Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance 2)

And now, at last, there was real fear in Chilton's face. "No, don't hurt my family! Please, please . . . I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt them."

"Read the statement and sound like you mean it," Schaeffer warned, "then I'll leave them alone. I'll tell you, Chilton, I've got nothing but sympathy for them. They deserve a better life than being with a piece of shit like you."

"I'll read it," the blogger said. "But who are you? Why are you doing this? You owe me an answer."

Schaeffer was seized by a wave of fury. "Owe you?" he growled. "Owe you? You arrogant asshole!" He slammed his fist into Chilton's cheek once more, leaving the man stunned. "I owe you nothing." He leaned forward and snapped, "Who am I, who am I? Do you know anybody whose lives you destroy? No, of course not. Because you sit in that fucking chair, a million miles away from real life, and you say whatever you want to say. You type some shit on your keyboard, send it out into the world and then you're on to something else. Does the concept of consequences mean anything to you? Accountability?"

"I try to be accurate. If I got something wrong--"

Schaeffer burned. "You are so fucking blind. You don't understand you can be factually right and still be wrong. Do you have to tell every secret in the world? Do you have to destroy lives for no reason--except your ratings?"

"Please!"

"Does the name Anthony Schaeffer mean anything to you?"

Chilton's eyes closed momentarily. "Oh." When he opened them again they were filled with understanding, and perhaps remorse. But that didn't move Schaeffer one bit.

At least Chilton remembered the man he'd destroyed.

Patrizia asked, "Who's that? Who does he mean, Jim?"

"Tell her, Chilton."

The blogger sighed. "He was a gay man who killed himself after I outed him a few years ago. And he was . . . ?"

"My brother." His voice cracked.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry," Schaeffer scoffed.

"I apologized for what happened. I never wanted him to die! You must know that. I felt terrible."

Schaeffer turned to Patrizia, "Your husband, the voice of the moral and just universe, didn't like it that a deacon in a church could also be gay."

Chilton snapped back, "That wasn't the reason. He headed a big anti-gay marriage campaign in California. I was attacking his hypocrisy, not his sexual orientation. And his immorality. He was married, he had children . . . but when he was on business trips he'd call up gay prostitutes. He was cheating on his wife, sometimes with three men a night!"

The blogger's defiance was back and Schaeffer wanted to hit him once more, so he did, hard and fast.

"Tony was struggling to find God's path. He slipped a few times. And you made it sound like he was a monster! You never even gave him a chance to explain. God was helping him find the way."

"Well, God wasn't doing a very good job. Not if--"

The fist struck again.

"Jim, don't argue with him. Please!"

Chilton lowered his head. Finally he looked desperate and filled with sorrow and fear.

Schaeffer enjoyed the delicious sense of the man's despair. "Read the statement."

"All right. I'll do whatever you want. I'll read it. But my family . . . please." The agony in Chilton's face was like fine wine to Schaeffer.

"You have my word on it." He said this sincerely, though he was reflecting that Patrizia would outlive her husband by no more than two seconds--a humane act, in the end. She wouldn't want to go on without him. Besides, she was a witness.

As for the children, no, he wouldn't kill them. For one thing they weren't due home for nearly an hour and he'd be long gone by then. Also, he wanted the sympathy of the world. Killing the blogger and his wife was one thing. The children were something else.

Beneath the camera Schaeffer taped a piece of the paper containing the statement he'd written that morning. It was a moving piece--and had been drafted in a way to make sure that nobody would associate the crime with him.