Read Online Through the Flames by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins - Free Book Online Page B

you’d get the word and believe it was me, and that would be the end of it. But now that you told the cops it wasn’t me, it won’t be long before they figure out who the victim was, and guess who looks guilty? I mean, the guy was found in my place in my clothes. If it’s not me, it has to be someone I murdered and made to look like me, right?”
    Lionel nodded slowly. “So, you’re hiding out from everybody. The dead guy’s men. The cops. Anybody who might know you and spread the word you’re alive.”
    “Exactly.”
    “André, I never told the cops it wasn’t your body I saw.”
    André stood quickly. “What? You didn’t? Are you sure?”
    “’Course I’m sure. I was spooked by that place, and I was so shocked it wasn’t you that I just left.”
    “You didn’t even tell the coroner?”
    “The only people who know are my friends and my pastor.”
    André clapped and danced. “Oh, man!” he shouted. “I love you!”
    Lionel sat and put both hands atop his head. “I don’t know what you’re so happy about. No matter how you look at it, you were there when a guy was murdered. You’re in on it. You’re as guilty as LeRoy.”
    “Technically, legally, yeah, I guess,” André said, and the full realization hit Lionel how far gone his uncle truly was. “But don’t you see? LeRoy’s really got nothing hanging over my head! I can go live in your house with those guys. My debt is gone because the guy I owed is dead. LeRoy can’t keep me hidden away because there’s no need. I can just use a new name, get new papers, and nobody’s the wiser.”
    Lionel suddenly felt very old. André was more than twice his age, and as usual, André seemed to know less than he did. How long could he get by after coming out of hiding before someone who knew him put the word out that he wasn’t dead after all? Sure, the cops had a lot of other stuff to do with all the chaos that had come from the disappearances. But no one was going to look the other way when there had been an obvious murder. An apparent suicide victim is in the morgue, and yet people see him on the streets? Lionel was amazed at the shortsightedness, the stupidity of his uncle. More, though, he was heartbroken at André’s complete lack of guilt or sense of responsibility for what had happened. Maybe the guy who died was a bad guy who deserved it. He had probably killed people himself. But that didn’t make his death any less of a murder, and André was in it up to his ears.
    Lionel stood and moved to the door. “Tell LeRoy what you told me,” André said. “I mean, I’ll call him, but he won’t believe me unless you tell him too. Then I’ll be back at your house before you know it.”
    Lionel just shook his head as he began the unlocking routine again. “Uncle André,” he said, turning to face him, “you have only one chance. You have to tell what you know about the murder, admit you were part of it.”
    André laughed. “Yeah, good plan. I don’t go to heaven when Jesus comes back, I have to live through the Tribulation, I’m on my way to hell, and you want me to spend what’s left of my miserable life in prison.”
    “What I want is for you to do what’s right.”
    “I’ve never done what’s right,” André said. And for the first time that evening, Lionel thought André was right on the money.

SEVEN
Getting Closer
    I T WAS getting late. Judd was tired and knew the others had to be too. He had sat in that idling car for more than an hour, including when the young black woman showed up alone and told Judd that Lionel would be down soon.
    “Is he all right?” Judd asked her as Ryan slid off the backseat and crouched on the floor.
    “Yeah,” Talia said. “He’s all right as long as he’s with his uncle. André ain’t gonna do nothin’ to his own blood. And you can tell your little spy in the back there that he can come out of hiding. Next time LeRoy sees him on our property, though, he’s going to be in deep