Page 144 of One of Us Is Guilty

I stopped and stared, and wondered about all the shit that had happened since I hung out my shingle from this place and started practicing law. I wondered about all the mistakes I’d made, and the people I had helped, and the people that I’d lost.

Something hard bit into the back of my skull.

My vision blurred and dulled.

I was aware I was falling, but I was out before I hit the ground.

61

Eddie

The last walk

The best time of your life lasts less than a second.

When you hold your newborn in your arms for the very first time; when you meet the one you know that you will love with your whole heart until the moment you die; when you look around you and realize that everyone you love is happy and well and safe.

It’s a fleeting moment of joy.

The worst times of your life seem to last an age.

Right now, I was having one of those moments.

I’d just woken up in the trunk of a moving car.

My head felt like there was a rusty nail rattling around inside my skull. The cut on the back of my scalp was still bleeding, and I could taste the fumes from the exhaust pipe and hear the rumble of tires on the road and the drone of the engine. I couldn’t see anything, too dark. The only thing in my vision were occasional white stars that penetrated the black, probably the result of the head injury.

My hands weren’t tied. I felt around in my jacket and coat pockets.

No phone. No wallet. No cash. No keys. I put my right hand down, tried to move.

It was too cramped. My feet and legs were tucked up into the corners.

The bed of the trunk felt strange. It wasn’t hard plastic. It wasn’t that rough fiber that lines most trunk beds.

It was thick plastic.

I felt all round the edges of it.

This plastic had been taped to the inside of the trunk, so that I wouldn’t leave any blood, hair, saliva or fibers behind. There would be nothing for forensics to find.

Nothing to prove that this was the car that drove me to my final destination.

Every second in this trunk felt like a hundred years.

This was the moment.

It had been in the mail for a long time.

Some day.

Sometime.

This was always going to happen.

In my life, I’ve hurt a lot of people. Some of those people I loved. Some I hated. It didn’t matter – I always tried to do the right thing, even if it meant killing somebody.

I felt the car slow and lean left.