Advocate For The Dead (Complete Novel)

Chapter 25: A Horde Of Ghosts

I drove down the dead end street where Sheriff Deacon lived. I parked the car outside his house and saw he was sitting on the front porch waiting. His police issue pistol sat beside him within reach. I walked up the porch, my eyes never leaving his. My gun, now fully loaded, rested in its holster under my jacket. Maybe I should have shown up with guns blazing, but I'd acted rashly too much lately. This time I had to be sure. I stopped at the foot of the steps leading up to the porch.

Deacon nodded in greeting and sighed. "It was the ring, wasn't it? That's what finally gave it away."

"I killed an innocent man because of you."

He shook his head. "You killed an innocent man because of yourself. You were like a cannon. A stick of dynamite ready to explode. I just gave you an outlet for all that anger."

"Why Dexter?"

He shrugged. "Dexter was making my little baby girl unhappy. He was trying to get busy with her friend Summer. Imagine, a man his age.."

"And so when Dexter comes back, he gets even with you by hanging your daughter from a tree house."

"What goes around comes around, I guess. Karma's a bitch, they say." He placed both his hands in his lap. "So, did you get him?"

"Yeah, I got him."

"I knew you would. When I realized he'd come back from the dead for revenge, I tried everything I could to set you on him. I knew nobody else could take him out. You know, I used to think it was crazy, the word on the street that you could see ghosts, but I guess that worked in our favor, didn't it?"

"Why kill Lacey, Deacon? What did she ever do to you, except turn to you when she needed someone? She didn't deserve that."

"Come on Cole, I needed a fall guy. Things were getting too close. It was only a matter of time before you found something to link me to the Kaleidoscope Killings. Dexter was my fall guy, but I needed someone to take him out before he could prove his innocence. You were already distraught over Lacey leaving you. With her dead, I knew that would send you blindly to wherever I pointed the evidence." He grinned. "You didn't let me down. You were the perfect killer."

"You killed Lacey just so you could send me after your dupe?"

"It worked too, didn't it?"

"You bastard. You are sick. It's bad enough you were the real Kaleidoscope Killer. You killed all those innocent women. You went around with us as we investigated your own crimes. But worse still was the game you played with those who cared about you."

"Cared about me? Who? Lacey? Come on man, I was just a replacement for you. Nobody ever gave a damn about me."

"What about Carla? You put your own daughter in the middle of your game. You had me kill Dex. He killed her. He made her friend Summer jump to her death. He killed off everyone we knew on the force just to work his way back to us. My God, can't you see the madness and murder you caused?"

"Yeah, cool, isn't it?"

"I'm taking you in, Deacon. You have to pay for what you have done."

"I pay, you pay, Cole. After all, YOU are the one who physically pulled the trigger and murdered an innocent man."

He was right. If he went down, he would take me with him. It was down to just us two. And we were at a stalemate. "Give me your gun, Deacon."

He laughed and picked it up. He turned it over in his hand and then pointed it at me. I stood my ground.

"Aren't you going to draw on me, Cole?"