Hellhound On My Trail Read online

  He heard the rattling of the front door, then the squeak of hinges as someone entered. Riddle snapped the office light off. He drew his pistol from his waistband holster and waited just inside the door to the barroom. Maybe this was someone who could be persuaded.

  JULIANNE CLOSED the cell phone connection, smiling as she did so. For the first time in a while, she felt good about what was happening between her and Keller.

  There was something about him that both compelled her and scared her a little at the same time. She knew he was capable of violence. When he’d first started coming into her bar, she’d taken notice of the good-looking stranger, but the hectic press and bustle of serving the crowd of regulars that seemed to find their way to her place on a nightly basis had pushed him to the back of her mind.

  Then one night, a trio of bikers had turned ugly, hassling other customers and busting up furniture. When she’d tried to throw them out, they’d pinned her against her own bar, as the other customers watched helplessly, and told her she was going to be their property from then on. They hadn’t been paying any more attention than anyone else to the quiet man who’d sat in the corner night after night, silently drinking his beer. Until, that is, that man got up, opened up one biker’s face to the bone with a beer bottle, fractured another one’s forearm with a barstool, then beat the third one so badly he had to drink his meals through a straw for months.

  When the deputy sheriff had finally arrived, he’d taken stock of the situation and promptly arrested Keller as the last man standing. Julianne had bailed him out, persuaded the magistrate, an old friend and customer of her late father, not to formally charge him, and offered him a job as bar-back and occasional bouncer. He’d moved into the trailer behind the bar, and soon after, into her bed. She hadn’t had anyone there for a long time, and sometimes she asked herself what she was doing for letting this strange, mostly silent man into her life. Even the sparing glimpses he’d given her into his past had let her know that his had not been a peaceful or settled existence. The last time he’d left, he’d come back with bullet wounds and, she knew, a heart shattered by another woman. That still stung, and it made her more than a little ashamed of herself for taking him back. His dark and silent moods had gotten worse, and the way he’d exploded in rage at the video had shaken her. But he’d never raised a hand to her and she knew in her heart he never would.

  She thought about the night before, how safe she’d felt wrapped in his arms in the camper trailer’s tiny bed. The thought of that, and what they’d done when they weren’t resting, made her smile again and shiver a little with remembered pleasure. Maybe he was turning the corner. Maybe things were going to work out.

  The smile turned to a frown as she saw a black SUV parked in the lot in front of the bar.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “What part of ‘closed’ don’t you get?”

  She got out of her dusty and dented pickup and walked over to the SUV. Empty. Her frown deepened. She walked to the front door and tried it. Still locked. The key slid easily into the lock and she stepped inside and stood still, listening.

  The place was dim and quiet, only the neon beer lights behind the bar providing illumination. There was nothing to indicate anything amiss, but something felt wrong. Slowly, walking as lightly and quietly as she could, she crossed to the bar. “Hello?” she said into the dimness. There was no answer. She looked around, still puzzled.

  A man stepped out of the door to the back rooms. He was holding a pistol pointed at her.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  She froze, a shock of fear running through her as she saw the gun in his hand. She raised her own hands hesitantly. “I already been to the bank,” she said. “There ain’t much money in the register, but you can have what’s there. Just go.”

  “I’m not here for the money,” the man said. He was standing in the shadows. It was hard to make out his features. “Where’s Jack Keller?”

  “He ain’t here. He’s out of town.” She swallowed nervously, trying to fight the fear down. “What do you want with him?”

  “I need to know if he received a package lately.”

  She thought of the DVD that Maddox had brought. She considered just telling him about it. She didn’t know any reason not to. Except he was holding a gun on her, and that didn’t mean anything good for Jack. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” she said.

  “I think you’re lying,” he said. “People who lie to me learn to regret it. Sometimes it takes a while, and sometimes they have to go through a lot of pain, but they always regret it.” He raised the gun. “Come here.”

  “Okay, okay,” Julianne said. Her mind was racing. “Yeah, he got a package. It’s in the trailer. Out back. Where he stays.” She nodded toward the bar. “Spare keys to the trailer are under the register.”

  He stepped back slightly. “Get them.”

  “Okay. Can I put my hands down?”

  “Yes.”

  As she passed him, she glanced at his face. His sunken cheeks and burning, hollow eyes made him look like some kind of junkie. He didn’t make any move to keep her from looking at him. She felt her knees going weak. He didn’t care if she saw him, and that meant he didn’t intend to leave her alive to identify him. She slipped behind the bar and reached beneath the register, taking a deep breath as her fingers closed around the handle of the baseball bat there.

  THE GIRL’S move was so obviously telegraphed, Riddle might have felt sorry for her had all the pity not been burned out of him years ago. He was inside the arc of the swing before she’d gotten the bat out from under the counter. He wrapped her right arm under his left and pulled her to him, jamming the gun up under her chin. Their faces were inches apart, close enough for him to smell her sweat. Her eyes were wide with fear. She was still game, however; she tried to bring a knee up into his groin just as he pulled her closer and turned slightly to take the blow on his upper thigh. He jammed the barrel of the gun painfully beneath her chin, grinding metal against bone until she cried out. “Drop the bat,” he said through clenched teeth.

  She hesitated for a moment; then he felt rather than saw her arm relax and heard the clunk as the bat fell onto the counter. He stepped back, never taking the gun or his eyes off her. He reached over with his left hand and groped for a moment before he found the bat and hefted it. “I ought to shove this up your ass,” he grated. “I still might. Now where’s the film?”

  “I don’t know what—”

  He interrupted her by thrusting the end of the bat into her stomach, hard. The breath went out of her as she doubled over, hands clutching at her midsection. She fell to her knees, whimpering in pain. He slid the gun into its holster and shifted the bat to his right hand. She looked up at him with tears running down her face. “Please,” she whimpered, “it’s where I told you. In the trailer out back.”

  “I think you’re lying,” he said, and brought the bat down onto her left shoulder. He heard the crack of bone just before she screamed in agony. He raised the bat again. “Told you you’d regret lying to me,” he said, “but you’re going to start telling me the truth. Eventually.”

  KELLER STOOD on the curb and looked down the road that led to the terminal. The road was packed with taxicabs, town cars, and people’s personal vehicles. He didn’t see Julianne’s truck anywhere. He frowned, took out his cell phone, and punched in her number. His frown deepened as the call went to voicemail: “Hey, it’s Jules, leave a message.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m still at the airport. Call me and let me know if you got held up.” He slid the phone back in his pocket. She probably just got delayed, he thought. But he still felt uneasy for reasons he couldn’t clearly identify. He waited a few minutes, then called again. Straight to voicemail. He broke the connection and dialed the number of the bar’s landline. No answer. He dialed the only other number in the area he knew.

  Someone picked up immediately. “Desert Sands Inn, this is Chuck, can I help you?”

  Kelle
r was glad that it was the older son of the dour man who ran the hotel who was on duty. He didn’t think Mr. Patel cared very much for him, and Mrs. Patel had a shaky command of English at best. But he’d always found nineteen-year-old Charuvinda, who’d Anglicized his name to “Chuck” when working the desk, to be cheerful and helpful.

  “Hi, Chuck, it’s Jack Keller.”

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Keller,” Chuck said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I can’t get Julianne on the phone. Can you look and see if her truck’s parked outside the bar?”

  “Sure thing.” There was a pause, then Chuck came back on the line. “Yes sir, her truck’s out front. Along with another one. A black SUV.”

  “Huh. Okay. Thanks, Chuck.”

  “You want me to go over and tell her to call you? Her phone might just be dead.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “No,” he said. “Your old man will be pissed if you’re not on the desk. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “I’ll be fine,” the young man assured him. “Really. It’s no problem. It’s always slow in the afternoons.”

  “Thanks, Chuck,” Keller said. “But no. Have a good day.”

  “You too, Mr. Keller.”

  Keller broke the connection. Maybe she’d gotten a visit from a vendor, like the beer distributor. He could wait.

  RIDDLE LOOKED down at the body of the girl, broken and bleeding on the floor behind the bar, but still breathing shallowly. He held a silver DVD in one hand, turning it idly, watching it reflect the colors of the beer lights behind the bar.

  She’d told him where it was quickly enough. Then, after a few more blows, she’d told him where to find the safe combination. None of it had earned her any mercy. There was none to be earned. She couldn’t be allowed to live and identify him.

  Her breathing had grown more labored as he watched, and he heard the rattle he’d heard so many times before as death closed in on her and her airways filled with the fluids she no longer had the strength to swallow. He considered finishing her off with the bat or the gun, but he hesitated. Something about these moments held a fascination for him, a macabre interest in the body’s last losing struggle with the inevitable. He so rarely got the chance to savor it. As he watched, the girl gave one last heaving breath, then the air went out of her in a rush and she was still.

  “Okay, then,” he said softly. He looked at the bat in his hand. It was covered in blood, with bits of hair stuck here and there in the rapidly coagulating fluid. Looking down at himself, he realized he had gotten a fair amount on himself; there were red spots and smears all over his pants, shirt, and leather jacket.

  “Shit,” he muttered, and dropped the bat on the floor. He needed to get out of there. He’d wasted time watching the girl die. An inspiration came to him. He picked up the bat, still dripping with gore, and walked out the back, making sure that some of the blood dripped along his path. He shuffled his feet, trying to smear any footprints, and noticed that he was leaving a long trail of blood on the hardwood floors. He continued in this way out the back door and back into the trailer. Once inside, he dropped the bat next to the small bed, turned, and left. The false trail probably wouldn’t confuse a thorough and determined investigation, but he was betting whatever backwater sheriff’s department they had out here wouldn’t mount one with a quick and easy solution so near to hand: unstable vet with a violent past beats girlfriend to death, then flees town. At worst, it’d give him time to disappear. As he came around the building, he kept the SUV between him and the motel across the street as best he could. He didn’t look back as he drove away.

  At 4:45, the first of the regular customers, a former ironworker now on disability named Tom Buske, walked in. He stopped for a moment, startled by the quiet. Then he caught the coppery smell of blood in the air. He approached the bar slowly, not wanting to get closer, but knowing he had to see if anything was wrong. He looked behind the bar and felt his stomach trying to leap into his throat. He managed to just make it out the front door before he vomited, falling to his knees as he emptied his lunch of Spaghetti-O’s and white bread into the parking lot. It was Charuvinda Patel who called the sheriff’s after looking out the office window and seeing a man on his knees outside the bar, looking as if he was having some sort of seizure. That call would later earn the young man a smack on the back of the head from his father and a lecture about minding his own business.

  A county sheriff’s deputy answered the call, discovered the body inside, and quickly called for backup and an ambulance. The elected sheriff himself arrived a half hour later, talked to a few members of the rapidly growing crowd of customers, and immediately came to the wrong conclusion. A BOLO order went out to immediately pick up Jackson Keller and bring him in for questioning in the murder of Julianne Stetson.

  NOW KELLER was truly worried. He’d tried to call Jules again and had gone straight to voicemail. He didn’t know how to get back. The bar was an hour and a half away. A cab driver would laugh in his face if he tried to get a ride that far. He didn’t have a credit card to try and rent a vehicle. He couldn’t go forward and he couldn’t stay where he was. Finally, he called the Desert Sands again. This time it was Mr. Patel who answered. “You will stop calling,” the man said in his precise but heavily accented English. “You have caused enough trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Keller’s heart was pounding in his chest. “What trouble? What’s happened, Mr. Patel?”

  “The police are looking for you,” the man snapped. “I hope they find you. You should go to prison for what you have done to that nice girl.”

  “What I’ve done!?” Keller shouted, ignoring the people on the sidewalk who were staring and starting to edge away. “What are you talking about? What happened?” But the old man had hung up. “God DAMN it!” Keller barely kept himself from dashing the phone to pieces on the concrete.

  “Hey, buddy,” an airport security guard hailed him. “There’s no loitering here. Move along.”

  Keller tried to keep his voice level. “My ride…the person who was supposed to pick me up…hasn’t shown. And now I think something may have happened to her.”

  “Not my problem, pal,” the guard said, his sweaty moon-pie face showing nothing but disdain. “Move it.”

  The dismissive tone infuriated Keller. His fists clenched, almost involuntarily, with the desire to pound the pudgy little rent-a-cop’s face in. He was actually starting toward the man when he noticed the van parked at the curb.

  It was the standard white airport transit van, like any one of a thousand others shuttling people from hotel to airport and back again. The driver was at the back door, unloading luggage for the small gaggle of travelers standing on the curb, heads down over their phones. Before he had a clear idea of what he was doing, Keller was running toward the open driver’s side door of the still-idling van.

  “Be with you in a moment, sir,” the stocky, balding driver called out as he placed the last roller-bag onto the curb. Then, “HEY!” as Keller slid into the driver’s seat, tossing his carry-on into the passenger side. He didn’t bother to close the door as he put the van into gear and stepped on the accelerator. The door swung wildly to and fro, the side mirror showing a crazily oscillating image of the driver stumbling, trying to catch up with the interloper who was stealing his van.

  Keller clutched the wheel tightly with a sweat-slick right hand and frantically groped for the door with his left as he accelerated. Horns honked and tires squealed when he suddenly swerved, the van lurching into the travel lane. He was only dimly aware that what he was doing was not the product of clear or rational thinking. He just knew he needed to get back to the only home he had, to find out what had happened to Julianne. Once he got that settled, he’d figure out what to do about getting the van back to its owners. He kept glancing at the rearview mirrors to see if anyone was pursuing. No one was, but it was just a matter of time. The driver was probably in the airport terminal at that moment reporting the theft.

&nbs
p; He’d made it to the freeway before he saw the first police car, and it was going the other way, on the other side of the median, lights flashing and sirens screaming. He kept below the speed limit, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, until he’d gotten well away from the airport. At that point, he put his foot as hard as he could on the accelerator, heading for home and dreading what he would find when he got there.

  “WE MAY have a problem,” Riddle said to Cordell over the phone.

  “I didn’t hire you to tell me about problems,” Cordell snapped back. “I hired you to solve them.”

  Riddle’s voice was tight with strain. “I think I’ve solved one problem. I have that shipment you requested.”

  Cordell looked out the window of his office. The view over the Potomac River was shrouded in fog. The cloak-and-dagger language was probably unnecessary. There weren’t a lot of people who’d dare to tap Cordell’s phone, but he appreciated the care Riddle was taking. “Good. So what’s the problem?”