Chapter 2 - The Bruise She Wouldn’t Explain
Curtis Vane did not raise his voice.
That made him more dangerous.
Hank had known loud men his entire life. Men who shouted in bars, threatened across parking lots, and announced every bad intention several minutes before acting on it. Curtis was different. He stood in the center of the garage with his sheriff’s badge catching the fluorescent light and spoke as if everyone else were being unreasonable.
“Mr. Mercer, I appreciate that this is emotional for you.”
“You don’t know anything about my emotions.”
“I know this girl showed up with a story about your dead brother.”
Ellie stiffened.
Curtis glanced at her.
“And I know she has been having problems lately.”
“What kind of problems?” Hank asked.
“Anxiety. Defiance. Running away.”
“I didn’t run away,” Ellie repeated.
Curtis ignored her.
“She has been seeing a counselor.”
Ellie’s face went red.
Hank noticed.
“You want to tell me why my brother wrote that warning?”
Curtis held out one hand. “May I see the letter?”
“No.”
“Hank.”
“We’re not on first-name terms.”
Dan coughed to hide a laugh.
Curtis’s jaw moved.
“Mr. Mercer, I’m the legal guardian in that household.”
“You’re her stepfather.”
“I’m married to her mother.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Curtis stepped closer.
Ellie backed away again.
Hank moved between them.
The air changed.
Curtis looked at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
“Ellie, get in the truck.”
She looked at Hank.
Hank looked at her bruise.
“Did he do that?”
Curtis answered first.
“She fell off her bike.”
Ellie whispered, “I don’t have a bike.”
Dan stopped pretending to organize tools.
Curtis turned his head slowly toward her.
Ellie immediately lowered her eyes.
Hank felt every old instinct in his body wake up.
Not biker instincts.
Not fighter instincts.
Brother instincts.
The ones he had failed to use thirty-eight years ago when Caleb rode away.
“Call your mother,” Hank said.
Curtis frowned.
“Excuse me?”
“I want to talk to Mara.”
“Her mother is working.”
“Then she can answer a phone.”
Ellie took out a cheap cell phone with a cracked screen.
Curtis reached for it.
Hank caught his wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough.
Curtis’s eyes turned flat.
“Take your hand off me.”
“Take yours off the girl.”
For several seconds they stood like that.
Then Hank released him.
Ellie called her mother.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Curtis sighed.
“She works at a nursing home. Phones are restricted on the floor.”
“Then we’ll wait.”
“No. We won’t.”
Curtis’s voice sharpened for the first time.
“I am taking my stepdaughter home.”
Hank pulled Caleb’s letter from his pocket.
“My brother told me not to let her go home alone.”
“That man abandoned his family and died in a trailer park.”
Ellie looked up.
Hank’s face changed.
“How do you know where Caleb died?”
Curtis went still.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But Hank saw it.
Ellie saw it too.
“I read the obituary,” Curtis said.
“There wasn’t one,” Ellie whispered.
Curtis turned toward her.
Something ugly appeared in his eyes.
Dan moved closer.
Hank said, “You need to leave.”
Curtis laughed once.
“You think you can keep a minor from her legal home?”
“No. I think I can call a state trooper I trust, have him come down here, look at that bruise, listen to this conversation, and decide what happens next.”
Curtis’s smile returned, but it had become effort.
“Be careful, Mr. Mercer.”
“I’ve been careless most of my life. Thought I’d try something new.”
Curtis looked at Ellie.
“I’ll tell your mother where you are.”
She did not answer.
He walked out.
The black pickup disappeared into the rain.
Only then did Ellie begin shaking.
Hank pulled a chair toward her.
“Sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold.”
“You’re terrified.”
She looked away.
Dan brought a clean shop towel and a bottle of water.
Ellie drank with both hands.
Hank crouched across from her.
“Did Curtis hit you?”
“No.”
“You said you don’t have a bike.”
“I fell.”
“From what?”
Silence.
“Ellie.”
“He gets angry.”
Hank waited.
She hated waiting. He could tell. Silence made her want to fill it.
Finally she whispered, “Sometimes he grabs too hard.”
Hank’s hands curled into fists.
“And the bruise?”
“He pushed me into the kitchen cabinet.”
The words were quiet.
Too practiced.
“When?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Why?”
“I asked Mom where Grandpa’s papers went.”
Hank looked at Caleb’s letter.
“What papers?”
“She doesn’t know. Grandpa gave me a box before he died. Curtis found it.”
“What was in it?”
“Pictures. Notes. An old map. He burned most of it in the yard.”
“Your mother let him?”
“She was working.”
“Did you tell her?”
Ellie’s jaw tightened.
“She knows he has a temper.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She’s afraid too.”
There it was.
Hank sat back.
The entire shape of the afternoon changed.
This was not a rebellious teenager chasing a family mystery.
This was a girl using two buses and a dead man’s instructions because the adults in her house could not keep her safe.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
Ellie laughed bitterly.
“He is the police.”
“Not all of them.”
“He has friends.”
“So do I.”
She looked around at the motorcycle shop.
“Bikers?”
“Some.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
Dan said, “We also know an accountant.”
Ellie almost smiled.
Hank looked at the brass key.
“Red Creek is eighty miles back the way you came.”
She nodded.
“Unit seventeen.”
“I’m taking you.”
She hesitated.
“What about Mom?”
“We call her again on the road. And I’m calling someone from the state, not the county.”
“No.”
Hank frowned.
“If Curtis finds out—”
“He already knows where you are.”
“He doesn’t know about the storage unit.”
Hank understood.
That mattered.
“Then we don’t tell him.”
Dan locked the garage.
Stuart the buyer had quietly left twenty minutes earlier, but before going he slipped Hank his business card.
On the back he wrote: I saw everything. Call me if you need a witness.
Hank put it in his pocket.
They took Hank’s old Ford, not the motorcycle.
Ellie sat in the passenger seat with her backpack on her lap.
For ten miles, neither spoke.
Then Hank asked, “What was Caleb like at the end?”
She stared out the window.
“Sick.”
“I mean before that.”
“Funny when he forgot to be sad.”
Hank smiled despite himself.
“That sounds right.”
“He could fix anything.”
“Mostly.”
“He said you were better.”
“He lied.”
“He said you’d say that.”
Hank laughed.
Then Ellie reached into her backpack.
She pulled out a photograph.
Caleb stood beside the midnight-blue motorcycle, older, thinner, gray-haired.
On the back was written: Hank Mercer, Amarillo. Ask about the Iron Wolves.
Hank traced the edge with his thumb.
“My brother kept my name.”
“He talked about you.”
“Why didn’t he call?”
“He thought you hated him.”
“I did.”
Ellie looked at him.
Hank kept his eyes on the road.
“I loved him too. People make that sound impossible. It isn’t.”
Ellie grew quiet.
A few minutes later, her phone rang.
MOM.
She answered immediately.
“Mom?”
A woman’s frightened voice came through.
“Ellie, where are you?”
“With Hank Mercer.”
Silence.
Then Mara whispered, “You found him.”
Hank glanced over.
Ellie said, “Mom, Curtis came to the shop.”
Another silence.
Longer.
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Mom, Grandpa left a key.”
Hank heard Mara inhale sharply.
“A key to what?”
“Storage unit seventeen.”
Mara’s voice changed.
“Do not open it.”
Ellie stared at the phone.
“What?”
“Listen to me. Turn around. Go somewhere public. Do not go to Red Creek.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandfather didn’t hide that box from Curtis.”
Hank slowed the truck.
“Then who?” Ellie asked.
May you like
Mara whispered, “From me.”
The call ended.
