Page 113 of Brimstone Hollow

“I have to go to a hospital, Will,” I tell him.

But he shakes his head. Tears slide down his face but he keeps the gun trained on me.

“Kick your gun away,” he says. “Toward me.”

I try to do as he says, but my feet won’t move like they should. I manage to kick the gun, but it skitters away from both of us, under the nearest pew. He shakes his head but doesn’t try to get it. Dizzy, I stumble forward, unintentionally taking a couple of steps toward him.

“Sit down,” he says.

I try to convince myself, briefly, that I can charge him, take him by surprise, run to the cruiser. But then I feel my body waver again and I drop, sliding down the front of the altar.

“I’m sorry,” Will says.

“You don’t…looksorry,” I slur. I sound so far away from myself.

“You didn’t give me anychoice,” he says, his voice choked with tears.

“What happened?” I ask. “What happened, Will?”

He grimaces as if in pain, and says, “Brother Ezra called me on Friday night. He sounded so scared. I’d never heard him like that. He said he needed my help. He said that dangerous people—drug dealers—were angry with him for turning so many souls against their poison. He said they sent someone to kill him but the Lord worked a miracle and the other man died instead—of a snakebite. He said that the only way for him to escape this evil was to run.”

“Run away,” I hear myself say.

“No,” he says. “He told me he wanted to go to Mexico, where he could save even more souls. But he needed my help.”

“How?” I ask.

“He wanted me to call Coroner Bradley… He—he needed the coroner to help him. To make it look official that it was Brother Ezra who died. And so he needed me.”

“Why you?” I ask. “Why…”

Will shakes his head, bites his bottom lip. Eventually he says, “Years ago, when I was… confused… No, sick. When I wassick, I fell into the temptations of sin with Roman Bradley.”

“The flower shop…” I say, remembering what Thelma had said about Will being so good at flower arrangements. And the flower shop was adjoined to the funeral home. So, he was there all the time, working for Diana Bradley, seeing Roman every day. And then he’d shown up in the church one morning, crying his eyes out. And been sent to conversion therapy. Thelma had said he was only fifteen.

“You were a just a kid,” I say.

“I was sick,” he says, softly. Then, with more venom, “I wassick. And Roman Bradley made me worse and… and Ezra made mebetter. Ezra healed me and so I… I owed him. I owed it to him to help him. I did what he asked. I called Coroner Bradley and told him that if he didn’t help Brother Ezra, I would tell everyone what had happened between us.”

I think about what Bradley had said, the words I hadn’t understood at the time.

What I did… They’ll never forgive me. I never should’ve—Listen, will…”

NotListen, will…

Listen. Will…

I think, in my half-delirious state, thatWill Carpenterwas what he’d wanted to say. What he’d wanted to write in that note and couldn’t. The confession he couldn’t make. The crime he knew would come out. The loss of it all. Everything he’d worked for. His pride, his work, his family, his place in the community. His kingdom.

Will says, “He was not a good man.”

And I don’t know whether he’s talking about Roman Bradley or Ezra King. And I realize it doesn’t matter. Both men used him, betrayed his trust in them, betrayed his love.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. And I realize it’s true. Even after everything. I realize it’s true.

Lightning flashes. Thunder booms.

Outside, the rain begins to pour. Big, thumping drops smack the porch beyond the double doors.