Page 33 of The Chase
Why the hell did women want to keep a stick they’d pissed on? He had never understood that. He’d had a girlfriend show him one of those damned things once, told him it had been his kid. He supposed that kid was still out there now, probably around fourteen or fifteen.
Dwayne had taken off the minute she’d said ‘child support’. Hell, kid was better off without him. And Dwayne was for damned sure better off without a kid to support. If he’d been paying child support to her all this time, he’d have been evenmore screwed when he got out. Did the state make a man in prison pay backpay or something?
She could possibly still sue him for it, he supposed. But what would she get? Twenty bucks a month was about all he had to spare.
Maybe she’d married, given the kid a real daddy or something. He had wondered about that kid some when he’d been behind bars. Tried to look his ex-baby-mama up a few times. She wasn’t easy to find—had privacy settings up and everything. He’d seen one picture of his kid total. A boy. Thin, nerdy pansy looking thing. Not overly impressed. But still, that was literally theonlyfamily Dwayne had. And the kid probably didn’t even have his last name.
Probably didn’t even know about Dwayne at all.
Hillers had all those kids, but he…all he had was a loser kid who didn’t even know Dwayne existed.
Dwayne drove around in his truck, trying to think. He did that sometimes, on Mondays. He was off on Mondays—ran ten-hour days Tuesday through Thursday and the part time guys ran Fridays and Saturdays. It was a small town. Didn’t need much on the sanitation crew. Didn’t pay much, either, that was for sure.
He just kept driving around.
Until he was at the Hiller Ranch.
That’s when he saw the big red truck pulling out of the drive of theHiller Ranch.Right there on that gravel drive where his life had changed forever.
He knew who drove that red truck now, too. He paused at the stop sign, pulled his hat lower over his head. He wouldn’t put it past some of those Hillers to recognize him. Some of them brothers had shown up at his parole hearings throughout the years, after all. Saying all kinds of shit against him—even the preacher man. Hadn’t exactly preachedforgiveness,that one.
That red truck, though. The mayor’s. Fucking George Hiller had become themayor.He remembered George, all right. They’d been two years apart in school, and George hadn’t fucking like him one bit.
They’d made each other miserable, and if Dwayne hadn’t had Kevin to keep him from doing something stupid—like murdering that son-of-a-Hiller-bitch—Dwayne would have been sent away for fighting with the golden asshole of Value.
Dwayne turned his truck onto the highway and pushed the pedal down, before he could even stop himself.
There were other cars out there. Who could see him, see his damned truck.
He didn’t care.
What could they do to him, send him back? At least then he’d have a roof over his head he didn’t have to pay for. But even as he thought it the other part of himself shoutedno.He wouldn’t go back.
But damn it, he wanted to make every Hiller out thepayfor what they’d done to him.
The mayor’s big fancy red truck was a good place to start.
26
Greer was still shaking.
They’d all gotten so lucky. Especially Ronnie and the babies. And Greer…her baby was going to be okay. She had ultrasound photos of her baby now. The baby was okay. Greer forced herself to breathe, to just be calm. Everyone was going to be okay.
She was not going to fall apart now. She just wasn’t.
She didn’t know how much longer she could do this. Greer was keeping in every emotion, so that her family wouldn’t see how freaked she was. She was sore, but she would be okay. Her baby was okay. Aubrey had had a nurse stay with Greer the whole time Aubrey was in with Ronnie.
Her sister-in-law was going to be okay. Greer wiped tears from her cheeks as that started to sink in. Ronnie was going to be okay. She’d be hurting for a while, of course, but Ronnie andbothbabies were alive. George and Ronnie hadn’t even told anyone Ronnie was having twins, and they could have lost the babies and Ronnie today.
When Greer had looked at Ronnie in George’s truck, had seen the blood, had seen her sister-in-law’s face—she had been so terrified. She hadn’t known what to do, either.
Thank God Aubrey and Genny had been behind them. Aubrey had known what to do, and Genny had been amazing. Genny hadn’t fallen apart out there. Well, Greer wasn’t going to fall apart now, either.
Her family was safe, herbabywas safe, and everything was going to be okay.
Even if Aubrey and Guthrie had insisted Greer was spending the night in the hospital, too. The nurse Janie, a woman Greer had known since kindergarten, was in the room with her now. She was one of Genny’s friends, too. They worked together all the time. Everyone was going to be okay now.
Janie helped Greer get set up in the bed, with an extra blanket and bottled water. She fussed, like nurses tended to do. Greer had learned that long ago, when she’d been stuck in hospitals, waiting to get out forever. She’d been in and out of the hospital that first year or so after the attack had left her in a coma and barely able to move. She’d had two surgeries, and three years of weekly physical therapy, followed by two years of twice a month work.
