Through The Valley Yates, B.D. (mobi reader .TXT) 📖

scrolling to get past the initial listings of irrelevant articles, most of them pertaining to some video game he'd never heard of and a few others linking to scenes from mob movies. He'd all but given up when he finally saw something promising:

Alleged Hitman Royce "Roy" Shirk Killed In...

  Emmit clicked the link and was redirected to the website of a small newspaper in Tampa Bay, Florida. He turned the phone around to show Kelly what he'd found, and the color drained from her face. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he read it out loud in a papery voice.

"Alleged hitman Royce "Roy" Shirk killed in explosion," he read. "Roy Shirk, the man accused of being the notorious contract killer known as 'The Shark', was killed late Saturday night when an improvised explosive device detonated beneath a vehicle near the intersection of Drayton Street and Grant Avenue. Tampa Bay Police refused comment, citing the defamation lawsuit Shirk and his associates had filed following his arrest in 1996 for the murder of casino mogul Patrick 'Patches' Thiel.  An anonymous source told this reporter that Shirk's body had been found beneath the vehicle, and that Shirk may have been arming the vehicle to explode when it detonated too soon. Royce Shirk was never convicted of any crimes, although the evidence presented against him was compelling."

  Kelly looked like she was going to be sick.  There was no photo, but something told him he had found his man.

  "It goes on to talk a little about who he was," Emmit said, dragging his finger up the screen and scanning the rest of the article. "It says he had a master's degree in engineering. See? I told you he was smart."

  "And you're sure that's him?" Kelly asked, her face hopeful that maybe Emmit was wrong. He shrugged.

  "I can't be sure, but it sounds pretty damn similar. He never told me anything about himself, but I think a homicidal engineer would be the sort of person to figure out how to build a cabin and weapons from nothing but wood, rocks and old clothes."

  Emmit felt a sudden heaviness in his heart, hit the "back" button a few times, and tapped the blank search bar.

  "I'm gonna see if I can find Tim," he said, and typed "Reverend Tim Barnette killed". This time, the search results were much easier to navigate. The article he found even had a picture of the Rev attached to it, and seeing his handsome smile again tore all the fresh scabs open. However brief his relationship with Tim had been, Emmit had considered him a good friend, almost like an army buddy, their bond forged in battle. Watching him die, suffering what now seemed to be his second death, was a mind scar he would never forget.

"Found him," Emmit said somberly. Kelly looked terrified, as if she had been dreading any more evidence that his journey through Hell had actually happened. If Emmit had just been experiencing his brain shutting down, firing on all cylinders as it fought for oxygen, what were the odds of him knowing the identities of two other people he'd never met, also dead, whom he was able to locate in real life? It had suddenly become very real to her, and as she tried to place her cooling coffee mug back on the table Emmit could hear her shaking hands rattling it against the tabletop.

He showed her the article, the headline of which read:

Disgraced Reverend Timothy Gene Barnette Killed In Car Accident

  "Jesus, Emmit," Kelly said anxiously, her hand covering her mouth. "You told me he was a drunk driver, you knew that."

"Because I met him, babe," he said, and began to read the second article.

"The Reverend Timothy Gene Barnette, who was excommunicated from his congregation two years ago following a drunk driving incident, died Tuesday in a second automobile accident. Barnette served a 16-month sentence in Mansfield Penitentiary following an accident in which he failed to stop at an intersection, striking a vehicle driven by 38-year-old Stephanie Corcoran, who survived. Her daughters, 3-year-old Stacia Corcoran and 5-year-old Kimberly Corcoran, were pronounced dead at the scene. Tuesday night, Barnette was heading south on U.S. 23 when his vehicle left the road and crashed through the guard rail. His vehicle was found by highway patrolmen, partially submerged in a small pond. Barnette was pronounced dead at the scene. Toxicology reports indicate that Barnette's blood alcohol content registered as .16."

  Emmit closed the article and let his phone drop heavily to the table, the silence between he and his wife long and heavy.

  "It happened," Kelly said, finally breaking it. Emmit nodded, his eyes locked on hers. She rose from the table, hypnotized and zombie like, and circled to sit on his lap. Her hand found his chest again, where a small circular mound of scar tissue jutted through the cotton of his shirt. She rubbed at it absently. Emmit wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his forehead on her shoulder.

  "I guess I better make sure I'm a good man from now on," he said, running a hand up and down the slight hills and valleys of her spine. He had learned years before to never mention a woman's weight, but he had noticed lately (now that he had the honor and privilege of touching her again) that she'd lost a considerable amount of weight during their separation. Apparently, she hadn't been happy without him at all. That was a pleasant surprise, and a far cry from the mental image he'd often tortured himself with at night while sleeping alone.

  "You are a good man, Emmit," she said, ruffling his hair. "You'd be in jail if you weren't."

  "If that place exists," he said, staring out the window at a cloud of sparrows flocking frantically together across the newly risen run,