Pursue

by Vella Munn

  “Does that concern you?”

  Zed focused on Hank, who’d asked the question. “I can’t prove I’m innocent, plus she sure as hell will never believe me.”

  “That’s the impression we got from someone who told us what your childhood was like,” Niko said. “Did you ever talk to any of your teachers about that? You didn’t come to me.”

  “Why would I? There’s nothing anyone could have done.”

  “That isn’t true. If you were being abused—”

  “Her word against mine, and my old man not standing up for me. Look, that’s behind me. I just want to get on with my life.”

  “By moving from here to an apartment?” Hank asked. “Do you think that’s all you’ll need?”

  “What are you saying?” Zed started picking at something on his sweatpants. The gesture reminded her of how his father had worked the bar table. “You’re trying to get me to confess—do you really remember me, Miss Fox? You never said a word to me.”

  Her throat tightened. “If I didn’t I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to exclude you, but they have me working with a particular group of students.”

  “I know. The smart ones, the ones going to college.”

  It took willpower not to walk over to him and wrap her arms as best she could around his broad shoulders.

  “College isn’t the only route to success.” She winced at the inadequate words. “Your neighbor told us you have a knack with machinery. Mechanics will always be needed.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “What did you think when your step—when Livia bought Angel?” Hank asked.

  He shrugged. “It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let me touch the nag. The way she loved that horse…”

  “It bothered you,” Darick said. “You couldn’t understand how she could lavish all that attention on an animal and treat you the way she did.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Then tell us.”

  When Zed’s mouth opened, Niko held her breath. She’d seen more than one student like him, boys or girls locked up inside themselves, wanting someone to care but not knowing how to make it happen.

  “Why should I say anything? Water under the bridge and all that. I never have to see the bitch again if I don’t want to.”

  “Maybe you wanted her to experience some of what you did by taking the one living creature she cared about.”

  Zed glared at Darick. “I didn’t do it! Damn it, you tell her that. Tell my old man too while you’re at it. And the cops. Tell the whole damn world.”

  “We’d rather hear everything from you.”

  “There’s nothing to say. Unless you’re here to arrest me—you know my old man got sent away. Left me with the bitch.” He stood and started to lift the hem of his sweatshirt. “Want to see what she did to my back?” He yanked down on the garment. “Too late. Too damn late. I’m done.”

  Despite his obvious agitation, Zed hadn’t raised his voice. Maybe he’d learned or been taught to never lose control.

  “I can’t force you to talk,” Hank said. “Zed, are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “The nag’s going to live, right? Her and her foal. End of story. Now leave me to my packing.”

  Judging by the condition of his clothes, it was more a matter of throwing than packing, but it wasn’t her job to judge.

  “You’re sure where you’re moving to is better than this?” Darick asked. “I’ve lived in several apartments around here. Tell me where you’re going. Maybe I can give you a heads up about whether it’s a good choice.”

  “Where I live is none of your business. You want to find me, come looking for me. Get the hell out of here.”

  “Darick, Niko,” Hank warned. “We don’t have a choice. Zed, I’ll be back tomorrow. Hopefully you’ll have changed your mind by then. I really want to hear your side of things.”

  “In your dreams.” Zed jabbed a finger at the door. “I hate Livia, but I have nothing against her horse. Did she tell you that I accused her of hiding the horse so she could blame me? She would have beaten me over that crap if she could.”

  “I’d like to try to make up for failing you when you were in school,” Niko said.

  “You become a cop?”

  She chuckled. “Far from it. I’m still a teacher’s aide. I’m also the person who carried a newborn colt out of the forest.”

  Arms folded across his considerable chest and legs wide, Zed studied her. “Make them leave. Then maybe I’ll say something.”

  “To me? Privately?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hank? Darick, please.”

  “You can’t—” Darick started.

  “We’re just going to talk,” she interrupted. “Aren’t we, Zed?”

  “Yes.”

  Darick frowned. “I don’t like this.”

  “What choice do we have?” She’d confronted her share of agitated teenagers and knew the majority just needed to blow off steam. They might threaten, but they almost never carried through. Zed had a right to be heard, and she needed to talk to him about the threat the grays represented. “I have my cell,” she said for everyone’s sake. “If something doesn’t feel right, I’ll call nine-one-one.”

  “We’re not going far,” Hank said. “Zed, if we don’t hear from her in fifteen minutes, we’ll be back.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “The only difference between those two and my old man,” Zed said when he and Niko were alone and she’d made room for herself on the couch, “is they don’t yell. I can tell they don’t believe me.”

  “I think, if you gave Darick and Hank a chance, you’d realize there’s a lot of difference between them and your father.” She’d pulled back her rain jacket’s hood but, cool as the trailer was, she had no intention of shedding the garment. “What do you want to tell me?”

  “I hated high school.”

  “Why? Were the classes hard? I wish there was more money for tutors.”

  “It wasn’t that.” He smiled. “Mostly stuff bored me because it was so easy. Livia—she didn’t want me to call her Mom, not that I would—was shocked when I got good grades, so sometimes I did to spite her.”

  “I met her this morning. She loves her horse. I’m not sure whether she cares about anything else.”

  Zed tilted his head. “She liked owning something. I wouldn’t call it love. You tell me, how can anyone go through life hating everything?”

  “I hope you aren’t like that.”

  If he was surprised by the comment, he gave no indication. When he didn’t speak, she again asked why he’d hated high school. It had to have been more than being bored.

  “There’s the ins and the outs. I was so far out I’m surprised they let me in the door.” He laughed.

  “But if you were getting decent grades, the teachers must have identified you as someone who could benefit from the kind of programs I’m part of.”

  “They did. Repeatedly. But I had to get Livia or my old man to sign for them and I didn’t bother.”

  “Why not?”

  He gave her a sideways glance, followed by looking at the floor. “I’d still be an out. Did you see where I lived? A piece of crap house on a piece of crap land. I went through my sophomore year with only one pair of jeans. Neither of my so-called parents gave a damn about making sure I had anything approaching a wardrobe.” He laughed, the sound seeming to shake the cramped interior. “Then, in my junior year, I grew like crazy. My old man had to keep buying me new jeans and shoes. He tries to pretend he cares about me, but he doesn’t know what it means to give a damn.”

  “Did you have friends?”

  “Yeah. Other losers.”

  On the brink of insisting he wasn’t a loser, she decided not to risk an argument. Instead, she asked what he and his friends did. Not much, mostly hanging out together during school hours but seldom seeing each other on weekends or summers because they lived far apart.

  “Are you intere
sted in going to college? If your grades were good enough, maybe you can get a scholarship.”

  “Not college but a technical school.” His eyes stayed bright as he told her that his supervisor at the mill had noted his mechanical aptitude. If he continued the way he was going, they might pay for him to become a millwright.

  “That’s wonderful. Would you have to agree to work there for a certain length of time?”

  “Yeah.” He swept his gaze over the crowded interior. “Would you want to stay where crazy dogs are tearing people apart?”

  “The entire county isn’t in danger, only those who—if you want, I’d be happy to help you look at both sides of the decision you’re trying to make.” Now that it had been the two of them for several minutes, she’d slipped into a familiar pattern of listening to a student. It wasn’t her role to direct or decide.

  His eyes widened. “You’d do that?”

  “Absolutely. I’d have a degree by now if I knew what I wanted to do with my life. So far I’ve only taken classes I’m interested in, like archeology and anthropology.”

  “That’s how it is for me. Do I want to be a grease monkey all my life?” He indicated the boxes. “Sometimes, like now, I just want to take off.”

  “Like now?”

  “Yeah.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, she tried to come up with a way to press him without risking agitating him, but couldn’t. She was here to try to determine whether Zed Ross was responsible for Hope nearly dying and, if he was, to warn him that his life was in danger.

  Or let the grays have him.

  “I, ah, I think I need to show you something,” she said. “Hopefully once you see the pictures I took, you’ll understand why I’m determined to help the cruelty investigator.”

  “I saw what you showed on TV.”

  “Those were the shots I’d taken of Hope when I found her. I didn’t share the ones I have of her foal. He was so weak he couldn’t stand.”

  Zed studied her for several seconds before turning his attention to the room’s only window. The curtain was pulled back, giving them a view of her Jeep and Zed’s small sedan. Rain washed down the glass.

  “What for? You think I’m going to confess?”

  “It isn’t all about you, Zed. I want you to understand what I’ve been through.”

  Again, he didn’t respond, and in the ensuing silence, she wondered if she’d broken whatever connection might have been between them. However, she’d gone too far to back down. She didn’t know whether he was guilty and didn’t want it to be him. To her way of thinking, his father made a more likely suspect, not that she could dismiss Livia or Thomas.

  Or someone who wasn’t on anyone’s radar.

  When Zed continued to look out of the window, she pulled out her cell phone and accessed her pictures. She scrolled past those she’d taken of the hound and settled on the first shot she’d taken of Hope.

  Hope? There’d been nothing but defeat in the mare’s eyes. She’d gone past caring about anything and was waiting to die.

  Unless something changed.

  She extended the cell toward him. “I want you to see the close up. That way hopefully you’ll have a better understanding of where I’m coming from.”

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  His expression didn’t change as he studied what she’d given him. “Where was this taken?” he asked.

  “Not far from Dogwood Campground. Do you know where that is?”

  “Dogwood? Can’t say I do.”

  “Scroll to the shots I took of the foal.”

  He did, but didn’t speak as he returned the cell to her. She wondered if he’d relied on silence as a coping mechanism when he was a child and the habit had carried over to adulthood.

  “Did you do it?” she asked.

  “Do what?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “I already said I’m innocent.”

  “I want to believe you, but it isn’t that simple. I need to hear you say you’d never do anything to hurt Hope or her foal with so much conviction I have no doubt you’re telling the truth.”

  “‘Hope’. Livia called her Angel.”

  “How did you feel about her being called that?”

  He shrugged. “She’s a horse. She doesn’t know what her name is.”

  “Did you know she was pregnant?”

  Zed sighed and rocked forward. “Her being so skinny, that wasn’t my doing.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear from the grays.”

  “Shit. Did you have to say that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t want to hear it. Time for you to leave.”

  “I’m not sure what we’ve accomplished.”

  “Me neither. That’s a Doberman in your Jeep, right?”

  “Her name is Chinook.”

  “That’s what I’m going to do, get a dog.”

  “Can you have one at your new place?”

  “I don’t— Oh shit.”

  Before she could ask what had prompted the profanity, she caught the sound of tires on gravel. She thought Darick and Hank had returned until a pickup pulled in behind her vehicle. Because Zed’s car was in front of the Jeep, she was pinned in. Uneasy, she turned to Zed. “Shit,” he repeated.

  She didn’t ask who the newcomer was, but soon she didn’t have to. Zachary Ross had come to see his son. Unexpectedly, if Zed’s reaction was any indication.

  Instead of waiting for his father to knock or come in, Zed strode to the door and opened it. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “What did you expect?” Zachary asked. “You didn’t return my call.”

  “I have company.”

  “So I see.”

  Standing next to Zed in the narrow opening made her uneasy, but she wanted the older man to know who he was asking about. Zachary was getting wetter by the moment. The fact that he wasn’t coming inside and his son wasn’t welcoming him spoke volumes about their relationship.

  “You.” Zachary said by way of acknowledging her. “Where’s the animal investigator and the Fish and Wildlife man?”

  “They aren’t here,” Zed replied. “It’s just Miss Fox and me catching up on old times.”

  Zachary swiped rain off his nose. “I don’t have time for this. I told you not to talk to anyone.”

  “Maybe I wanted to, at least to her. What do you want?” Still standing where the rain couldn’t reach him, Zed glared at his father. “I have better things to do than listen to you find fault.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Livia’s on the warpath.”

  “Of course she is.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Me?” Zed sneered. “Where did it get to be my problem?”

  Zachary stuck out his chest. “I didn’t touch Angel, which means it had to be you.”

  Zed shifted so his shoulder collided with the side of Niko’s head. Chinook’s breath had fogged the Jeep’s windows, but she could still glimpse her dog staring at her. She suspected the dog was aware of the tension between the two men.

  What about you? she asked Masauwu. Are you listening to this, reading body language and making up your mind, letting the grays know?

  “Stop talking like that,” Zed said. “I told you I had nothing to do with Angel disappearing, but you refuse to believe me, your son. What a piece of work you are. You never stood up for me, never.”

  When this was over, she would embrace her grandfather and thank him for being him. Grandpa loved her with all his heart. What more did any child need?

  “I give up.” Zachary’s voice was like fingernails on a blackboard. “What a piece of work you are.”

  “Which means you failed as a father.”

  Even as she noted father and son’s hostility toward each other, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. The men needed something they weren’t getting. They might never admit how much their flawed relationship bothered them, but she knew.

  “Why
did you come here?” she asked Zachary. “Maybe you thought you needed to do more than you had to warn him.”

  Zachary again swiped rain off his nose. “He’s on his own.”

  “I’ve always been on my own, old man. Have you ever stood up to her, ever taken my side? Hell no. At least I got away. You aren’t ever going to.”

  How long ago had Darick and Hank taken off? It had probably been more than fifteen minutes, which meant they might show up at any time. Chinook was bouncing from one side of the Jeep to the other, which contributed to her tension. The rain and wind factored in, as did the fractured relationship between father and son, but maybe there was more.

  Not sure what she had in mind, she pulled her hood over her head and stepped out from under the overhang. Rain descended. She rammed her hands into her pockets and closed her fingers around her keys and cell phone. As she headed for her vehicle, Zachary watched her every step. If the tingling along her spine was any indication, Zed was doing the same thing.

  Keep walking. Get in your vehicle.

  Chinook pressed her nose against the glass and gave a short, low bark. The sound rolled through Niko.

  “Did you hear what I asked your dad?” She turned so she could see Zed. “I wanted to know if he’d come here in an attempt to warn you.”

  Zed planted his back against the door jam. “I get what you’re talking about.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The grays.”

  The words took on a life of their own. It was as if they’d burst free without Zed’s permission. Because of the rain, she couldn’t study his expression. Chinook barked again, the sound deeper than before. Her dog wasn’t much of a barker. More to the point, this wasn’t how Chinook sounded when she was happy to see her mistress.

  “Do you have a reason to fear them, Zed?” She nodded at Zachary. “What about you?”

  Neither man responded. Even as she continued to focus on them, she noted that the rain isolated father, son, and her. The space to Zed’s right was empty and there was a travel trailer in the left-hand slot. No lights were on in the travel trailer. Two of the three spaces on the opposite side of the gravel street were occupied. A TV flickered in one RV while the curtains in the other were so heavy she couldn’t tell if anyone was in it. The car in front of it had a flat tire.