Rewriting the Apocalypse novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: What He Owes

Eli gave his statement the next morning in a sheriff's conference room with no windows.

Jo sat in the corner chair with a paper cup of coffee she did not drink.

Her eyes were still bloodshot from the roof.

The county prosecutor sat across from him with a recorder between them and a legal pad full of questions.

"Start with the first person you drove to Corwin," she said.

"A man listed in the file as Subject One," Eli said. "Sixty-one days ago, in the rain."

"What did you tell him?"

"A memory study. Three nights, two hundred dollars a night."

"And the second?"

"A woman, nineteen days ago. She had a bad knee and I carried her bag."

"And the third?"

"Eleven days ago. He asked me whether the parking was free."

His voice stayed level, and he kept his hands flat on the table, bare.

Jo saw the muscle in his jaw working.

He gave the prosecutor every name he knew, every date and every plate number.

He gave her Kessling's lawyer, the dispensary key code, the dock schedule and the name of the van company.

He gave her the room where he had signed his first contract, and what the lawyer had said as he handed him a pen.

He did not say one word about the first life.

He did not ask for anything.

At the end, the prosecutor turned off the recorder and looked at Jo.

"Ms. Hetzel, he has confessed to transporting at least six people into unlawful confinement. The law calls that a serious crime."

"I know."

"He also cooperated, in full, at some risk. A judge may release him to a responsible custodian. Would you stand for him?"

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