Secrets did not fall from heaven like divine revelation; they slithered through the cracks, whispered on liquor-laced breath. And Amos DeWitt had his own serpent in Jericho Bend.
Jed Parsons was a drunk, a man who spent more nights in the corner of Doyle’s Saloon than he did in his own bed. But the town never paid him much mind. After all, a man who drowns himself in whiskey can barely keep his own life together, let alone meddle in another’s.
That was what made him perfect.
Jed heard everything. The way a wife hesitated too long before answering her husband’s questions. The extra coin slipped into the blacksmith’s hand to keep certain repairs quiet. The murmurs of debts unpaid, of midnight visitors slipping in through back doors.
And when his cup was full and his purse was light, Amos was always there with a few bills and a listening ear.
“People talk when they think no one is listening,” Amos had told him once. “And you, Jed, you are no one.”
Jed had laughed, the sound bitter and cracked like old leather. But he had taken the money. And he had kept talking.
That was how Amos knew which sins to drag into the light. That was how he could stand at the pulpit and let his sermons twist like knives into the ribs of his congregation, forcing them to kneel in penance, to shiver under the weight of God’s all-seeing eye.
But now, someone else was watching. Someone else was listening.
And for the first time, Amos DeWitt felt the cold touch of judgment creeping toward him.