by Ben Muse
Killing Chase
Ben Muse
Killing Chase
Copyright © 2013 by Ben Muse
All rights reserved.
Except for the use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Rachel Cole, Littera Designs
Interior book design by Bob Houston eBook Formatting
Table of Contents
Books by Ben Muse:
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
Thank You
Excerpt from Giving Chase
About the Author
Books by Ben Muse:
ARNCO
Break It
Killing Chase
Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to the following people for their help and input to this book:
To Rita Coleman Carlisle for your insightful input and support. I am so thankful you are my friend.
To Rachel at Littera Designs:
You design the most beautiful book covers in the business and are exceedingly polite and professional when I ask the dumbest questions.
To Janet at thewordverve:
Your steely gaze, superior editing skills, and sound advice are so appreciated.
The mistakes in this book are mine.
This book is dedicated to my wife Angela and our little ones, Tyler and Caitlin. They inspire me every day.
Prologue
The young woman held the small book in her still-shaking hands and read the entry once more in her small, poorly lit bedroom:
May 17, 2001
Dear Diary,
I don’t know if the man had “rape a high school freshman” on his to-do list this morning when he woke next to his twenty-five-year-old trophy wife in his East Atlanta estate. What fifty-two-year-old would, especially one who had so much going for him?
But he did and I let it happen. I was scared and I froze, and my innocence died tonight on that padded lounge chair, next to his resort-size swimming pool. He said if I accused him of anything, he’d make our lives a living hell and my reputation would be lower than that of a snake’s belly. His words. This he said to me as I exited his Jaguar, not thirty minutes ago. He was dropping me off after babysitting his two-year-old son, Zack. The trophy wife had flown out of town this morning for a girl’s getaway, and he’d had a late dinner with a client downtown.
Two twenties and a five flashed in his hand, and I remember his last words to me as he handed over the money: “For your service tonight. Thank you.” At first, the way he said it chilled me; then it pissed me off and blackened my heart. I should probably go the police or my mother, but I don’t want her pity, or the attention that’s sure to come from such an accusation. I’ve decided that I want my brand of justice instead.
Jackson Ellis. “Streak” to his friends. The nickname given after an alcohol-induced jaunt around campus when he was a college sophomore.
He’s a handsome fifty-two, with an outgoing personality and a quick legal mind. A noted criminal defense attorney in Atlanta courtrooms. Blah, blah, blah. All this from my mother, who happens to be his executive assistant. She dotes on him, but she doesn’t know what I know, what I’ve felt and endured. She and I have had a tough life, and she latches on to people who’ve helped us, much like someone drowning reaches for anything that’ll float. I love her though; she’s done the best she can.
Before I closed the car door that night, I took a final look at Zack, asleep in the back of the car. I felt sorry for him. He’ll be given everything but will be completely unprepared for life’s cruel twists—for instance, when I kill his smooth-talking, silver-haired devil of a father at a time and place of my choosing. MY choosing. I was blessed with the patience of Job.
Why I’m here, instead of my real home, is another story. Some people can be so selfish.
-B
Satisfied that it covered all her thoughts and emotions, she slowly closed the book and slipped it between the ancient mattress and box springs of her twin bed. Firmly cocooned under her blanket and comforter, she turned her attention to the greenish, glow-in-the-dark stars and moon on her ceiling, affixed by the former occupants, and drifted off into a stormy and fitful night of sleep.
Chapter 1
March 15, 2012
If my life had gone according to plan, I would be an NFL quarterback enjoying my fourth off-season. However, life seldom went the way of planning, as I could attest, so I was lying there, staring at the illuminated dial of my cheap Timex at four thirty in the morning. Wide awake and tense. If you saw my surroundings, you might think you understood why sleep eluded me, but where I was . . . that was not the reason for my lack of sleep. I slept like a baby in there.
My bed was the bottom bunk in a two-person cell at Ashmore Correctional, a medium-security state prison just north of Asheville, North Carolina. In about six hours, I would be released, but not because I’d served my full twelve-year sentence for manslaughter. According to the FBI, my services were needed.
I’d spent the past two thousand five hundred fifty-five days behind bars at four different state prisons. These past seven years were starkly different from my first eighteen years of existence. I grew up privileged; my parents were loaded. My father had dedicated his life to building custom yachts for some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. Dedicated to being a great father and husband? Eh, not so much . . . but lately ’he’d put in more effort on the father part. My mom divorced him six years ago, one year into my prison sentence. She was a piece of work, only nineteen when I was born, still a kid herself—so I cut her a little slack over the years for this.
Mom took her millions and fled west to the Rocky Mountains, Aspen to be precise, where she could escape the shame of having a son in prison. She owned a large chalet there and spent the winter skiing and entertaining. Summers found her in Palm Springs, leading three-day enlightenment-intensive retreats that promise spiritual awakenings, nature communing, and finding one’s true self. I knew all this because she had visited me four times during these last seven yea
rs and this was what we discussed. Her life, her home, her friends. I supposed she could be described as self-centered, but I would lean more toward crazy and eccentric. My father, the mellowing Hank Hampton, lived in our hometown of Foggy Harbor, North Carolina. Situated at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, it was about thirty miles south of the bustling town of Wilmington and home to around twenty-five thousand people. He owned a large ocean-side estate, my boyhood home, but spent most of his time on his pride and joy, the two-hundred-thirty-foot Anchor Management. I said he’s mellowed, right? Anyway, the Anchor Management would be my home beginning tonight, once I was picked up by his private jet and flown back to Foggy Harbor via Cape Fear Regional Airport.
The cell doors would open in five minutes at precisely four thirty-five, and I, along with three hundred fifty other inmates will rise and start our day, beginning with a head count and an underwhelming breakfast of grits, toast, and a hardboiled egg. I’d always wondered why the day started at four thirty-five and not four thirty or five. I never thought to ask, and after today, I doubt I would ever think about it again, unless I failed my new master and was thrown back in here or, more than likely, some other state facility.
I heard the bunk above me creak, and I wondered how I’d survived in this box of steel and concrete the past two years. My cellmate, Samuel Grantham Farley, Sam, was fifty-five and weighed in at just north of three hundred pounds. He was here when I transferred in and decided he wanted the top bunk, never mind that he sounds like he’s stroking out whenever he ascends to sleep. For the first two months after I arrived, I stared at the sagging underside of his bunk, unable to sleep, afraid that I would become a permanent part of the floor should the bunk fall.
He was the most unusual of my seven different cellmates in the North Carolina prison system, but I’d yet to see him get violent or act out in any way. However, I was beginning to wonder if he would be better off in an institution. He stared blankly at the walls for long periods and then laughed uncontrollably. Twenty years ago, he was convicted of murdering his wife with a ball peen hammer after he caught her stepping out on him.
I had a theory about Sam. The staring was his mental video of the events leading up to him killing his wife, and the laughing began when the hammer first smashed into her skull. He would laugh for a good minute, and I wondered if he’d swung the hammer just as long. Some things were better off not knowing.
His antics didn’t bother me anymore, and we got along just fine. I kept him supplied in Snickers and Butterfingers, not because I was forced to but simply to plant a thought in his brain that said, “Do not harm the Candyman.” Yes, at Ashmore, I was the Candyman. There were worse nicknames to have in prison; trust me on this.
I’d already pointed out that my parents were less than stellar at raising me. To assuage their guilt, they each deposited five hundred dollars into my prison account every month. It was an obscene amount of money for prison, and I was by far the prisoner with the highest annual net worth, there and probably in the entire state prison population. According to Warden J.T. Maxwell, I was the first prisoner ever to have his account fully funded at Ashmore. I also made twenty cents an hour working in the prison library. This netted me an additional two hundred eight dollars a year for an annual grand total of twelve thousand two hundred eight dollars. I spent about eight hundred a month on the general population. Smokes, calling cards, candy bars, fresh fruit, or toiletries. I didn’t discriminate in my allocations, and no one attempted to strong arm me. Again, “Do not harm the Candyman.” All the inmates knew me and begrudgingly greeted me with respect. The three squares we received were barely edible for human consumption, which made my gifts more meaningful.
The truth was, this money kept me safe, and I’d been able to use it for protection there and at the other prisons. I had two inmates at Ashmore who I would consider real friends. Joe was sixty and had been here fifteen years. He will spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering his business partner. Eddie was thirty-nine and the prison lawyer. He had ten years left on a kidnapping charge. They’d made my stay there easier with their friendship, words of encouragement, and advice. After today, I will never see them again. And I was okay with that.
The prison staff appreciated my goodwill because it kept morale up and made their jobs easier. Prisoners still bitched and moaned, but it was about normal stuff that went on at every prison: not enough exercise time, too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, etc. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d complained to prison staff during these past seven years. I was the model prisoner. I did my job, helped my fellow inmates, and was respectful to the guards and staff. My stellar behavior helped the Feds convince the state that my release for the greater good.
I swung my legs over to the cold concrete floor, did the old stand and stretch and stepped over to the stainless steel sink to brush my teeth.
“Mornin’, Chase,” I heard from up in the heavens.
“Morning, Sam. Ready for another day in paradise?”
It was our normal morning greeting, and I needed to be as normal as possible today. The last thing I needed was a rumor going around that I was leaving. I’d rather not depart Ashmore on a gurney with a sheet covering my face. Death by shiv. No thank you. I brushed my teeth in the darkness and finished just as the lights turned on.
“What got ya up early, Hamp?” said Sam. He’s the only other inmate besides Joe or Eddie who doesn’t call me Candyman. It’s either Chase or Hamp.
“Early bird catches the worm,” I replied without any emotion. I’m getting out today and will be eating steak with herbed butter tonight, and sleeping on and under thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets on the most expensive yacht on the Eastern Seaboard.
“Only thing the early bird catches in here’s a cold,” he chuckled as his three-hundred-pound frame descends. I had no idea what that meant, but he found it funny so I obliged him with my own chuckle. I was not looking forward to the next five minutes. Sam on the toilet was by far the most disgusting thing I dealt with at Ashmore, and there was nowhere to go to escape the noxious fumes that emanated from his prodigious bowels. His movement was like clockwork, never deviating more than five minutes before or after four forty a.m. Our cells automatically unlocked at four fifty for breakfast, and I’d asked him several times to hold off until I could get clear of the cell, but he swore he couldn’t stop it. Time could be so cruel.
I turned to face him in our small cell before he sat on the throne and he gave me a curious look.
“Hamp, what’s going on? You know something I don’t?”
I wondered what he’s seeing and how he has come to the conclusion so fast that something unseen is happening. Have my own facial expressions betrayed me somehow and clued him in to my impending departure?
“What are you talking about? Just getting ready for another day.”
“Hmmph,” he grumbled, already breathing hard as he dropped his prison-issued pajamas and started the fireworks. I turned my head as if that would somehow help my situation.
“You just seem dif’rent is all.”
“Sam, do tell how you’ve processed the past thirty seconds and come to this conclusion?” I wet my hands, ran them through my short brown hair, and held hold my breath as I wait for his answer . . . and the odor.
I’ve heard other inmates talk about getting in sync with their cellmates, noticing the tiniest and most subtle changes in behavior. I’m giving this thought more credence.
As the release of his bowels continued, he said, “Hamp, in here we live by the minute. Time means nothing to most of us, especially folks like me who’ll never see the other side of these walls. I’ve never, in our two years of bunking together, seen you get up before the lights come on to do anything. Why get up early? You ain’t going anywhere, are ya? I’m a light sleeper, and I’d remember if you did. Something’s going on, and if I had to guess, I’d say you’re leaving and being transferred elsewhere. Same thing happened before with three other cellma
tes I had. Hell, it happened right in here with the fella I was bunking with ’fore you showed up.”
“Well, maybe you know something I don’t, Sam,” I said as I silently begged for Lysol or a simple match to kill the smell. Three more minutes and I was out of that cell for good. Home soon to where this nightmare started—over, what else, a girl. Not just any girl. Bailey Masters.
Chapter 2
Growing up in Foggy Harbor, she was my biggest competition on the playground, whether we were running races or playing two-hand touch football. She was also my best friend, and we were inseparable. As wealthy as my family was, hers was just as poor, but the socioeconomics of our lives didn’t matter to us. She lived with her mom on the northern outskirts of town in a run-down trailer park. The other side of the tracks, she would say with her infectious laugh. She never knew her father; he’d run off as soon as she was born, her mom, Crystal, had told her. Bailey was tall for her age, with dark-brown hair and a smile that could light up a room. She was smart as a whip and athletic, with the grace to match.
Her mom worked as a server at the Three Sisters Cafe, her admirers sometimes overwhelming the place during breakfast and lunch. From there, Crystal would leave for her second job at a textile mill, north of town on the Wilmington Highway, working until midnight. Six days a week she worked this schedule, never taking a sick day, according to Bailey. Sunday was mother-daughter day and that was the only day of the week I wouldn’t see Bailey. Crystal didn’t date because she didn’t have time; she had a daughter to raise and food didn’t just magically appear.
Bailey would sometimes stay with us after school, and her mom would pick her up after her shift. Those days were the best of my life. She and I would take our books down to the beach cabana and alternate between studying and swimming. At night after dinner we would take blankets out to the terrace overlooking the pool and ocean, where we would star gaze and talk about our dreams. She wanted to be in the Olympics; I wanted to play professional football or baseball. She wanted her own bedroom and a home that would keep her cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I wanted to be with her forever. That wish was never verbalized, of course. I loved her, but not in a romantic kind of way, at least not yet.
