Black Lightning Read Free Page A

amazement to the growing cacophony of protest. Were there really people who thought a man who had been convicted of murdering and dissecting a ten-year-old girl could be rehabilitated?
    How could anyone insist that Kraven was innocent in the face of all the evidence against him?
    Evidence that Anne Jeffers had recounted over and over again during the years she had covered this case.
    Evidence that Richard Kraven coldly insisted had been concocted, constructed, manipulated, or planted for the sole purpose of convicting him of crimes of which he was totally innocent.
    Not, of course, that Kraven had ever been able to present evidence of the nefarious plot that he insisted had made nearly a dozen separate states conspire to frame him. Anne was familiar enough with the paranoid mind to know that motive never entered into the certainty of persecution.
    The persecution was simply there.
    And Richard Kraven—to Anne’s mind the personification of the handsome and charming sociopath—had been able to convince thousands of people that the persecution was real and he would be executed wrongly.
    He’s guilty. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Anne told herself, consciously straightening her back as she turned once more to gaze at her reflection in the warped metal above the sink. Richard Kraven had been tried, convicted, and sentenced, and it was the wisdom not only of the judge who had heard the case, but also of the appeals court that had reviewed it, that Richard Kraven should die today.
    And she would watch the execution, and she would not shudder as the executioner threw the switch. Yet even as she steeled herself for what was to come, her eyes burned and her vision blurred with tears.
    As she pulled a rough paper towel from the dispenser on the wall to blot the dampness under her eyes, a rap sounded at the door, immediately followed by a voice Anne recognized as belonging to the warden’s assistant.
    “Mrs. Jeffers? He wants to see you.”
    Crumpling the paper towel and dropping it into the wastebasket, Anne brusquely ran her fingers through her hair, glanced briefly at her reflection, then opened the door.
    “The warden?” she asked. “Why does he want to see me?”
    The assistant hesitated for a second, looked confused, then shook her head. “It’s not Mr. Rustin. It’s Richard Kraven. You’re on the list of people he wants to talk to this morning.”
    Anne felt a tightening in her belly as she entered the pressroom. Why would Richard Kraven want to talk to her today? What could he possibly have to say that he hadn’t already said in the numerous interviews she’d already conducted with him over the years? Was it possible that finally, at the last minute, he was going to confess? As the questions tumbled through her mind she became aware that the sound of fingers tapping keyboards had ceased. Silence fell over the pressroom as all her colleagues turned to look at her.
    Once again she steeled herself.
    If she could watch him die, certainly she could also listen to whatever he wanted to tell her before it happened.
    “All right,” she said to the assistant, who had followed her. Immediately, she wondered whether she’d spoken the words too loudly in the silence of the room. “Now?”
    The assistant shrugged. “I’m not sure. I was just told to bring you to the office. Mr. Rustin thought you might want to wait there.”
    Anne hesitated, then saw the other reporters already starting to formulate the questions they would ask her to relay to Richard Kraven. For a moment she felt a flash of annoyance, then realized that if someone else had been summoned to Kraven’s presence, she too would be scribbling down a final question in the hope of getting one last exclusive out of the story.
    But not now. Not this morning. As she walked through the room, she held up her hand against the proffered scraps of paper and the clamor of entreaties. At the door, she turned to face her colleagues. “I’m only going to listen to him,”