“There was a belt on the sideboard,” she said. “You know, what they store china in? The whole house is spotless, like a museum. The belt was out of place, totally out of place. I think he was using it on Kelliher.”
Rage rose inside of Marston, a shaft of volcano-hot hate at a man he’d never met, never wanted to meet because if he did, he’d certainly get arrested for assault and battery. Kell was the sweetest young man, surly on the surface, a tender scared rabbit beneath, and he certainly didn’t deserve to be beaten for being gay.
“That’s why he ran away,” said Marston. “Though he waited until the school year ended to do it.”
“I noticed that, too,” she said. “He was a good kid, by all accounts. Just, quite simply, a good kid. The dad barely mentioned the gay aspect, like it wasn’t an issue, but it slipped out in the interview when Mr. Dodson said,We’re sending him to camp to get the gay removed. Like it was a cancer or something.” She sighed, the heaviness of her thoughts coming directly through the cell phone and into Marston’s ear. “They’d taken all the pictures of Kelliher from the walls,” she said. “You could see the outlines, and the pile of frames was there on the dining room table. Face down.”
“He prefers to be called Kell,” said Marston quickly. “That’s what he goes by now.”
“Kell,” she said brightly. “I’ll update the record, but now I must dash. Please consider letting Fayetteville know his status, so they can close the books. They’ll be obliged to tell his parents he’s been found, of course, but it’s the right thing to do. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, but thank you for your time today.”
There was a click on the other end as she hung up. For a moment, he stood there, holding his cell phone in his hand.
The sky turned slowly to darkness all around him, settling from dusk to twilight as a few cars rushed past on Highway 85. The lights came on at Fresh Foods, spreading in a sprawl across the gravel parking lot.
Above the sparkle and shine of city lights, the stars were doing their best to come out behind the fleece of clouds that had formed while he’d not been watching, accompanied by a slight breeze pushing along the river to the east.
When it got truly dark, he headed back to his truck, squinting at the cab light when it came on and then at the single piece of paper in the footwell on the passenger side.
The F150 had been spotless when he’d first got in, so the paper must have come from the folder. Leaning over without getting in, he picked up the paper and read it in the light from the cab.
It was a handwritten note on a sheet of yellow legal paper, the handwriting fine and careful. A secretary, perhaps. It read:
Mr. Bateman, the warden, wants the parole hearing to go without a hitch. He’s concerned that there is a danger presented by Kelliher Dodson’s current cell mate, Obadiah “Bede” Deacon, who was arrested for dealing drugs and drug trafficking.
Dodson originally had a different cell mate, but something happened in the yard, and Deacon appears to have stepped in and taken over Dodson, and Griff somehow got Dodson transferred to Deacon’s cell.
Dodson has been under Deacon’s wing, so to speak, and the warden is concerned that Deacon has an unsavory sexual influence over Dodson, who is quite young, relative to the rest of the prison population.
The warden is prepared to sign the release paperwork the second it hits his desk.
Quickly, Marston put the handwritten note at the back of the manila folder, and shut it carefully. Getting into the truck, he sat there in the darkness for a good long while, feeling the weight of responsibility settle onto his shoulders.
He was totally willing to be responsible, but what should he do? Contact the Fayetteville police department or let them worry about a missing person’s case till the end of time? Should he call the family or, at the very least, Mrs. Dodson?
Even more troubling was the idea that some convict, a drug dealer, no less, had been taking advantage of Kell, and the idea of what that could mean pushed at Marston so hard he wanted to thrust it away and go running into the night.
Instead, he started the truck, taking the long drive back to the valley, as slow as he could make it, to go over everything in his mind.
Chapter16
Marston
It was late by the time Marston arrived back in the valley, so, beneath the soft light of the stars, he trundled slowly down the switchbacks and along the dirt road to the parking lot next to the main part of the compound. There, he quietly parked the truck and got out, grabbing Kell’s folder and leaving the keys in the driver’s seat before shutting the door with a soft click.
There were a few lights on in tents, the flicker of gold and silver between the tree trunks, like shy fireflies winking in the distance. Once back in his silent tent, he flicked the overhead light on, blinking in the glare as he placed Kell’s folder carefully with the other ones on the shelf.
He should probably have given those folders back to Gabe, who would have returned them to Wyoming Correctional, but maybe, in his heart of hearts, he’d been hoping that Lomax and Hicton might have changed their minds and shown up in the valley to be on his team.
Only now he had a team, a team of one. Kell. Who’d been through more than could be imagined by just looking at him.
Yes, at first he’d seemed surly, a wild kid, a runaway from home. Now, after reading his file, Marston knew more about the glitter in Kell’s eyes, understood more why he had sensed that, beneath it all, Kell was a good kid. A young man growing into adulthood, dealing with more than most his age.
At nineteen, Kell was a survivor, living a hardscrabble existence on the road for two years—only now Marston knew without a doubt that wasn’t the life Kell had wanted or even envisioned for himself, not at all.
And, oddly, against all that Marston knew about incarceration, which admittedly wasn’t much, even with his two-week training session. Wyoming Correctional had seemed to agree that Kell needed an exit from the horrible situation that had landed him in prison.
