Chapter One

The highway pointed arrow-straight to the horizon, leading Travis Lynch to very last place in the world he wanted to be. The state of Texas intended to put a man to death, and Travis had agreed to serve witness.

            Two hundred miles in a car with no air conditioning. In the middle of a Texas summer. Fitting penance, Travis thought. A salty trickle rolled down his angled cheek, and his eyes wandered to the dashboard clock, one of the few amenities in his auto that still worked. Travis did the math in his head. Less than three hours left, a little over one-hundred-twenty miles to go.

Time enough.

            He steered off the highway, following the signs that had been counting backwards for half an hour. “30 miles to Byrd’s” had steadily become “1 Mile to Byrd’s” and then “Exit Now for Byrd’s” and Travis followed. His car rolled to a stop in the gravel parking lot of a gas station that had seen its better days half a century before. But there was shade under a huge live oak and signs for cold drinks, and it looked like the gas pumps were a few decades newer than the front door. Travis unfolded himself from behind the wheel; the seat adjustment was another thing his car had given up on, and the driver’s seat was stuck halfway between too far up for him and too far back for his wife.

            “You’re open, right?” Travis called to the thin older man standing in the dim recesses under the overhang. The man wore a dark uniform that blended in with the shadows so well it seemed he was nothing more than a pale, suspicious face and gnarled hands clutching a red shop rag. The man nodded slowly, once.

            “I like to keep it local when I can,” Travis continued as he pumped his own gas. “No sense putting another buck in a big corporation’s pocket.”

            The man stepped to the edge of the shade, the tips of his shoes just sticking out into the sunlight. A shiver ran up Travis’s spine as the man stared at him, silently accusing him.

            “How long has this place been here?” Travis asked, nerves making his voice a touch too loud.

            “Quite a while,” the man said, his words colored by an East Texas twang. He kept his chin raised as if he were waiting for Travis to try something underhanded. “We got cold water inside, looks like you could use some.”

            “Definitely,” Travis sighed, slapping his hand on his car’s griddle-hot roof, “I picked the wrong day to be out in this piece of junk.”

            The man stepped off the porch and out from under the overhang, squinting in the bright sunlight. His black work shirt and black slacks perfectly matched his shoes, and his black cap kept his face in the shade. He continued to wipe his hands with the red shop rag, though Travis couldn’t see a spot of grease.

            “Car can’t be much older than you,” the man said. His chin lowered just a touch.

            Travis flashed a friendly grin and shook his head. “My parents got this for me when I graduated high school. Brand new. I’m the only owner. Trying to be frugal, you know?”

            The old man’s chin raised again and his eyes narrowed. “You look familiar.”

            Travis’s heart dropped into his stomach but his smile didn’t waver. “Never been here before.”

            Strong, gnarled hands kneaded the red shop rag as the old man held Travis transfixed in his thoughtful gaze. “Been on the TV?”

            Travis glanced away, telegraphing the lie. “Nope.”

            The old man glared suspiciously and stood his ground as if he were guarding the worn-out building from burglars. As the pump trickled gas into the tank, Travis could feel the man’s eyes on him. Judging him.

            “Where you coming from?”

            A lump formed in Travis’s throat and he coughed self-consciously. “Austin.”

            The old man jammed the red rag into his back pocket, suddenly done with fidgeting.

            “Where you going?” The words were a condemnation.

            “East.” How slow could this gas pump be?

            “There’s a whole lot of Texas east of here.”

            “Huntsville.” Travis didn’t look up.

            The numbers ticked over on the pump and the hot breeze brushed Travis’s cheek. His eyes flicked to his black suit draped carefully across the back seat, laid out and pressed, not soaked with perspiration. He’d change when he got there.

            “I know where I seen you,” the old man said. “You’re one of those Lynch boys. Jake?”

            Drops of sweat falling from his forehead spattered Travis’s hands. “Jake’s my brother. I’m the other one.”

            The old man folded his hands across his chest. He’d made up his mind about Travis years ago. “How long until the execution?”

            “Three hours.” Travis’s face burned hot but it had nothing to do with the weather.

            “Take you almost that long to get the rest of the way,” the old man snarled. “Probably wouldn’t be a good idea for you to hang around after you’re done paying for your gas.”

            “Probably not,” Travis agreed.

Tension hung in the District Attorney’s office like a poison fog: thick, heavy, and deadly. Staff kept their conversations quiet, supervisors closed their usually-open doors, and anyone who could come up with an excuse to get away had fled hours ago. The DA, Jake Lynch, was having an extremely bad day, and he was eager to share it with anyone who crossed his path.

            Jake leaned back in his chair, his eyes flicking toward the clock on the wall, which hadn’t budged since the last time he checked. He sighed and ran a hand across what was left of his blonde hair, feeling the heat radiating from his scalp. He didn’t need a mirror to know that the first pink blush of frustration that typically showed on his cheeks now had to be a red-hot angry beacon from his neck to the top of his head. Jake’s body had always betrayed his moods.

            His fingers curled around the file in his hand, threatening to crumple it. If the day wasn’t already difficult enough, he had to deal with this garbage. Unacceptable. Like they were trying to make him angry.

            “Susan?” Jake called from his chair, knowing his voice carried through the entire office. The desk in front of Jake’s door sat conspicuously empty, his assistant nowhere in sight. 

            Jake’s teeth ground together, but he took five deep breaths before he got to his feet. Just like he’d promised his wife Rita he would.

            “Susan?” Despite his best efforts to stay calm his voice came out dramatically louder. And angrier. “Susan, get in here.”

            His assistant didn’t answer. Jake kicked his chair back and stood, determined to collect himself, to still his roiling temper. For a brief instant it felt like his anger might have found a release, like it might have been melting away. Then his eyes caught the clock again and his shoulders tightened painfully. His feet practically stomping holes in the floor, he stalked out of his office.

            Jake cut an imposing figure, not because he was tall (nature dealt his younger brother Travis that card) but because he radiated a muscular anger, a violent energy that would either spark a similar fire in others or burn them down. In court, this aura had won Jake dozens of cases; in the office, it won him nothing but fear.

            Jake’s broad shoulders and thick neck came from his college football days, his thinning blonde hair and flushed face came from his mother’s side of the family, and the early wrinkles around his eyes were a legacy from his father’s father. The misdirected fury was all his.

            “Goddamn it!” he yelled as he surveyed his assistant’s vacant desk. “Anybody know where she went?”

            Silence answered him. All his attorneys, all his paralegals, all the assistants and secretaries and computer guys found somewhere else to look, something else to occupy them. No one dared to speak for fear of attracting Jake’s attention and becoming the surrogate for his rage.

            “Velasquez,” Jake growled, his gaze settling on a tall, slender man with a thousand-dollar suit and a politician’s salt-and-pepper haircut. “In my office. Now.” 

            For the briefest moment, Bobby Velasquez’s mouth popped open like a suffocating goldfish’s, but he regained his composure in an instant. He paused to tug at his tie, adjust his cuffs, and flash a too-white smile before he headed straight for his boss.

            Jake felt the tension release like a needle jabbing an overinflated balloon. Normally loathed in the office, at that moment Velasquez could have been elected President; he was taking the bullet for everyone else.

            “Today, Bobby,” Jake growled as he disappeared behind his big oak door.

            Jake was already in his chair when Velasquez eased in, his brash charm outside the boss’s office turning into timid apology once he crossed the threshold.

            “I’ve been going over the upcoming docket,” Jake said quietly, tapping the file in front of him, “and imagine my surprise when I looked at the Baker case.”

            He didn’t ask Velasquez to sit, leaving his subordinate standing awkwardly at the corner of his desk.

            “I assigned that case to Doyle,” Jake said slowly, carefully, even though he could feel his face getting hotter.

            “Doyle had too much on his plate,” Velasquez explained hastily. “I offered to help.”

            “Since when are case assignments your call?” Jake growled. “You get what you get and you make the best of it.”

            “I did that, Jake,” Velasquez said, deciding to take a seat uninvited. He leaned eagerly onto Jake’s desk, as if he were arguing in court. “Made the best of it. Baker’s in the bag.”

            Jake raised an eyebrow, glaring. “Oh?”

            “They want to plead,” Velasquez continued, practically gushing, “and I think it’s a good deal.”

            For a very long time Jake said nothing. He leaned back in his chair as Velasquez waited, his expression hopeful but guarded. Once again the DA’s eyes wandered to the clock, with hands that moved on a geologic time scale.

            “No way,” Jake barked, glad to see Velasquez’s expression collapse to confused disappointment. “I need a conviction, not a plea.”

            “What do you mean?” Velasquez stammered, his face turning red as he stifled his outrage. “It’s solid. His attorney’s behind the deal.”

            “The deal’s solid?” Rising, Jake felt completely in control, more than he had for the past several days. “That case is open and shut. I could empanel a jury of nuns and they’d hang him.”

            For a moment, one instant, Velasquez seemed about to object, about to give Jake a piece of his mind, but he swallowed his outrage.

            “All right,” Velasquez said finally. “No deal. I’ll inform opposing counsel.”

            “You mean Doyle is going to inform them,” Jake corrected.

            Defeated, Velasquez nodded. “You think if we go to trial we’re getting a conviction?”

            “Doyle will,” Jake responded. Yet again his gaze wandered back to the clock, but he forced himself to focus on the issue in front of him. Velasquez. Anxious, enthusiastic, impatient, hungry Velasquez.

            “I guess I can see your point,” Velasquez said, rising timidly. “As far as the public is concerned a conviction’s better than a plea. And next year’s … ”

            “… an election year,” Jake interrupted. He refused to look at the clock just over Velasquez’s shoulder. “Yes, I know. Go tell Doyle he’s got Baker again.” 

            His back stiff, Velasquez retreated. As much as he disliked being reversed, he disliked being replaced even more—it showed in his expression. Jake knew the look well, he’d worn one exactly like it many times after encounters with his old boss, the previous DA.

            Velasquez stopped at the threshold and turned, obviously working up to something. Jake waited patiently, making it no easier.

            The junior DA swallowed and licked his lips. “Jake, I know there’s no delicate way to put this, so I’m going to come right out and say it.”

            “You’re wondering who’s going to replace Rosenbaum?” Jake asked. He was glad to see surprise flash across Velasquez’s face—as if he weren’t as easy to read as a children’s book.

            “Well, he was your second,” Velasquez said. “You need a number two. Seriously. There’s a lot of work backing up that no one tells you about.”

            “I know everything that goes on in this office,” Jake growled.

            “With all due respect—” Velasquez began.

            “You want the job?” Jake interrupted.

            “Are you offering it to me?” Velasquez knew his boss too well to give in to hope, but it was there, buried under the smarmy political exterior.

            “No,” Jake snapped. The last thing he needed was to give authority to the office backstabber. Velasquez didn’t move, and Jake’s temper rose again. “Anything else?”

            “Aren’t you going home?”

            “It’s not quitting time, Bobby,” Jake said, turning his attention to the stacks of paper on his desk. “You got something to do that you need me out of the office?”

            “No, no,” Velasquez protested. “It’s just … it’s tonight.”

            “What is?”

            “Reilly Sutton,” Velasquez answered. “His execution. Six p.m.”

            “Oh?” Jake said nonchalantly, his eyes drawn back to the slowly-advancing hands of the clock on the wall. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“What do you owe this guy?” 

            Travis could still hear his wife’s words echo in his ears even though he’d left her back in Austin. Shirley Rojas—she hadn’t taken his last name -  had stared up at him, her green eyes blazing, boring into Travis’s own. 

            “You were done with him years ago, why do you want to revisit the past? What does that case mean to you?”

            Everything, Travis thought, but the word wouldn’t come out. Couldn’t come out. He hadn’t anticipated his wife’s objection, and it made him wonder how much she knew.

            “How do you know they’re even going to let you in?” his wife had demanded, putting herself between him and the front door.

            Travis explained it all—again—and worked his way around her and out the door. Shirley was furious, as mad as he’d ever seen her, but she let him go. When she got on her tiptoes to kiss him goodbye, the tears on her face mixed with his own.

            He put his hand to his cheek, feeling the tracks that had dried two hundred miles ago. She didn’t want him to go, almost demanded he stay, and now that he had arrived, Travis was perfectly willing to admit his wife had been right. His hands shook as he shrugged on the black jacket and fumbled with the black necktie. The sun beating on his back was another penance, righteous judgement for what he’d done. For what he’d allowed to happen.

            He slipped his car keys in his pocket and tossed his sweaty, wrinkled shorts into the back seat. He was now dressed in his courtroom finest after changing changed in the parking lot like he’d been at the beach. Despite the itchy black wool suit, it still wasn’t too late, he could just get in his car and drive off and no one would ever know that he had been here. But a coward avoided pain; a real man drove into the wasteland of his soul, head held high.

            Travis locked his car and glanced at the protestors across the street from the Huntsville Unit, waiting for one of them to recognize him, but none of them did. He tugged at his jacket and took a few deep breaths. This was going to happen, and he was going to be there for it. He walked up the steps and through the gate.

            His passage to the viewing chamber was a blur of forms, instructions, metal detectors, and stern guards. They took his cell phone and inspected his shoes for contraband. Travis allowed himself to be led, threatened, lectured, and finally escorted to the viewing room.

            Tiny, not more than fifteen feet across, the chamber held two rows of chairs. Travis counted ten people, including the corrections officers. No one sat. Through a wall of glass, Travis saw the place where Reilly Sutton would at last face his Maker. The table was smaller than Travis thought it would be, nothing more than a modified hospital gurney, with straps to tie the offender in a position suited for …

            Travis blinked and looked away. Bile rose to the back of his throat, and his stomach wrapped itself into a painful, nauseous ball. As difficult as he imagined this would be, it was already ten times harder—and Sutton hadn’t even been led in yet.

            “It’s never a pleasant sight,” a woman said softly over his right shoulder, “and I’ve been to a few of these.”

            He knew the husky, smoky voice. Christine Morton, political reporter for television, newspaper, and Internet, stood at his side.

            “Been a while, hasn’t it, Travis?” she said, holding her hand out. 

            He hadn’t seen her in person in years, and he was surprised to see her aged very little. A few extra lines around the eyes, any gray hair hidden under the salon blonde, but nothing dramatic, nothing out of place. She seemed nearly the same as the pretty, driven, iconoclast reporter he had encountered years ago at the beginning of the Sutton trial. Time had been kind to the one person Travis hoped would endure every cruelty.

            Travis felt his face getting hot as he tried to ignore her. The only other thing to see, however, was the terrible, empty table on the other side of the glass. After a moment, Travis looked at his shoes, feeling like a child shamed into acting properly.

            “These are the press seats,” Morton said, gesturing at two metal chairs in the back row. 

            “I’m with the family,” Travis mumbled. “Or I would be, if they were coming.”

            Morton’s eyebrows raised but she just pointed at an empty row of chairs on the glass, a sad testament to Sutton’s character, another tragic note in the awful symphony of his life.

            “Would you like to make a statement?” Morton asked. Even here, on this day, she displayed no sense of propriety.

            “This isn’t about me,” Travis hissed. His mouth was dry, and his forehead had broken out in a cold sweat. Why did he think he had to be here?

            Morton took out a small pad and a pencil. “Is there any reason your brother didn’t come?”

            “You’d have to ask him yourself,” Travis replied curtly.

            The officers stirred, and on the other side of the glass a door opened and a gang of guards escorted Reilly Wayne Sutton into the chamber. He had lost weight on death row, his thick neck now shrunken, his once-powerful arms now thin sticks in his white prison uniform. His brown hair was cut short, making his bald spot even more prominent, and his dark, sunken eyes contrasted with his pallid skin. 

            He shuffled between the guards who towered over him, his haunted face catching sight of the table. Sutton pulled back, instinct telling him to try one last time to avoid the inevitable. The guards dragged him forward, lifting him onto the table as if he were a child. Sutton struggled for a moment, then lost all fight as the first of the restraints closed over his ankle. The guard on his right arm pulled the sleeve up, exposing the soft spot at the crook of the elbow, the place where the needle would go. As Sutton surrendered to the process, he turned his head to look through the glass, his pathetic gaze catching Travis’s eye and freezing Travis’s soul.

            “So you don’t have anything to say?” Morton pressed.

            “Show some respect,” Travis spat as he glanced away. He swallowed, his lips pressed tight, as his stomach threatened to rebel. His breath came shallow and fast, close to hyperventilating. He lowered himself into one of the empty chairs and Morton sat directly behind him. 

            On Travis’s side of the glass, a man in a neat suit cleared his throat. It took Travis a moment to recognize the warden, who reached for the switch on an ancient intercom.

            “Reilly Sutton,” he said, formally and with ceremony, “do you have any last words?” Travis expected someone in that position to approach his job with a cold distance, but the warden’s voice caught. His fingers trembled just like Travis’s and his eyes glistened with unshed tears.

            Sutton had been paying attention to the doctor inserting the needle into his arm, but he turned his head away to look out through the glass. Travis had expected Sutton to deliver his last words standing up, but that final dignity was denied him, he had to make his statement on his back, strapped to the instrument of his death.

            “I didn’t live a good life,” Sutton said, and the familiar Central Texas drawl took Travis back years in an instant. “I could have done better. Should have. I know that now.”

            Sutton glanced from the warden to the guards. “I did a lot of bad things. I hurt a lot of people. But what you’re doing ain’t right. It ain’t ever gonna be right, no matter how you try to justify it.”

            Travis’s heart leapt into his throat as Sutton looked directly at him again. Tears welled in Travis’s eyes. Why in God’s name did he think he had to be here?

            Sutton broke the gaze, glanced at the needle in his arm, then nodded once.

            The doctor slowly injected a solution into Sutton’s arm.

            “That’s sodium thiopental,” Morton whispered. “It’s a sedative.”

            Travis nodded; he’d read up on the procedure. But that didn’t make witnessing it easier. He leaned forward, trying to take deeper breaths, trying not to fall over or pass out. Morton slapped a small waxed paper sack into his hand and pressed it there until he took it. She never shifted her gaze from the scene on the other side of the glass.

            In less than a minute Sutton’s eyes fluttered, and his body relaxed as if he had just fallen asleep. The doctor injected a second solution into Sutton’s arm.

            “Pancuronium bromide,” Morton said softly. “Stops breathing.”

            Travis knew he should have been angry with her for talking during this moment, but now he needed something, even Christine Morton’s words, to put limits on this experience. He hadn’t been in the vet’s office when they put down family pets, but he was here now. He was watching a man die.

            Sutton’s chest stopped moving. The doctor injected a third solution.

            “Potassium chloride,” Morton said, and Travis was surprised to hear her voice quiver. “Stops the heart.”

            On the table, Sutton didn’t change. He didn’t jerk, didn’t convulse, didn’t cry out. The doctor checked his heartbeat, did the various tests to make certain a person was dead, and began filling out a form on a clipboard.

            “Reilly Wayne Sutton expired at 6:09 p.m.,” the warden said. 

            Morton diligently jotted the information down. She was trying to project a calm, professional attitude, but her hand shook as she absently twirled her hair around her finger. She rose, putting her things into her purse with a deliberate rhythm, a slow-motion repetition of her regular habit, as if she didn’t trust herself to move too fast.

            Travis tried to stand, he tried to do like Morton did and pretend this was routine. But his legs refused to obey him. He tried to push up with his arms but they fell limp and his hands shook uncontrollably.

            The doctor and the guards began preparing Sutton’s body to make the journey to wherever it was bound. Travis heard the others filing out, and he knew the guards waited for him, but he couldn’t stand, not just yet. It was difficult to wrap his mind around: five minutes ago Sutton had been alive, speaking, thinking, breathing, and now he wasn’t any of those things. He made the transition silently, and, Travis hoped, painlessly. 

            “We should go,” Morton said gently.

            Nodding, Travis tried to stand again. He made it halfway to his feet before his legs gave out and he collapsed back into the chair. His vision blurred as nausea overcame him. Someone grabbed his head and pushed it forward between his knees.

            Travis coughed and gasped and vomited what little was in his stomach into the paper sack Morton had given him. Then he retched again. And again. He heaved and choked until there was nothing left, until his stomach muscles cramped and tears streamed down his face.

            “And that’s that,” Morton said, her hand on Travis’s shoulder.

            When he looked up, the execution chamber was vacant. Sutton was gone.