Chapter 5 - THE WAKE-UP CALL
I drove home through the foggy dark, the broken iron gates of the Voss estate swinging uselessly in my side mirror.
The rain started around four in the morning—a cold, steady drizzle that turned the dirt roads into brown slush. When I pulled into my driveway, the kitchen lights were on.
Doc Ellis’s truck was still parked near the barn. He was standing on the back porch, smoking a cigarette beneath the wooden overhang, staring out at the rain.
He tossed the butt into the mud as I walked up the steps, holding the wooden bat in his hand.
"Did you kill him?" Doc asked flatly.
"No," I said, setting the bat down on the porch bench. "Not with a stick."
Doc looked at the bat, then at my face. He let out a long, weary sigh, the white smoke curling from his mouth into the freezing air.
"Claire woke up ten minutes ago," Doc said. "The morphine's wearing off. She was asking for you."
I stepped inside, pulling off my wet coat and hanging it on the peg. I walked into the living room, stepping softly over the worn floorboards.
Claire was lying on her side, her face pale against the white pillow. Her split lip looked darker in the dim lamplight, her swollen eye fully shut now, purple and yellow bruising spreading down to her cheekbone.
When she heard my boots, she turned her head slowly.
"Daddy?" she whispered.
I sat down on the wooden chair beside the couch, reaching out to gently take her uninjured hand. "I'm right here, sweet pea."
Tears trickled down her bruised cheek, pooling in her ear. "Did you go up there?"
"I did."
"Is... is he coming here?" Her grip tightened frantically on my fingers, terror flashing through her single open eye. "Dad, his father knows the judge! He knows the state troopers! They'll say I fell... they'll say I was crazy..."
"Listen to me, Claire," I said, leaning in close so she could look straight into my eyes. "Nobody is going to say anything. Nobody is going to touch you ever again."
"You don't know Warren," she sobbed softly. "He has everyone in his pocket. He told me last month that if I ever tried to leave Daniel, he'd have the bank foreclose on your farm."
"Warren Voss is a ghost," I said, my voice quiet, firm, and immovable as granite. "He just doesn't know he's dead yet."
She stared at me, her small hand trembling inside mine. In all her twenty-three years, she had never heard me speak like that. To her, I was just the quiet man who mended fences, listened to the morning radio, and never pushed back when the world pressed hard.
"What are you going to do?" she asked softly.
"First," I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out an old brass key, "I'm going to make a phone call to Atlanta."
"Atlanta?"
"To an assistant United States Attorney named Marcus Vance," I said. "Thirty years ago, before he went to law school, Marcus worked on my farm cutting hay every summer. He was the boy who slept in our bunkhouse when his own daddy was beating him."
I stood up, adjusting the collar of my flannel shirt.
"Doc Ellis is going to stay here with you today," I told her. "I'm going down to the tool shed to dig up a box."
Before I could walk out of the room, the sound of heavy tires crunched through the gravel in the driveway outside. Bright headlights flashed through the living room window, cutting through the dark rain.
May you like
A police cruiser had just pulled up in front of my porch.
The red and blue lights began to rotate, casting long, bloody reflections across the living room walls.
