Sorrow Road (Bell Elkins #5) - Julia Keller Page 0,2

for everything.

She had driven here today knowing full well that no matter what she said, he would not react. He would just sit there looking placid and content, as he always did. She could scream, she could pound the table with her fists, she could shout accusations, she could roll up the sleeves of her blouse and show him the scars on her arms from the times when he had put out cigarettes on her skin after she had dared to talk back to him, after she had dared to stand up for herself and for Nelson, her little brother—and it would not matter.

Not one bit.

He would smile. He would blink. He would cross his legs at the knee. He would fold his hands and place them in his lap. He would look at her and say, “Hello there, sweet thing”—and you might think she’d be flattered, touched, maybe even nudged toward some tentative form of forgiveness, but the truth was that he said that to everyone he encountered, all day long, from the nurses to the housekeeper to the receptionist. The phrase had no meaning.

Nothing he said had any meaning.

She had made the trip again, knowing that, again, she would get no satisfaction. Knowing that, again, she would leave here frustrated. She came at least twice a month. Sometimes three or four times. Perverse as it sounded, the more remote the possibility that he would ever respond, would ever remember what he had done to her and to Nelson, the more she craved a response from him. Apology or excuse or justification or rationalization or ridicule or threat—whatever. She did not care. She wouldn’t even care if he denied the whole thing. She wouldn’t mind if he called her a crazy bitch and told her to get a life. She would take it.

She just wanted something. Some reaction. And the less likely it became, the deeper her need. As time went by, as his mind continued to shrivel, the fiercer the desire grew in her. It was, she had decided, like playing tennis with no one on the other side. You kept furiously swatting balls over the net and no one ever hit them back. Again and again and again, you hit the ball with a nice clean stroke and it landed and it bounced a few more times and then it rolled harmlessly to the edge of the fence. The balls all waited there, a fuzzy yellow line of utter pointlessness.

She wanted a return hit, she wanted the chance to volley, but she got nothing. She wanted him to say what he had done to his children.

She wondered if Nelson, wherever he was, wanted it as much as she did. Or if he’d given up by now and never even thought about Bill Ferris. Janie had not spoken to her brother in twenty-five years. He never said why he was going away. She thought she understood why, without him telling her. He was a good boy. A caring boy. Sensitive, but also tough. He could endure his own wounds, as deep and indelible as they were; what he could not endure was having to look at her wounds, knowing that she suffered as much as he did. And so he had left West Virginia right after high school. She might not even recognize him anymore.

Well, if he rolled up his sleeves, she would. They could compare scars.

Did Nelson ever dream of getting a reaction from the old man, as she did? Did Nelson ever fantasize that their father would suddenly remember what he had done to them and either acknowledge it or deny it—or do something, something that would make revenge even possible? Did Nelson, too, yearn for payback?

Across the table, the old man continued to smile. Then he winked at her.

“Hello there, sweet thing,” Bill Ferris said.

Chapter One

“Drugs.”

Darlene Strayer nodded. “Copy that,” she said. “So what’s second?”

“Drugs.”

“And third? Fourth? Fifth?”

“Drugs. Drugs. And drugs.”

“I’m sensing a pattern here.” Darlene offered a brief, tight smile. She picked up her shot glass and moved it around in a small level circle, making the river-brown liquid wink and shiver. The whiskey did not slosh; it trembled. Barely.

Darlene had no intention of finishing her drink. Bell Elkins was sure of it. She had used the technique herself on occasion. Order a drink—because not ordering one is too conspicuous, especially when your invitation had been casual but specific. Hey, want to meet for a drink? Take one tiny sip. No more. You needed