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But Eddie was already there. He knocked the rifle from Haller’s grip and picked it up, aiming it at him. Haller barely paused. In one quick motion he drew a handgun from the shoulder holster he was wearing and aimed it at Eddie, thumbing off the safety.
The three of us froze, Eddie standing and aiming the rifle, Haller aiming the handgun back at him from his position on one knee, and me against the wall, my jaw throbbing.
Eddie and Haller locked gazes, both of them breathing hard. Grandfather and grandson.
“Don’t move,” Eddie said, and whether he meant me or Haller or both of us, it didn’t matter. I stayed still. What if a movement from me made one of them pull the trigger?
The men didn’t move with gazes locked. Both of them had steady hands, used to holding guns. There wasn’t a tremble in either of them.
“Why did you do it?” Eddie’s voice was hoarse, but his gaze didn’t waver, and neither did his aim.
“It was an accident,” Haller replied. “She called me to come get her because she’d run out of money, couldn’t afford a bus ticket. When I got there, I found her hitching on Atticus Line. I pulled over and she told me to go home because she’d changed her mind.”
“So you killed her?” Eddie’s voice threatened to crack.
“Like I said, it was an accident. I tried to force her into the car. She fought me. I was goddamned mad. She’d been a problem her whole life, running wild, getting into trouble, just like her mother. She got high and got pregnant and stole my money. So what if she said she was turning her life around? She was probably lying. So I grabbed her, held her down, even though she was screaming. I was so goddamned mad. I’d had enough. Everything went wrong, and then she was dead. I took her things and I got out of there.”
He’d left her—left his own daughter, dead by the side of the road. But first he’d taken off her jacket and thrown it away, then ripped the tag out of her shirt. I’d written my name on my clothing tags plenty of times as I traveled. When you used communal laundry facilities in hostels or split the cost of a laundromat with someone else, it was the easiest way to determine whose clothes were whose.
John Haller had stripped his daughter of her identity, then left her there. She hadn’t been found for weeks.
“You’re Jeremy, aren’t you?” Haller said. Police lights flashed through the front window, and I could hear voices in the summer breeze blowing in. Someone was shouting that we should come out. “You’re her boy. I can see it in your eyes, in your face. You look just like her. She sent you for me, because she never left. She was never gone, all these years. Part of me knew it. I’ve been waiting. I thought she’d come for me herself, but she sent you instead.”
“I should shoot you,” Eddie said in a voice so cold it made fear go up my spine.
“You could,” Haller agreed, the gun never trembling in his grip. “But you might not kill me with one shot. And then I’d shoot her.” He meant me. “Are you going to take that risk? You think I care, Jeremy? I got terminal cancer. You shoot me now, you’ll save me some hospital bills. That’s all you’ll do.”
“Why?” Eddie said. “She was my mother. Why did you throw her away like she was trash?”
“Because she was trash,” John Haller said. “So am I. What do you think that makes you?”
The front door banged open and Officer Kal Syed came in, his gun drawn. “Drop your weapons,” he said calmly. “Both of you. Now.”
Neither man moved. Their gazes never wavered.
“Your move, son,” John Haller said softly.
Eddie’s hands were steady on the rifle.
Then John Haller pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
THREE MONTHS LATER
I rolled down the window as I drove, letting the cool autumn breeze blow into the car. Led Zeppelin played on the radio, coming from a classic rock station that had just come into range. I took a deep breath, letting the music relax me.
I moved to the right lane and eased off the gas. According to the map, the exit was close. Five minutes, maybe ten. Then I saw the sign.
coldlake falls. 2 miles.
I waited for something to bubble up through me at the sight of those words—fear, anger, anything. My hands tightened a little on the wheel, but that was all. I was going back to Coldlake Falls. I was ready.
After everything that had happened, it was time to go back.
I wasn’t in Eddie’s Pontiac this time. That car had too many memories, and the smell had never dissipated. Today, I was driving a Cutlass, and if I missed that Pontiac now and then, I never said it aloud.
I turned the radio down. “Wake up,” I said.
