Envy Mass Market

“Was that also why you killed Daniel Matherly?”

“Damn you!”

“You did kill him, didn’t you?” Parker shouted down at him. “Admit it or you suffocate, you son of a bitch. If you don’t drown in your own nervous piss first.”

“I… I…”

“How’d you arrange that fall, Noah?”

“I provoked him. About this old friend of his. He got angry, came at me. I deflected—”

“You pushed him.”

“All right.”

“Say it!”

Desperate now, Noah relented. “I pushed him. I didn’t have to, but I did. Just to make sure.”

Parker coughed on smoke. It was stinging his eyes. “You are an abomination, Noah. A miserable human being. A murderer.” He shook his head regretfully. “But you’re not worth killing.”

Parker wheeled his chair backward. Panicked, Noah shouted his name from the bottom of the well. He was out of sight only for the amount of time it took him to retrieve the rope he had stashed earlier in preparation for this moment. He dangled it above the well where Noah could see it. “Are you sure you want me to save you? You’ll go to prison, you know.”

“Throw it down.” He was reaching up in an imploring gesture.

“I know exactly how you feel,” Parker told him. “I knew my legs were shot to hell. I’d have done anything to stop the pain. Anything except die. I thought I wanted to. But when those fishermen reached for me, I grabbed hold for all I was worth.”

He threaded the rope down to Noah, who grasped it frantically. “Make a few loops around your chest and tie it tightly,” Parker instructed.

“Okay,” Noah called when he was done. “Pull me up.”

Parker backed away, pulling the rope taut. “Ready? If you can get some footholds, walk the wall.”

“I can’t. My ankle.”

“Okay, but easy does it. Don’t—”

He was about to say “yank.” But it was too late.

Chapter 36

In his panic to be rescued, Noah had pulled sharply on the rope. Parker wasn’t braced for it. He was jerked forward out of the wheelchair, landing on the packed dirt floor. “Goddammit!”

“What? What’s happening? Parker?”

For several seconds, Parker lay there with his forehead resting on the floor. He took several deep breaths. Then, using his forearms to pull him along, he inched his way over to the rim of the well and peered down into it.

“You pulled me out of my chair.”

“Well, get back in it.”

“I’m open to suggestions on how I should go about it.”

“Well, do something.”

Noah’s voice was now ragged with desperation. Even at the bottom of the well, he must have been able to hear the crackle of old wood burning. The smoke grew thicker by the second.

“Parker, you’ve got to get me out of here!”