A Time of Torment by John Connolly Read Free Book Online

said Ross, without hesitation.
    ‘Funny,’ said Holt. ‘I never took you for the trusting type.’
    He cut into his chicken.
    ‘What about the other two?’
    ‘We only ever had suspicions, but no real proof.’
    ‘You could have found proof, if you’d tried hard enough.’
    ‘Maybe I didn’t want to.’
    ‘That’s what worries me. How’s the brisket?’
    ‘Moist.’
    ‘You still should have ordered the chicken.’
    ‘I think you’re right.’
    ‘If this falls apart,’ Holt said, ‘you’ll burn. You know that, don’t you?’
    ‘If this falls apart,’ Ross replied, ‘we’ll all burn.’

9
    F ar to the north, amid the anonymous furnishings of his apartment, the newly freed man lay awake, unable to sleep away from the noise of the prison, and wondered again how his life had come to such an end.
    He was a Disgraced Hero, a Fallen Idol. He’d once had a wife, but no children. That absence of children was fortunate, he supposed: he couldn’t begin to imagine the grief they would have endured once their father’s alleged offenses became known. Even moving to another state wouldn’t have saved them: the Internet could make prey of anyone. As for his wife, well, they hadn’t been getting along so well before everything went wrong, but he still remained shocked and hurt at how quickly she had abandoned him.
    He’d told her that he was innocent – had told the same thing to anyone who would listen, from the police who first interrogated him, to the jury that had subsequently convicted him and the judge who sentenced him, and even to those fellow prisoners who were willing to associate with him, or with whom he could safely associate in turn, which wasn’t many. He’d told his lawyer too. The lawyer said that it didn’t matter, but it did. It mattered to the Hero before he was toppled from his pedestal.
    Only his mother and father had continued to believe in him – they, and a handful of friends, but his parents were almost entirely alone in visiting him regularly. His mother had died first, and then his father just six months later. He’d applied for compassionate release to attend their funerals and been turned down on both occasions, even though a sympathetic corrections officer had offered to transport him from the jail to the graveside and back after the death of his father. Incensed, the Hero had even gone so far as to apply to the U.S. District Court for a temporary release order, only to have the state object on the grounds that the nature of his crimes made him an ongoing danger to the community, and he was also considered a flight risk due to his intelligence and the belief that he might have some funds hidden away, according to his ex-wife. So his mother and father had gone into the ground without their only child to mourn them, and nobody came to visit him after they were gone.
    His parents had left him some money, for which he was grateful as he’d been wiped out by the divorce, despite anything his ex-wife might have claimed to the contrary, although she managed to get her hands on some of his inheritance too. The bequest might have been enough to enable him to resettle in another state, were it not for his status as a registered sex offender and the requirement to engage with probation and counseling services in Maine on that basis. He’d been given a list of his conditions of probation, which included, on top of the standard requirements – refrain from using drugs and avoid excessive alcohol intake, find a job, pay the court-determined probation and Department of Corrections supervision fees – an injunction against contact with anyone under the age of eighteen, and any use of a computer with an Internet connection. The latter stipulation meant that he had to get the private detective’s number the old-fashioned way, through directory assistance. He’d bought a TracFone, and his lawyer had registered it for him online.
    He was barely out of prison, but already he recognized the