The Devil Casts a Long Shadow- Chapter Two: Of Idle Acts

When Jena arrived home shortly after one in the morning, she considered following her original plan and sleeping in the truck. The house was still ablaze with lights, and the music's thudding bass carried across the lawn. Cars and trucks were scattered over the property, their owners apparently unconcerned with where they had parked.

For a moment, she sat behind the wheel, staring at the spectacle.

Then she switched off the engine.

She had spent the weekend watching Thallea manufacture grievances and find reasons to behave unpleasantly toward everyone around her. Jena had no desire to become that sort of person herself, skulking around her own property to avoid an encounter that might prove uncomfortable.

It was her home, too, even if Nate seldom allowed her to feel that way.

She gathered her belongings and went inside.

The kitchen was crowded with KT employees and their dates, several of whom turned to stare when she entered. Conversations faltered, followed by whispers and poorly concealed smirks.

Jena offered a polite smile in acknowledgment.

Nobody returned it.

One of the women leaned toward her companion and murmured something that prompted a little burst of laughter. Jena pretended not to notice.

She had become accustomed to being treated as an unwelcome guest in her own home.

There was something almost ceremonial about it, the way Nate's admirers gathered beneath his roof, feasted upon his generosity, and treated his wife as though she were an intruder trespassing upon sacred ground.

They reminded her of a congregation assembled to honor a particularly vulgar god.

She made her way through the kitchen without stopping.

From the den came the thunderous sounds of an action movie playing on the television.

Jena assumed Nate and Turner were watching it, since both their trucks were parked on the lawn.

As she passed the upstairs living room, she glanced inside and found herself grinning despite everything.

Nate had installed an enormous disco ball above the temporary dance floor, and a DJ was stationed beneath it, surrounded by speakers and flashing lights.

The whole arrangement was spectacularly excessive.

That was Nate's particular talent. He could transform almost any occasion into an extravagant monument to himself. Even his most ordinary celebrations had to resemble something staged for an audience of thousands.

Jena sometimes found his ridiculousness genuinely amusing.

It was one of the few qualities about him that had survived their marriage without becoming entirely unbearable.

The disco ball turned slowly overhead, scattering little fragments of light across the walls and ceiling. For an instant, the shifting reflections reminded her of sparks rising through smoke.

Then she continued toward the den.

On the terrace, Chris, Turner's favorite foreman, was leaning against the railing with a vape pen in his hand. Beside him stood Yriella, one of the newest hires at the KT office, allowing herself to be draped beneath his arm.

Jena glanced at them and continued walking.

It irritated her that she had never been permitted to work for KT Construction.

The company operated like a good old boys' club, although Turner made certain to keep its offices stocked with attractive young women. Every few years, he recruited another handful of recent high school graduates to serve as secretaries, paying them considerably more than Jena earned at the church's after-school childcare facility.

Nate always insisted that working together would be bad for their marriage.

Jena suspected he was right, although not for the reasons he offered.

It would have been pleasant to earn a living wage, even if it meant sharing an office with some of her husband's conquests.

Nate kept their finances entirely separate. They had no joint bank accounts, and virtually every significant asset was held in his name or through his business interests.

Jena was permitted to participate in his life, but only on terms he dictated.

Early in their marriage, she had raised the possibility of sharing their finances more equitably. Nate's response had been so hostile that she never brought it up again.

It was one of the few subjects he considered permanently closed.

She could live beneath his roof without paying rent. That was the concession he allowed her, and he expected her to appreciate it.

The arrangement reminded Jena of the stories she had heard in church about bargains made with the Devil.

The unfortunate soul received exactly what had been promised, only to discover that the promise had been worded so carefully that it offered no protection whatsoever.

She had been given a home.

She had never been promised a place within it.

Turner did not so much as glance toward Jena when she entered the den.

He was sitting on the couch, absorbed in his phone, while the television blared in front of him.

Nate lay facedown beside him, his head turned toward the cushions.

Jena approached with the weary amusement of someone accustomed to finding her husband incapacitated after his own celebrations.

She sat beside him and reached for his arm, intending to move it so she could settle more comfortably.

His skin was cold.

Not merely cool from the air conditioning, but unnaturally cold, with a clammy stillness that made her recoil.

"Nate?"

She touched him again.

Something was wrong.

Jena rolled him onto his back.

There was vomit down the front of his half-unbuttoned shirt. His face had taken on a dreadful bluish color, and his lips were dark purple.

For one suspended instant, she could not make sense of what she was seeing.

Then she noticed the foam gathering at his mouth.

"Turner! Something's wrong with Nate!"

Her voice cracked as she struggled to breathe.

Turner barely looked up from his phone.

Jena shook Nate's shoulder.

"Nate! Wake up!"

His head moved loosely against the cushions. His eyes were rolled back, showing little more than the whites.

There was no response.

"TURNER!"

This time, Turner leaned forward and slapped Nate's leg.

"Hey, man. Come on."

Nate's arm slipped from the couch and hung motionless toward the floor.

Turner stared at it.

The expression on his face changed slowly, as though his mind were reluctant to accept what his eyes had already understood.

For several terrible seconds, neither of them moved.

The television continued roaring.

Somewhere upstairs, the music pounded on, the disco ball turning above a room full of people who had no idea that their host might already be dying.

Jena had the dreadful impression that the house itself was celebrating.

"We've got to get him to the hospital!" she cried.

Turner finally sprang to his feet.

He rushed toward the terrace and shouted for Chris.

The foreman came inside, took one look at Nate, and immediately began issuing instructions.

Chris was a broad, powerful man, accustomed to hauling heavy materials on construction sites. He lifted Nate's five-foot-nine, two-hundred-pound body with alarming ease, carrying him over his shoulder as they hurried outside.

Jena followed, her hands trembling so badly that she nearly dropped the truck keys.

They loaded Nate into the back of his truck.

Jena climbed behind the wheel. She was the only one sober enough to drive.

Turner called the emergency department to warn them they were coming, while Chris began performing CPR in the back.

"Come on, Nate," Chris muttered between efforts. "Don't you do this."

Jena floored the accelerator.

The truck surged onto the highway.

The hospital was nearly fifty minutes away under ordinary circumstances.

They made the journey in twenty-four.

Jena remembered little of the drive afterward.

There were flashes of headlights, the shriek of the engine, Turner's voice on the phone, and

Chris repeatedly calling Nate's name.

At one point, she glanced into the rearview mirror and saw her husband's limp body beneath Chris's hands.

His face was almost unrecognizable.

The sight brought an unexpected thought into her mind.

For years, Nate had seemed larger than life, a man who dominated every room he entered and demanded that others arrange themselves around his desires.

Now he looked like a discarded thing.

All his money, influence, and carefully cultivated importance had abandoned him.

Death, it seemed, was unimpressed by his credentials.

A medical team was waiting when they reached the emergency entrance.

They pulled Nate from the truck and rushed him inside, disappearing through a set of doors before Jena could follow.

She stood in the entrance for a moment, staring after them.

Then someone directed her to the front desk to complete the necessary paperwork.

Turner and Chris went to the waiting room, where Chris spoke with a nurse about what they knew of Nate's condition.

Jena struggled to answer even the simplest questions.

Her husband's date of birth. His medications. His medical history.

Things she ought to have known without hesitation.

Yet Nate had spent so many years excluding her from the practical details of his life that she was uncertain of some of the answers.

She was his wife, but in moments like this, she felt little more informed than a stranger.

The hospital was brightly lit and unpleasantly cold. Its fluorescent lights washed the color from everything, making the corridors resemble some sterile antechamber between the living and the dead.

Jena took a seat and stared at the floor.

She had not yet begun to comprehend what had happened when two police officers approached.

One introduced himself as Officer Martin.

Jena immediately stood, expecting news about Nate.

Instead, the officer asked whether they could speak privately.

"There was another incident at your residence tonight," he explained.

Jena stared at him.

"What incident?"

Martin exchanged a glance with his partner.

"After you left, officers went to the property to speak with some of the people who attended the party. They discovered a deceased young woman in an upstairs bedroom."

Jena felt the floor shift beneath her.

"What?"

"Her name was Amber Cortes. She was a local college student."

The officer paused.

"She was found on the bed in your master bedroom. It appears she may have suffered a drug overdose, although the medical examiner will have to determine the cause of death."

Jena looked at Turner.

For once, he seemed genuinely at a loss for words.

Their bedroom.

Their satin duvet.

A dead girl lying in the bed where Jena ordinarily slept.

The details arrived in her mind separately, refusing to assemble themselves into anything comprehensible.

She pictured the room as she had left it, the neatly made bed, the curtains, the little arrangements of ordinary possessions that marked it as her own.

Now she imagined a stranger's body sprawled across the bedding.

The thought was so grotesquely intimate that she felt physically ill.

She wondered how long Amber had been lying there.

How many people had been drinking, laughing, and dancing beneath the same roof while a young woman lay dying upstairs.

Had anyone heard her calling for help?

Had anyone bothered to check?

Jena's limbs began to tingle, then go numb.

She gripped the arm of her chair.

Officer Martin continued asking questions, but his words seemed to come from a great distance.

Turner began answering for her.

Jena suddenly raised her hand.

"No."

Her voice sounded strange to her own ears.

Turner stopped.

"We need a lawyer," she said, forcing the words out carefully. "We don't know the facts of what happened, and I don't want either of us making statements about things we didn't witness."

Martin studied her.

"Ma'am, we're trying to establish what happened at your house."

"I understand that. But I wasn't there for the party, and I don't know anything about this girl."

Her voice trembled.

"We need legal counsel before answering further questions."

Turner recovered himself almost immediately.

"She's right."

He turned to Chris.

"Go home. Don't discuss any of this with anyone until Roman gets involved."

Chris nodded.

The instruction would undoubtedly spread through KT Construction before sunrise.

Turner did not need to threaten anyone or make some grand announcement. His employees understood the importance of protecting the company, and most were accustomed to following his directions without question.

The officers exchanged another look.

As they walked away, Jena heard Martin mutter beneath his breath.

"Goddamn rich pricks."

She might have resented the remark under different circumstances.

Instead, she found herself wondering whether he was entirely wrong.

A girl was dead in her bedroom.

Her husband was fighting for his life.

And the first organized response from the people around her was to summon lawyers and ensure that nobody spoke out of turn.

Jena understood the necessity of legal representation.

What frightened her was how naturally everyone else seemed to slip into the machinery of protecting themselves.

The dead girl had already become a liability.

A doctor emerged shortly afterward.

Jena and Turner rose to meet him.

Nate had been temporarily stabilized, he explained, but his condition remained critical.

He had suffered a heart attack followed by a stroke, apparently after using a dangerous combination of cocaine and an opioid commonly known as a speedball.

Jena stared at the doctor.

"A speedball?"

The word seemed absurdly out of place.

It belonged to police reports, crime dramas, and the lives of people she had never expected to know personally.

Not to her husband.

Turner winced beside her.

Jena noticed.

It was a small reaction, but unmistakable.

She turned toward him.

"You knew?"

Turner looked away.

The doctor continued explaining Nate's condition before either could pursue the exchange.

Nate required specialized treatment unavailable at their hospital. Arrangements were being made to transfer him to a larger medical center in Colorado, where specialists could evaluate him for urgent intervention.

Even with treatment, the prognosis remained uncertain.

There was a risk of permanent neurological damage.

There was also the possibility that he would not survive.

Jena listened without speaking.

The information was too enormous to absorb.

She had spent years wishing Nate would leave her alone, wishing she could escape his influence, wishing for some opportunity to reclaim the life she had surrendered.

Now, without warning, she was confronted with the possibility that he might never speak to her again.

She felt neither relief nor the overwhelming grief she imagined a devoted wife ought to feel.

Instead, there was a dreadful emptiness.

She had no idea what she wanted.

She only knew that she had never wished for this.

She asked Turner to find out whatever else he could from the doctor while she attempted to contact Nate's family.

His mother, Ivy-Mae, lived with her second husband, Jett, in a retirement community in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. His biological father, Gus, lived in New Mexico with his extended family.

Jena had tried calling both households earlier, but neither had answered.

She did not blame them.

It was three in the morning on a Sunday.

She left urgent messages explaining that Nate had been hospitalized and asking them to call her immediately.

She considered contacting a lawyer herself, then dismissed the thought.

Turner would handle that in his own time.

He had the money, connections, and professional relationships to manage whatever legal complications arose.

Jena was merely a little-known housewife married to a man whose business affairs had always been kept beyond her reach.

She could almost hear Nate telling her not to interfere.

Even unconscious, he seemed capable of dictating the terms of her involvement.

When Turner returned to the waiting room, there was nothing more they could accomplish at the hospital.

Nate's transfer was being arranged, and they would be notified when it was completed.

They walked outside to Turner's truck.

The predawn air was cold.

Jena climbed into the passenger seat and sat with her hands folded tightly in her lap.

For several moments, neither spoke.

Then she turned toward him.

"What happened tonight, Turner?"

He stared through the windshield.

"Everybody started coming around nine. We had barbecue catered in, got the DJ set up, that kind of thing."

Jena waited.

"Nate was having a good time."

"What happened after that?"

Turner shifted uncomfortably.

"Some girls came over from the barbecue place. Nate took one upstairs."

Jena felt her stomach tighten.

"He was fooling around with her in the bedroom. Came back downstairs afterward and sat on the couch. Far as I know, that's where he stayed."

Jena looked away.

It all fit.

A few days earlier, after she told Nate she would be spending the weekend with her family, she had noticed that he refilled his erectile dysfunction prescription.

At the time, she had suspected what he intended.

She had simply chosen not to think about it.

Now a young woman was dead in her bed, and Nate was lying in a hospital with his brain and heart severely damaged.

Turner cleared his throat.

"I think she's the one who died."

The words settled between them.

Jena closed her eyes.

She wondered what Amber Cortes had imagined when she agreed to attend the party.

Perhaps she had expected an evening of free food, alcohol, and entertainment at the home of a wealthy local businessman.

Perhaps Nate had charmed her, made her laugh, promised her something, or simply offered the flattering attention of a man accustomed to getting what he wanted.

Jena would never know.

What she did know was that Amber had entered the house alive and had been found dead in a room belonging to a woman she had never met.

There was something unspeakably obscene about it.

Nate had turned their marriage into a convenience, their home into a playground, and their bedroom into a place where a stranger had taken her final breath.

Jena thought of the enormous disco ball turning upstairs.

The catered food.

The laughing guests.

The expensive decorations.

It had all the grotesque excess of a feast held in honor of some ancient pagan idol, with the worshippers so consumed by their pleasures that they failed to notice the sacrifice taking place in the adjoining chamber.

She shuddered.

"Call Roman," she said.

Turner glanced toward her.

"Roman?"

"The lawyer. The one KT keeps on retainer."

He nodded.

"Yeah. I'll call him."

"This is going to get ugly."

Turner did not disagree.

Jena stared at the dark windshield.

It occurred to her that Nate's birthday celebration had been intended as a monument to his success.

Instead, it might become the occasion that destroyed everything he had built.

There was a terrible symmetry to it.

A man who had spent his life taking whatever pleased him had finally indulged in something that might cost him everything.

But Amber had paid a far greater price.

That was what made the whole affair so dreadful.

The consequences of evil rarely confined themselves to the people who committed it.

They spread outward, consuming strangers, families, and anyone unfortunate enough to stand nearby.

By the time they returned to Meadow Partings, the police were still at the barndominium, collecting evidence and examining the property.

Jena could see patrol vehicles in the distance.

The house remained brightly illuminated.

From the road, it resembled a great, vulgar shrine whose congregation had fled after discovering that their god was mortal.

She had no desire to enter.

The thought of officers searching through her belongings was humiliating, but the idea of walking into the bedroom where Amber had died was unbearable.

Turner took her to his house instead.

He retrieved the keys to one of his older cars and handed them to her.

"Take this. Use it as long as you need."

Jena accepted them.

Neither discussed the obvious implications of her returning home.

The property was now part of an investigation. The people who had attended the party would be questioned, and Nate's reputation was about to become the subject of considerable scrutiny.

For the time being, Jena would be better off keeping her distance.

Turner was brief with her, which she appreciated.

He was already thinking about lawyers, employees, business interests, and the consequences that might follow.

She could almost see him sorting the night's horrors into separate categories of financial and legal exposure.

There was something coldly efficient about it.

Nate was gravely ill.

Amber was dead.

Yet the company still existed, its contracts remained in force, and the machinery of commerce would continue operating.

Turner would see to that.

Jena thanked him and climbed into the borrowed car.

She intended to drive toward Colorado, where Nate would be transferred.

There was nothing left for her to do in Meadow Partings.

She wanted to see her husband, understand what had happened, and somehow put the entire nightmare behind them.

Perhaps Nate would survive.

Perhaps Amber's death would be explained as a tragic accident.

Perhaps the lawyers would untangle the consequences, the police would finish their investigation, and life would eventually settle back into something resembling normalcy.

Jena clung to those possibilities because the alternatives were too terrible to contemplate.

She started the engine.

Behind her, Turner's house stood dark and silent.

Ahead lay the highway, stretching westward beneath a sky that had not yet begun to lighten.

She had spent years imagining that evil announced itself through violence, hatred, or some monstrous appetite that ordinary people would instinctively recognize.

Now she understood that it could also arrive dressed for a birthday party.

It could laugh over catered barbecue, dance beneath a disco ball, and exchange flirtatious glances across a crowded room.

It could wear expensive clothes, employ respectable people, and have a lawyer on retainer.

It could even possess the decency to call an ambulance after the damage was done.

Perhaps that was the Devil's greatest deception.

He did not need to appear among the wicked with horns and a tail.

He could simply allow them to enjoy themselves, knowing that pleasure without conscience would eventually accomplish his work.

Jena drove toward the distant hospital, believing that the worst of the night was behind her.

She wanted nothing more than to see Nate alive and put this chapter of their marriage to rest forever.

But Hell was not a place one escaped merely by leaving the scene of the suffering.

And the Devil, once invited into a home, was seldom in any hurry to leave.