Hellhound On My Trail

by J. D. Rhoades

  “Sorry,” Keller said. “Guess we both dredged up some bad memories.”

  “Maybe it would be better if you just didn’t come back here. Like, ever.”

  “I don’t think I will be,” Keller said. He started to turn away.

  “He’s a good man,” she said. “Whatever you might think of him.”

  Keller stopped. Her chin was thrust out defiantly, as if daring him to contradict her. “Does he ever talk about the war?” Keller asked.

  Her voice and expression softened. “Sometimes.” She grimaced. “Every now and then, a few of his old buddies come over. They drink beer, do shots, and tell stories. Usually the same ones, every time. They always end up around the grill singing that goddamn Lee Greenwood song. Off-key.” Keller could see there were tears in her eyes. “Then when everybody’s gone, he goes and sits in a lawn chair, under a tree. In the dark. And he cries. But it usually takes till he thinks everyone else is asleep.” She shook her head angrily. “What the hell happened to you over there? All of you. You were children. Like…like…” She took a deep breath and got herself under control.

  “Like your son,” Keller said.

  She wiped a hand across her eyes angrily. “Yes. Like my son. And my daughter, I guess. Now.”

  “Yeah. Well. I hope that doesn’t happen to them. And I hope Ray finds some peace.” The words just came out without Keller thinking about them. He was surprised at how much he meant it.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I hope you do the same.”

  “You know,” Keller said, “I think I might. I think I’m getting closer at least. I’m getting better at putting things behind me.”

  She nodded. Then she smiled ruefully. “Well, judging from tonight, Jack,” she said, “I do hope we’re one of those things. No offense.”

  He chuckled. “None taken.” He turned and walked back to the truck. He took the Trump sign off and threw it in the back. Before he drove away, he dialed up Nguyen on the cell phone he’d bought in Baltimore. He got her voicemail. “That other story we were talking about?” he said. “I checked into it some more. It’s nothing. Never mind. Good luck with the other thing, though.” He looked out the window. It was dusk and the street lights were coming on. A few lightning bugs were flashing in the yards, in a world Keller would never be part of. He was, for once, at peace with that. At least for the moment.

  “If you need me,” Keller said to the voicemail, “I’ll probably be a guest of the Arizona prison system for a while. I’ve got some mistakes of my own I need to take care of.” He killed the connection and started the truck. On the way out of town, he came to a bridge over the Cape Fear River. He stopped the truck, leaving the motor running. Passing cars honked angrily at him as he got out, holding the file his father had given him in his hand. He walked to the rail, hesitated, then opened it and let the documents and photographs spill out. He watched as they fluttered in the slight breeze, down to the black water below. Some of the pages lay upon the water like flower petals for a few moments, then became waterlogged and slipped beneath the surface. Others continued to float on the current, headed down the long dark path of the river, toward the sea. Keller didn’t stop to watch them. He got in the truck and drove west.

  Nine months later

  KELLER WALKED out of the prison on a cloudless spring day. He had a plastic bag with his few remaining possessions and nowhere to go.

  Despite the pleas of his exasperated public defender, he’d rejected probation and asked for an active sentence. Whatever he did when he got out, he wasn’t going to do it in Arizona, and the prospect of reporting to a probation officer and being forced to stay in the state had zero attraction for him. He wanted to just do his time and go. Finally, he’d taken the lowest active term his lawyer could negotiate for him on the auto theft.

  The charges against him for the murders in Becca Leonard’s house had fallen apart when Nguyen’s story had caused the police and the FBI to take another look at the forensics and discover what they’d previously missed: that one of the bodies found at the scene had been killed somewhere else, brought to the scene, and staged. That, and some information regarding the death of Jerico Zavalo quietly provided by the DEA, had convinced the locals that Rebecca Leonard, Erin Alford, Marta Guzman, and Alejandro Miron were not murdered by Jack Keller. The case was officially listed as “open,” but the unofficial consensus was that the killers were themselves dead.

  While Keller was locked up, he’d gotten another surprise in the form of a visit from a second lawyer, a nervous-looking young associate from a notable Phoenix firm. The man obviously was more used to meeting with wealthy clients in paneled conference rooms than convicts in grimy prison visiting rooms; he’d stammered and fumbled with the papers that detailed his father’s last bequest to him. Maddox had gotten the house, its contents, and most of the money Trammell had accumulated, but Keller had received a sum of cash larger than any he’d ever seen in one place. He’d also received the key and address to a safe deposit box in Miami, Florida. The young lawyer did not know what was in it, nor did he seem particularly eager to know. He’d suggested a number of options for investment that they would be glad to help him with. Keller had thanked him, but directed that the money be placed in a bank in Phoenix. They could send him the account number and a debit card. The card rested in the plastic bag; now he just needed to get to someplace he could use it.

  “Hey, stranger.”

  He turned. The woman leaning against the white Ford Explorer in the parking lot was someone he’d never expected to see again. He stood there, shocked into immobility. She smiled and took off her sunglasses. There were a few more lines on her face, but the eyes were the same: the sharp, hard blue of the sky on a cold winter day.

  “Marie,” he said.

  “Yep.” She straightened up. “You look good. Prison food must agree with you.”

  “Not hardly,” he said. “You look good yourself.” And he meant it. Her body was still lean and hard; age hadn’t softened the contours he remembered so very well.

  “Need a ride?” she said.

  He looked at the Explorer. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Hop in.” She opened the door and slid behind the wheel. He hesitated for a moment, then got in. He felt self-conscious as he set the plastic bag down.

  “So, where to?” Her voice was nonchalant, but he could sense the tension in her.

  “Um,” he said. “I need new clothes. And a place to stay. But right now, I could murder a steak.”

  “You’re on.” She pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. He studied her as she drove. She’d left him, years before, because he’d killed a man in front of her and her son. It hadn’t mattered that he’d done it to save them both; the experience, and the horrors leading up to it, had traumatized the boy, and she’d told Keller she needed to get him away from anything that might remind him of the event. Even Keller. He hesitated to ask after the boy, but he had to know.

  “So, how’s Ben?”

  She grimaced. “Ben is…a handful. He’s had some problems. Not surprising.”

  “I’m sorry,” Keller said.

  “It’s okay. It really wasn’t your fault. Any of it. Just…bad luck.”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t know what else to say.

  “So, this okay?”

  Keller looked up. She was pulling into the parking lot of a chain steak restaurant. They didn’t speak again until they’d been seated. It was still early in the day, and the place was mostly deserted. Marie stared at the tabletop and fiddled with the silverware. Finally, Keller broke the silence.

  “So. How’d you find out where I was?” And why, he wanted to ask, but he figured she’d tell him that, when it was time.

  “Lucas,” she said, then looked up. “Some guy came around, asking if I knew where you were. I had a bad feeling about him. I told him I didn’t know. Which was the truth. Then I got worried. I called Lucas. He told me what was going on. About your father.”

  Keller sigh
ed. “So much for doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  She shrugged. “Well, he’s your friend, too.” She reached out and put one hand over his. “And so am I. I was worried about you.”

  Keller didn’t know what to say. The waitress, who looked no older than seventeen, brought them two glasses of ice water. Keller downed half of his in one gulp.

  “Lucas was worried about you, too. And when he told me about your father, what had happened, I…” She stopped. When she spoke again, it was in choked voice, almost a sob. “I reconsidered some decisions I made. After we…after…”

  “After you left.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know I don’t blame you for what you did. You had to look after Ben. He was terrified of me. After what he saw me do. He was too young to see any of that, or to process it. You did what you had to do.”

  “I know.” She was crying now. She wiped her eyes with her napkin. “And thank you. So I hope you understand what I did next.” She looked up and away, not meeting Keller’s eyes. “Like I say, Ben’s having some problems. Getting in trouble at school. Fighting. Smoking weed. Sometimes I think the only thing keeping him from going completely off the rails is his little brother.”

  It took a minute for that to register with Keller. “His…”

  She’d been fumbling in the small handbag she’d brought with her. She took out a picture and slid it across the table. It was a photograph of Marie, leaning over and laughing while talking to a little blond boy of about ten. The boy was smiling up at her. He had her eyes, but his face…

  “His name is Francis,” she said. “After my dad. But his middle name is Jackson.”

  He looked up from the picture. When she saw the look on his face, the next words came out in a rush. “I know, I know, I should have told you, but everything was so fucked up and Ben was still freaking out and I didn’t know what to do and it was so hard to leave, I didn’t know if I could stay away from you if you were in his life because I was still in love with you but I couldn’t be with you and…and I’m sorry, Jesus, I know, I know it’s….”

  Keller noticed the waitress. She’d approached to take the order but was now standing there watching, her eyes wide, unable to go forward or back. “Give us a few minutes, will you?” he said gently. The girl nodded frantically and practically bolted away.

  Marie was wiping her eyes with her now soaked napkin. Keller handed her his. “Damn it,” she said, “I had a better speech prepared than that.”

  “Well, things don’t always go like we planned.”

  That made her laugh. It was the same laugh he remembered loving. “Ain’t that the goddamn truth.” She looked up. “So. I’m sorry. It’s all I can say. Other than, if you want to be in his life, you can. I know it may be too late, but…you deserve more of a chance than I’ve given you. And he deserves to know who his dad is. Just like you did.”

  Dad. Keller had never considered the word as applying to him. But now that it did…or that it might…

  He looked up at Marie. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  “I was thinking, maybe you could come by, visit some with me there, then we could work into—”

  He interrupted. “Something else you said. About—”

  She cut in in turn. “Still being in love with you? I know. I…I wasn’t going to say it, but I’m glad I did. But let’s take one thing at a time, okay, Jack?”

  “Okay,” he said. “One thing at a time.”

  Born and raised in North Carolina, J.D. Rhoades has worked as a radio news reporter, club DJ, television cameraman, ad salesman, waiter, attorney, and newspaper columnist. His weekly column in North Carolina’s The Pilot was twice named best column of the year in its division. He is the author of four previous Jack Keller novels, The Devil’s Right Hand, Good Day in Hell, Safe and Sound, and Devil and Dust, as well as the novels Ice Chest, Breaking Cover, and Broken Shield, and more. He lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage, NC. Follow him at @jd_rhoades.

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by J.D. Rhoades

  Cover and jacket design by 2Faced Design

  Interior design and formatting by:

  www.emtippettsbookdesigns.com

  ISBN 978-1-943818-66-2

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016952317

  First hardcover publication February 2017 by Polis Books, LLC

  1201 Hudson Street, #211S

  Hoboken, NJ 07030

  www.PolisBooks.com