The White Road-CP-4 by John Connolly Page B

it. I’ve never felt hate like it before.”
    “It fades,” I said quietly.
    “Does it?”
    “Yes.”
    “But it doesn’t go away?”
    “No. It’s yours. You do with it what you have to do.”
    “I want to kill someone.” He said it without feeling, in level tones, the way somebody might announce that they were going to take a cold shower on a warm day. Louis was the killer, I thought. It didn’t matter that he killed for motives that went beyond money or politics or power; that he was no longer morally neutral; that whatever he might have done in the past, those he now chose to destroy went largely unmourned. Louis had it in him to take a life and not lose a moment’s sleep over it.
    Angel was different. When he’d been placed in situations where it was kill or be killed, then he had taken lives. It troubled him to do it, but better to be troubled above ground than to be untroubled below, and I had personal reasons to be thankful for his actions. Now Faulkner had destroyed something inside Angel, some small dam that he had constructed for himself behind which was contained all of his sorrow and hurt and rage at the things that had been done to him throughout his life. I knew only fragments of it—abuse, starvation, rejection, violence—but I was now beginning to realize the consequences of its release.
    “But you still won’t testify against him, if they ask,” I said.
    I knew the deputy DA was debating the wisdom of calling Angel for the trial, particularly given the fact that they would have to subpoena him to do it. Angel wasn’t one for making voluntary visits to courtrooms.
    “I wouldn’t make such a great witness.”
    This was true but I didn’t know how much I should tell him about the case against Faulkner, about how weak it was and how there were fears that it might collapse entirely without more hard evidence. As the newspaper report had pointed out, Faulkner was claiming that he had been a virtual prisoner of his son and daughter for four decades; that they alone were responsible for the deaths of his flock and a series of attacks against groups and individuals whose beliefs differed from their own; and that they had brought skin and bone from their victims to him and forced him to preserve them as relics. It was the classic defense of “The dead guys done it.”
    “You know where Caina is?” asked Angel.
    “Nope.”
    “It’s in Georgia. Louis was born near there. On our way to South Carolina, we’re going to make a stop in Caina. Just so you know.”
    There was something in his eyes as he spoke, a fierce burning. I recognized it instantly, for I had seen it in my own eyes in the past. He rose and turned his face from me to hide the evidence of the pain, then walked to the screen door.
    “It won’t solve anything,” I said.
    He paused.
    “Who cares?”

    The next morning Angel hardly spoke at breakfast, and the little that he did say was not directed at me. Our conversation on the porch had not brought us any closer. Instead, it had confirmed the existence of a growing divide between us, an estrangement acknowledged by Louis before they departed.
    “You two talk last night?” he asked.
    “A little.”
    “He thinks you should have killed the preacher when you had the chance.”
    We were watching Rachel talking quietly to Angel. Angel’s head was down, and he nodded occasionally, but I could feel the restlessness coming from him in waves. The time for talking, for reasoning, was gone.
    “Does he blame me?”
    “It ain’t that simple for him.”
    “Do you?”
    “No, I don’t. Angel would be dead twice over, you hadn’t done the things you done for him. There ain’t no quarrel between us, you and me. Angel, he’s just troubled.”
    Angel leaned over and kissed Rachel gently but quickly on the cheek, then headed for their car. He looked over at us, nodded once to me, then climbed in.
    “I’m going up there today,” I said.
    Louis seemed to tighten beside me. “To the