyllic atmosphere.
River had chosen beer as his liquid alleviator. It was cheap, took the edge off, and left his judgment semi-intact in the event his existence somehow degraded from a turd in a bucket to complete atomic implosion—which really wasn’t that big a step. He signaled Ronnie for another round.
The bar door opened, the miniature gold bell above tinkling with grating cheerfulness, announcing the arrival of a new patron. The sun beamed through, a laser attempting to burn every retina inside the murky establishment. Cupping his hand over his eyes, River fended off the assault.
“Mind if I sit down? The other booths are all full.”
River lowered his hand. A tall guy stood next to his table. Medium build, clean-cut, salt-and-pepper hair—the man could’ve been someone’s grandfather. But the dark suit and grim expression screamed company man.
“The IRS after me now?” Everything else had been flushed down the shitter. Why not have the government on his ass as well?
“I’m not with the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Chastain.” The corner of the man’s mouth twitched. “But I would like to speak with you.”
“Knock yourself out.” So the suit knew his name. No big surprise. After the last month, pretty much everyone in Texas knew his name.
The suit folded himself into the booth then raised two fingers, alerting Ronnie. River took the moment to study the guy’s face. He’d seen him before, but his slightly impaired brain couldn’t pinpoint where or when.
Two frosty mugs arrived at the table, and the guy pressed a crisp twenty into the barkeep’s palm. “Keep it.”
Ronnie returned to the bar, brought out a towel, and wiped down the walnut counter. With each rhythmic swipe, the furrows in his brow eased, and his jaw relaxed. The generous tip almost produced a smile on the curmudgeon’s face.
“So.” River leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You know me, but I don’t know you.”
“My name is Matthew.”
“Matthew what?”
“Just Matthew.”
River scrutinized the man. Usually, the omission of a name meant the guy talking wanted to keep his throat intact or his head bullet-hole free. The suit did seem like the informant type. On a shrug, River let the surname omission slide. For the moment.
Lifting his beer, River downed half the frosty contents and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What is it you want to talk about?”
“You.”
“Me? Well, I’m thirty-one, a Virgo, divorced, and newly unemployed. I like long walks on the beach, cuddling after sex. And, in case you’ve been living in a cave or something, I was recently exonerated as the Valentine Killer’s accomplice.” He set his mug on the table with a solid clack. “Oh yeah, almost forgot. Turns out the sick, murdering son of a bitch was my partner. Go figure.”
Matthew’s mouth pressed into a paper-thin line. Brows knitted tight, his unwavering gaze filled the silence.
“But you already knew all that.”
Matthew gave a slight nod. “I do my homework.”
River tilted his head and through narrowed eyes, reassessed the guy. “And just why would I be the topic of anyone’s homework?”
“You’re in the middle of something, Mr. Chastain.” Matthew’s fingers curled around his beer mug. “Your life is about to change in ways you can’t imagine.”
He snorted. “You’re a day late and a dollar short, Matt. My life has already changed in ways I never imagined.”
The suit’s mouth thinned again. “It’s bigger than that.”
“Bigger than tracking a monster who sliced young women to pieces and terrorized Austin for eighteen months? Bigger than losing my job as a detective because my partner turned out to be that monster?” River squeezed his eyes closed, willing the beer to dull the memories plaguing him.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“What?” he barked, pinning the suit with a glare. “You didn’t mean to torture me further? Or piss me off by saying something so stupid? Or maybe you didn’t mean to come in here in your fancy clothes with your pockets full of folded twenty-dollar bills and say something that would make me question everything I ever said or did over the last eighteen months.”
“Again, I apologize.” He waved his hand in a calming gesture. “It’s too soon.”
River grunted.
“The message needed to be delivered.”
“Message?” He shook his head. “So, you’re just a lapdog. The guys upstairs can’t get their hands dirty?”
“Sorry to bother you.” The suit dug into his pocket, dropped a folded hundred on the table.
“And a well-paid lapdog at that.” Snatching up the bill, he shoved it toward the guy. “Keep your damned money. I don’t need your charity.”
“I delivered the message.” Matthew shrugged. “Go ahead. Drink yourself into oblivion. I apologize for making you question your instincts.”
“Instincts?” He sneered. “You’re just a delivery boy in a cheap suit. What would you know about instincts?”
The suit leaned back, folding his arms over his chest. River had stared guys down before, evil bastards capable of unspeakable acts, but Matthew’s gaze was like a scalpel slicing out chunks of his brain. He gulped his beer then slammed the empty mug on the table, breaking the stalemate.
“I know your instincts,” Matthew said with cool assurance. “The knot in your stomach alerted you to the beating Mikey Chalvez had planned for you on the playground in third grade. I know in the fifth grade you went to your mother and told her you thought Becky Smith’s dad was abusing her. You had absolutely no proof. Two weeks later, Becky left school. What your parents didn’t tell you was, you were right. Becky and her mother moved to Canada to live with her grandmother.”
River frowned. “What the—?”
“In eleventh grade, you confronted your best friend, Thomas White, about his plans for suicide. You took his car keys, drove him to your house, and the two of you talked all night. He confessed his girlfriend, Sheila, was pregnant, and he thought his life was over. What you didn’t know was he’d planned to drive his car into the reservoir that very night. But you stopped him. Gave him hope.” Matthew reached for his beer. “They’re still together, Thomas and Sheila. Two girls and one boy. Thomas went on to become a surgeon in Milwaukee. He’s saved countless lives.”
Tommy White? River hadn’t thought about him in years. The memory of that night, the intense need to talk to his best friend, rushed back. “Who the hell are you?”
“The messenger.” Matthew’s smile didn’t soften the seriousness in his eyes. “Your instincts about Betsy were on target as well, although you chose not to believe them. You knew she was leaving before she did.”
“Betsy?” He knows about my ex-wife?
“But don’t second guess yourself about Kent Lee Rowton.”
“Why not?” River leaned forward, placing his arms on the table. “If I knew those other things, even my wife leaving me, for God’s sake, why the hell didn’t I know about Kent?”
“Kent is…different. He was into things which allowed him to mask his true nature.”
“You mean occult stuff. Satanic worship or whatever the hell you call it. Yeah, I saw more examples of his work than I care to remember.” Anguish flared in his core at the horror his trusted partner had wrought. “But do you really expect me to believe just because he lit a few candles, drew some symbols, and spoke gibberish he became some kind of supernatural predator?”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Mr. Chastain.”
“What are you trying to say?” River sliced the air with his hand. “You expect me to believe all the occult crap is real?”
Matthew rose from the booth. “As I stated, you’re in the middle of something. Though I suppose your instincts have already corroborated what I’ve said.”
“Bullshit.” River snorted. “You dug into my background, found some stuff you could string together, and make it sound like mystical mumbo jumbo.”
“Think what you will.” He turned and strode to the door.
River lifted his empty mug, saluted the guy’s retreating backside. “You do, however, get points for doing good, old-fashioned detective work. ’Cause the only thing that really counts is concrete evidence.”
Matthew stiffened, his hand on the doorknob. “It’s coming. Whether you want it to or not.”
The gold bell jingled, announcing his exit from The Yellow Rose. For a moment, the guy’s silhouette stood sharp against the Texas sun, then the heavy walnut door closed with a slight click, protecting the patrons who remained behind.
“Bullshit,” River muttered again and took a swig of his beer. What did the asshole know anyway? It was all a bunch of nonsense meant to distort the facts.
The truth was his partner had lied. And by sheer coincidence, the sick son of a bitch got himself bashed in the head by a boulder, ending his heinous year-and-half-reign of terror on the citizens of Austin, Texas.
River raised his hand to signal for another beer but instead slammed his fist on the table. Well, hell. He remembered where he’d seen Matthew. The guy had been at the press conference when Internal Affairs announced him clear of any complicity with the Valentine Killer’s string of murders. He’d stood behind the mass of reporters, watching the whole damn thing.
The guy was just trying to catch the coattails of a killer. He wanted to interact with someone who’d been near the Valentine Killer. It all made perfect sense. The man with no last name, the suit named Matthew, was a genuine nutcase.