Fear Has a Name: A Novel (The Crittendon Files) Read online

  Granger did not move but looked directly into those hypnotic eyes. “You wouldn’t shoot your own son.” He too spoke softly but sarcastically.

  “I have an excuse,” Father said. “You’re wanted. You broke in. You’re armed. Give it to me.”

  Granger came within a second of lurching for the man and bashing his lights out with the metal in his hand, but he was a bit too far away, maybe four feet. His own gun wasn’t cocked, or he might have tried to beat the old man to the draw.

  Although his father was slight and seemingly tranquil, he had a ferocious side when heated to a boil. As Granger eyed the gun pointed at him, then his father’s unflinching face, he realized the man might just blow a gaping hole clean through his stomach.

  Figuring he could overtake the old man as things played out, Granger slowly handed over the gun.

  “Smart,” Father said, taking the gun in the palm of his other hand, turning his back on Granger, and walking toward the den. “Your mother’s not well. Come see her. And give me the other clip.”

  Granger debated tackling the old man from behind; it would have been a piece of cake. But the confidence with which his father had turned, the curious words about his mother, and that familiar, mesmerizing spell that seemed to make Granger fall into submission caused him to simply follow his father toward the den, handing him the spare clip as he entered.

  Granger thought it odd that his mother wasn’t whizzing about, all up in his business. But as he approached her, he realized why. What he hadn’t seen before when he had peeked into the den was the wheelchair in which she was seated. He approached her from behind. Even from that angle he could tell something was very wrong. She leaned awkwardly to one side, facing the TV but slumped. As he came around her side, he saw the knot of severely bent wrists and fingers locked in grotesquely shaped fists.

  This was serious. And it was permanent.

  His heart seemed to weaken. She was a sad and hideous sight. The ramifications were too much to grasp in that split second. At the same time, however, a strange and somewhat deranged sense of elation—perhaps relief—settled into Granger’s bones.

  “Can you turn that down?” he said to his father.

  The volume on the TV cut in half.

  “Hello, Mother.” Granger knelt at her side.

  Her watery yellow eyes and piercing blue pupils stared straight ahead at the flickering TV. Her small mouth hung open an inch; he wanted to reach up and close it. Her putty-colored skin looked soft and fuzzy and was tightly stretched against her bony face. The thick, straight hair was now a blend of silver and black. He could tell Father had tried to brush it and part it the way she liked but had failed miserably.

  “Mother.” Granger was within ten inches of her face. “It’s Granger. I’ve come to visit.”

  She was like a statue, the eyes unblinking, fixed on the boob tube.

  While on his knees, Granger shifted around to his father, who was seated on the ottoman with his knees wide apart, handing the big gun back and forth from one palm to the other. The other gun rested between his legs on the ottoman.

  “Massive stroke,” Father said. “Back in April.”

  Granger looked around the room, which he now realized was cluttered with dirty dinner trays, rags, adult diapers, medicine bottles, and old newspapers. “Do you have any help?”

  “Nah.” Father stared down at the gun.

  “What about when you have to go somewhere—the store, errands?”

  “Van has a lift.”

  “That’ll wear you out,” Granger said.

  “What’re you gonna do?” Father’s shoulders jumped. “It’s the plan.”

  Some plan. This is what their religion has gotten them.

  Granger didn’t say it aloud; his father would have detonated. Instead he said, “How does she eat?”

  “I feed her.”

  “Tube?”

  “Mouth,” Father said. “She can eat.”

  “You mean she’s okay from the neck up?” Granger said. “She’s not …”

  “Brain-dead? No son, you’re the only one who suffered from that around here. What’d you do in Trenton City? They wouldn’t tell me.”

  “What’d you do with all my stuff—my trombone … my keepsakes?”

  “You’ve been gone how long?” Father said.

  “So you just threw it all away?”

  “We figured if you really wanted that junk you’d have gotten it by now,” Father said. “Are you kidding me? It’s been years.”

  “Does she know I’m here?” Granger said.

  “She knows,” Father said. “What’d you do, kill somebody?”

  Granger thought of Pamela. How he wanted to blurt out that, no, he hadn’t killed anyone—he’d gone back to find the only person who’d ever loved him.

  He turned back to his mother, whose head had moved slightly toward him. Her eyes were wide open, fixed on his face, burning into him now. She flinched. Her head and shoulders began to shake. The pace of her breathing kicked up. Her face went pink, and a strand of drool spilled over her bottom lip.

  “Uh oh, she’s mad now.” Father laughed. “She wants to know what you did. She’s upset you’re gonna ruin our good name.”

  Mother’s fiery eyes continued to lock onto Granger’s face, even as he used the rag on her shoulder to remove the drool, and she shook so bad the wheelchair began to rattle.

  Granger stood and stared down at his father.

  “I think she’s reminding you,” Father said, “once a vessel of dishonor, always a vessel of dishonor.” He smirked. “We’ve always expected this. In the back of our minds, all these years, we’ve been waiting for the day you would self-destruct. It was inevitable.”

  To heck with this.

  Granger walked into the kitchen, got a bowl and spoon, found a ladle, and served himself some chili. He grabbed saltines from the pantry, broke two fistfuls into the bowl, and took it back into the den.

  “Help yourself,” Father joked.

  Granger had forgotten the power of the awful words spoken under that roof. How deeply they penetrated. How much they hurt. But he remembered quickly how he had trained himself to let the words roll off, as if he’d never heard them. It was a battle of the mind.

  Figuring this might be the last time he would see his parents, Granger pulled a chair up next to his mother, sat down, and began to eat.

  “You say your prayers?” Father quipped.

  Granger stopped with the spoon at his mouth and stared at the old man. “No, I didn’t. I never do.”

  Mother’s head turned to face him, her eyes burning into him like lasers.

  “‘Raise up a child in the way he should go,’” Father said, “‘and in the end he will not depart from it.’ You ever hear that?”

  Mother seethed.

  “Didn’t work in my case, did it?” Granger said.

  “Who knows, maybe in prison you’ll come to realize your need. Although your mother has always said you were destined for hell from the day you were conceived.”

  “You know what I think?” Granger talked with his mouth full, looking back and forth at them. “I think you didn’t raise me in the way I should go. I think you poisoned me. You two call yourselves Christians, but you’re nothing but hypocrites. I don’t see how you sleep at night, knowing what the Bible says about love, yet knowing how you treated me all those years. It’s a sick lie. You’re deceived, Mr. Meade.” He pointed at his mother. “And you too, Mrs. Meade.”

  Her mouth closed and shrank to a slit. Her eyes ballooned to twice their normal size, and her face lit up like a burner on a stove.

  With mouth clamped shut and jaw jutting out, Father pushed himself to his feet, pointed both guns at Granger, and gritted his teeth. He hesitated, then jammed the guns into his front pockets. They stuck out clumsily as he walked to Mother and set his hands softly onto her shoulders. Bending just above her head, he spoke loudly. “It’s okay, dear.” He patted her. “Calm down. Granger’s leaving now
.” He eyed Granger. “Aren’t you.”

  Granger got to the bottom of the bowl and purposefully made a loud, repeated clacking noise with the spoon, pretending to scrape up every last drop, which he knew grated on his father’s nerves.

  Still bending over the back of Mother’s wheelchair, Father stared at Granger as he took the bowl to the kitchen, set it in the sink, and let the faucet run till the bowl overflowed.

  It was looking doubtful Granger could get one of the guns. He’d wanted one desperately—for what, he still wasn’t certain. He could take their van, but it would be easier to spot than the car he had. Plus, they needed it.

  He dried his hands on a kitchen towel, walked back into the den, and looked at his mother and father.

  He’d come there for what? Revenge? Revenge for the piece of garbage he had become?

  But look at them. They’re pitiful, just wasting away in their bitterness.

  You just need to go.

  “We’ve got something for you.” His father left the room.

  Mother stared at Granger. He knelt in front of her again, wanting to touch her. But the fury in her glare—those eyes—she wouldn’t take them off him. They almost spoke, as if to say, Even in my state, you are still lower than me, boy.

  Father entered the room holding a maroon Bible. “This is for you.”

  Granger recognized the Bible he’d saved up for and bought for his mother for Christmas all those years ago. It was still like new. He opened it and found the note he’d written to her.

  Although she was stiff as a board, Mother watched everything, alert as an owl. There may have even been a hint of a cruel smile at the corner of her mouth.

  “Take it.” Father stepped back behind Mother. “Read it.”

  “I got this for her.”

  She flinched.

  Father interpreted. “It was the wrong version. You’re gonna need it where you’re going. Now get out of here. Hurry up. The police are coming back.”

  “What?” Granger started. “Since when?”

  Father took the big gun from his pocket and nodded toward the room from where he’d just come. “I just called ’em.”

  “Why? Why would you do that?” Granger took several anxious steps toward the door. “Why couldn’t you have just let me go?”

  “I would have.” Father racked the slide, sending one of the .45s into the firing chamber. “But the problem is—there’s been a murder at this address.” He pointed the gun at the center of Mother’s head and smirked. “And you did it.”

  28

  Pamela drove down Granger’s creepy, overgrown street and slowed way down along the stretch where he used to live. Trees and shrubs and weeds and vines had so encroached the place, all she could see was one corner of the white house, some of the roof, and a small brick chimney.

  Out of curiosity she eased the car past the leaning rusty green mailbox and turned into the driveway, figuring she would pull in ten or fifteen feet just to see if anyone still lived there. She rolled in slowly, coming to a spot a quarter way down the driveway where she could see the whole house. She stopped. There were no cars in sight. The siding on the old place was warped and buckling, and shingles were missing in various patches on the roof. One of the gutters had broken and was swaying in the breeze.

  She wondered if they still lived there, if anyone did.

  No name on the mailbox.

  It looked like no one was home.

  Jack would be furious if he knew where she was at that moment.

  You need to go.

  She shifted the car into reverse and took one last look at the house.

  A flash lit up a wall inside, then it went dark.

  POP.

  Pamela’s heart clicked and everything inside revved. The car seemed to wobble.

  Get out.

  She started to back the car up but couldn’t take her eyes off the room where she’d seen the flash.

  What had she just seen? Her insides felt sickeningly hollow.

  Gunshot?

  Heart spinning, head buzzing, Pamela turned back, arm stretched across the passenger seat, and started to navigate her way back out the driveway when she heard something.

  Screaming.

  She hit the brake, strained to hear.

  She zeroed in on the house, the grounds, looking for any movement—anything.

  Although the landscape was frozen, Pamela sensed motion, tension.

  Thud.

  What was that?

  It had come from the house, maybe out back?

  Then it registered somewhere at her very core.

  Car door.

  “Oh dear Jesus!”

  She looked back, found the driveway, and punched the gas. The car lurched, faster than she’d intended—too fast! Her stomach shrank to a knot as the car banged over a hump at the side of the driveway.

  No!

  She slammed the brake through the floor, and the car did a half spin, skidding, sliding, bumping down an embankment. It banged to a stop at an awkward angle, the front up high on the slope, the rear down at its base.

  The house and driveway were no longer visible from the dip she was in. Instead, when she looked forward, she was pointing up at a green canopy of trees.

  Pamela took a deep breath in the stillness.

  It was okay. She was only fifteen or twenty feet from the level surface of the driveway, and she was pointing right at it.

  She shifted into drive and started up the slope.

  Thank God, she was moving. Moving …

  A few feet from leveling off on the driveway surface, she felt the anxiety of the moment and pressed harder on the gas, but then … she wasn’t moving.

  Go!

  The car was getting louder, louder, but it was no longer climbing. It was listing, barely moving side to side. The engine roared, the needles on the dashboard vibrated upward. Pamela’s body and mind felt like the car—overheating to the bursting point.

  Crazed with fear, she smashed pedal to metal.

  The car jumped uphill slightly.

  Yes.

  The noise was deafening …

  But no. The car dropped back and, although roaring, was barely moving. Smoke rolled up from behind and filled her nostrils, as did the smell of burning rubber.

  She was scared and losing it.

  Back down, back down and gun it.

  She put it in reverse, took her foot off the gas, and let the car roll back down the slope until it pushed into thick weeds and underbrush and stopped on level ground.

  Please get me out of here.

  She gripped the wheel tight in the ten-two, took a deep breath, exhaled, and hit the gas hard to get that sucker moving fast up, up the embankment.

  It was going, going.

  This time she wanted to keep the speed steady so the tires didn’t spin.

  She was still climbing, almost there.

  Don’t gun it.

  She blocked out every thought except keeping the gas pedal pressed exactly as she had it. Steady.

  In a second she would be out of there, free, Granger’s house in the dust, headed home to the girls.

  Up, up … the level surface was right there.

  The front of the car made it over the edge and began to level.

  Thank God!

  Movement to the right, out the corner of her eye.

  Crunch.

  Everything spun.

  Eyes closed, she heard herself scream.

  Down, down, sliding, turning, tipping?

  The car stopped its free fall at the base of the embankment. She barely moved, opening her eyes, examining her body. Seeing no cuts or blood, she looked up, straight ahead, into thick green woods and a rolling cloud of dust.

  The engine had shut off.

  She turned the key off anyway and sat as still as she could, trying to get her bearings.

  The right front hood was mangled.

  She wondered if the car was drivable.

  Wait … someone had hit her.r />
  Shaking feverishly, she unbuckled her seat belt, fumbled for the door latch, and opened it. Her body ached as she swiveled and grunted to get out of the car. But she couldn’t stand yet. She thought she might pass out. She sat there with her feet in the weeds, trying to shake the fuzziness.

  “Pamela?” a man’s voice called from above her.

  Who?

  Granger’s dad?

  But he wouldn’t know her.

  She looked up, almost directly into the afternoon sun, toward where the driveway leveled. All she could make out were silhouettes—one of the car that had hit her, parked level up on the driveway; the other of a large man, sidestepping, slipping, kicking up dirt as he made his way down the embankment, directly toward her.

  Jack’s head felt lighter, freer, to be driving out in the country, toward nearby Lincolntown and Andrew Satterfield’s supposed house and boat on Lake Hudson. Jack figured he needed to keep as busy as possible until DeVry finally let him know Granger was apprehended.

  The car radio was off. The windows were down. Jack was relieved to have told Pam’s parents about Granger. Now he just wished Pam would hurry up and call so he could be certain she was safe. Although he wanted to let her have it for not carrying her phone, especially with Granger on the loose, he reminded himself to keep his cool when they talked; the important thing was that she was okay.

  His phone vibrated, and his heart spiked. But it was just Wendy. Between intermittent static and dead spots in the call, he deciphered that she was trying to farm the boys out to some friends. She was planning to fly to Englewood, Florida—certain that’s where Evan was heading.

  Having reflected on the letter Sherry had written to Evan, Jack had a feeling no matter how the Evan-and-Wendy situation played out, it wasn’t going to be good.

  He asked if she knew anything about Satterfield’s lake house or the two elders with whom Hank implied he might be in cahoots. Wendy was so classy. She said no, and that was that. No bitter or malicious words about Satterfield, even though she strongly suspected he was spearheading the charge at the church to oust Evan. All Wendy cared about was finding her husband—alive.