The Girl Named Mud: A Gripping Suspense Novel

by Ditter Kellen

  But that had changed over the years. He’d become withdrawn, distant, and unfeeling. But why?

  Beulah’s words whispered through her mind once more. “Drugs. When he was picked up for beating his wife, they found meth in his system.”

  If Jasper were on drugs, where would he get them? Where would he do them?

  The one place he spends the most time…

  Stepping on the gas, Grace drove back to Jena Village with one destination in mind… Jasper’s church.

  * * * *

  Grace could see no vehicles in the parking lot of the church when she arrived home ten minutes later.

  She rushed into the house and took a knife from one of the drawers in the kitchen. Since she had no key to the church basement, she had no choice but to pick the lock.

  Jumping back in her car, she drove over to the church and parked in front of the side door.

  Her hands shook, as did her legs. She was about to break into the basement of the church.

  I have every right to be here, she thought, exiting the car and glancing around. Then why did she feel like a criminal for what she was about to do?

  Jasper had never offered her a key to that basement, and Grace had never questioned him on it. She’d had no reason to. Until now.

  Using her key to the church, Grace let herself inside, shivering from the eerie silence of the sanctuary.

  She listened for sounds indicating she wasn’t alone and then moved quietly toward the basement.

  The door, of course, was locked, just as she’d known it would be.

  Grace tugged the knife from the pocket of her white pants and slid it into the groove next to the lock.

  It took some finagling to pop it free, but the door eventually opened.

  “Hello?” she nervously called out, straining to see in the dark.

  When no answer came, she pushed the door wide, flipped on the light, and took the steps to the basement below.

  Dozens of boxes were stacked along the wall, and the bed Jasper had obviously been sleeping on sat in the back-left corner, unmade.

  Grace studied the room with a critical eye, her gaze continuing to stray to those boxes.

  She made her way over to the first box and dragged the blade of her knife across the seam along the top. It opened with a flick of her fingers.

  Lined in the box were clear bags of an off-white powdered substance.

  Grace’s heart began to pound.

  She opened another box and then another, only to find that each one contained the same off-white powdery substance.

  Understanding the boxes contained some type of drug, Grace tucked the knife into her back pocket and moved on wooden legs toward the bathroom. She flipped on the light.

  There, lying on the counter next to the sink, was a spoon, a lighter, and a syringe.

  Heat began to form in her face and neck. The room tilted beneath her feet, and her stomach suddenly lurched.

  She spun toward the toilet behind her, dropped to her knees, and vomited. Violently.

  Jasper was not only doing drugs, but from the amount in that room, he was obviously dealing them as well.

  Grace wasn’t sure how long she remained on that floor, retching uncontrollably, when the sound of a door opening reached her ears.

  Her heart flipped over.

  She staggered to her feet in time to watch Jasper descend the steps to the basement.

  His eyes were wild and glassy, and his steps sure and precise. “You shouldn’t have come down here, Grace.”

  The sound of his voice made her skin crawl. She barely recognized him, this man she used to love. “J-Jasper. I was looking for you.”

  His wild-eyed gaze sliced to the open boxes against the wall. “I see you found the heroin.”

  So, it was heroin in the boxes. Grace had assumed it was meth. “I-I didn’t know what it was.”

  He took a step closer. “Well, now you do.”

  Grace glanced toward the door, trying to determine whether she could make it to those steps before he could stop her.

  “Tisk, tisk, Grace.” He pronounced the tongue clucking sound, for obvious sarcasm. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Hoping to buy herself some time, Grace attempted to keep him talking. “How long have you been doing drugs?”

  Jasper shrugged. “What you refer to as drugs, I see as power.”

  “Power?” Grace repeated incredulously. “It’s destroying you, Jasper. It’s destroyed us!”

  He had the audacity to laugh, a manic sound that straightened the fine hairs on the back of Grace’s neck.

  “Wake up, Grace. There hasn’t been an us in many years. You can’t be that dumb.”

  Confusion mixed with disbelief inside Grace, until she feared she would vomit again. “What’s happened to you, Jasper?”

  “Do you have any idea how difficult my job is? To be responsible for a large congregation of tightwads who are too cheap to even replace the carpets?”

  Grace’s mouth dropped open. “Tightwads? The Choctaws gave us this church, Jasper. And the home we’ve lived in for the past fifteen years. How can you say such a thing?”

  “Charity, Grace. It’s nothing but a small amount of charity to keep us under their thumb. They love to see us need something from them. The poor little white preacher and his naïve wife. It sickens me. It always has.”

  “Jasper!” Grace gasped, taking a slow step back. “The Choctaw are good, decent people. They—”

  “People?” He laughed again. “They’re not people. They’re backwoods, weed-smoking, makeup-wearing fanatics who should have been forced out of here a long time ago. This land doesn’t even rightfully belong to them. The government gave it to them out of pity.”

  Grace couldn’t believe the vileness spilling from Jasper’s mouth. The man who stood before her now didn’t resemble the man she’d married or the man who stood behind the pulpit on Sunday mornings, preaching love and forgiveness. “You’re a hypocrite, Jasper. A disgusting, sickening hypocrite!”

  He closed the distance between them, drew back his fist, and slammed it into her face.

  Grace saw stars. Her body flew backward to land hard against the bathroom tile.

  Her thoughts scrambled, Grace moaned deep in her throat and attempted to roll to her side.

  Jasper was on her before she could move. He pinned her arms above her head, his hideous face hovering above her own. “Everything you have, everything you are or will ever be, is because of me.” He ground his pelvis against her. “Only me.”

  Terrified, Grace squeezed her knees together and turned her face to the side. “Let me up.”

  His answer was to drop his head and drag his tongue along her neck.

  Grace’s entire body began to shake. She had to do something and fast before Jasper hurt her… Or worse.

  She wasn’t stupid. She knew there would be no way Jasper would let her out of there alive. She knew too much, had seen too much.

  Using what little sense she had left, Grace gathered her strength and said, “The tribal police know I’m here.”

  Jasper slowly lifted his head, his breath skating across her face. “Nice try, Grace. But you never could lie. Your voice always goes up an octave when you’re lying. Just as it’s doing now.”

  Hoping to keep him talking, Grace blurted, “How did you know Flora Ramer?”

  That gave him pause. He rolled off her and surged to his feet.

  Grace scrambled up as well. “You said she was a lunatic who burned down the church because you thwarted her advances. How much of that was true?”

  Jasper pulled a long piece of rubber from his pocket and tied it around the upper part of his left arm. Next, he moved to the sink, took out a vial, and poured a small, off-white-colored rock onto the spoon lying there. He then picked up the lighter and fired it beneath the spoon.

  Grace watched in horror as he heated up the heroin on that spoon.

  She needed to get out of that bathroom and fast. But Jasper stood b
etween her and the door.

  Once the heroin liquified, he sucked it up into the syringe and injected it into the vein at the bend of his arm.

  Grace eased back as far as that small bathroom would allow and watched Jasper’s eyes roll shut.

  He staggered back a step, nearly bumping into Grace’s terrified form.

  It took him a second to right himself, and then his glassy gaze once again focused on her. “You really wanna know about Flora Ramer, Grace? She was a nutjob who worked for Horace Dyson. She came on to me at a party he’d thrown at his place one night.”

  He stumbled forward a step in Grace’s direction. “And you know what, Grace? She might have been loony tunes, but she sure knew how to please a man.”

  Grace swallowed back bile, sickened by not only Jasper’s words but his mere presence. She hated him in that moment. Worse than she’d ever hated anyone or anything in her life. “You took advantage of a mentally ill woman.”

  “More than once, Gracie baby. More than once. The things she did to me would make a hooker blush.”

  Hoping to keep him busy talking until she could figure out a way to slip around him, Grace asked, “Did she burn down the church, or was that you?”

  “She did,” he practically snarled. “She destroyed a half a million dollars of the purest heroin around these parts.”

  Grace attempted to control not only her trembling but her gag reflex as well. “Where did you get all that heroin?”

  When he didn’t answer, she gritted her teeth. “Does Flora’s daughter belong to you? Are you Mud’s father?”

  “Answer me,” she whispered when he simply stood there, staring at her through those glassy eyes.

  “I’m her father,” a deep voice rumbled from the depths of the basement.

  Grace was afraid to look. But she knew the owner of that voice—had heard it many times before.

  She slowly raised her gaze to look over Jasper’s shoulder, her eyes locking with those of a man she would know anywhere. “You…”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mud sat in a chair, looking at a somber-faced Red Bear, who appeared far too big for the small seat he sat in.

  He’d just informed Mud that the investigation into her mother’s and Albert Dyson’s deaths was officially over. Albert’s remains had been released to his father, with a full accounting of what happened, and Mud had been cleared of any wrongdoing.

  “What about Mama?” Mud asked through a suddenly tight throat.

  Red Bear held her gaze. “Mrs. Holloway informed me that you wanted your mother’s body to be returned to her original grave. Is that what you want, Mud?”

  Mud nodded. “That’s our home. Mama would have wanted to be buried there. She liked the spot I picked out for her grave. It was her favorite place in the whole world.”

  Red Bear cleared his throat. Mud could swear she saw a suspicious moisture in his eyes but had no idea why. Maybe he had allergies.

  “Well, then that’s what we will do,” Red Bear informed her. “I’ll see to it that your mother is returned to her home.”

  Mud didn’t miss the fact that he left out what would happen to her now that her mama had been taken care of. “What about me?”

  He looked away and then locked his fingers together between his knees. “I don’t know for sure, Mud. I figure we can talk to Mrs. Holloway and see what she suggests.”

  “Can’t I go home with Mama?” Mud didn’t want to wait around and see what others thought. She wanted everything to go back to the way it was before the fever had set in, and she’d been taken from her home by Talako.

  “Mud, listen to me. You’re just a kid. Barely a teenager, if that. I can’t simply send you back to those swamps to live by yourself. You would never survive.”

  Anger flooded Mud’s system. “I survived just fine by myself. I don’t need no one to take care of me. Just ask Grace. She’ll tell ya!”

  Red Bear pushed to his feet. He paused for a moment and rested his palm on Mud’s shoulder. “I promise you that I will speak with Mrs. Holloway before any decisions are made. In the meantime, I have to make some phone calls. But I’ll come back and check on you later. Okay?”

  Mud could only nod. Her insides felt cold, and a strange feeling of aloneness settled over her.

  Her mama had been dead for more than two years. And in that time, Mud had come to grips with her lot in life. She knew things wouldn’t be easy for her, but she had a home, a way to fish, skin, and trap her food. And what she didn’t have, she could get from town.

  The townsfolk didn’t miss what little Mud took. Besides, they threw away more food and clothing in one day than Mud could eat or wear in a month’s time. Not that she knew how long a month was.

  She glanced over at Jaya. The pretty Choctaw woman had been teaching Mud how to tell time, and Mud enjoyed every minute she spent in school.

  Jaya had informed Mud that she was one of the brightest students to come through the tribal school in a long time. Which secretly made Mud proud.

  Mud was also aware that the safehouse was not the tribal school. But given the circumstances, Mud couldn’t be taught alongside the other students. Understandably so.

  But as much as Mud secretly loved learning, she wanted to go home even more, to be there when her mama was returned to her grave.

  Jaya abruptly stopped organizing the stack of papers she’d been working on and motioned for Mud to join her.

  Pushing to her feet, Mud walked barefoot across the wooden floor. “What?”

  “Ma’am,” Jaya gently but firmly corrected. “You are to refer to me as ma’am, not what.”

  Mud nodded. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  Jaya’s lips twitched. “Good. I couldn’t help but overhear some of what you and Red Bear were discussing. And I wanted to talk to you about your schooling.”

  Though Mud still didn’t trust Jaya, she was beginning to like her and figured her mama would have too. “My schoolin’?”

  “Schooling, Mud. Schooling. And yes. Of course, we will have to discuss it with Mrs. Holloway, but since you were born on tribal lands, well, that kind of makes you a Jena Choctaw. Which means that you can get your education here on tribal lands, and you could possibly have some grants available to you, depending on if you have Choctaw blood in your veins.”

  Not all of Jaya’s words made sense to Mud. “You think I might be an Indian?”

  Jaya smiled. “It’s possible. But either way, you should be able to attend our school system. Would you like to go see our school?”

  Suddenly afraid, Mud backed up a step. “Are there lots of people there?”

  “Yes,” Jaya softly admitted. “There are many children your own age there. I think you would like it. You never know, you just might meet someone who will become your very best friend.”

  “I don’t need no friend.”

  Something flickered in Jaya’s eyes, a sadness that Mud picked up on before it disappeared.

  “Everyone needs friends, Mud. Even you.”

  Mud shook her head. “My mama didn’t have no friends. And I don’t need them either.”

  Mud’s mind immediately drifted to Grace and her sweet nature. Truth be told, Mud wouldn’t mind having Grace for a friend. But only Grace.

  “So, would you like to go? You don’t have to speak to anyone or even be seen, for that matter. We can look from a distance if that’s what you prefer.”

  Mud just wanted to go home.

  “They have ice cream.”

  “Okay,” Mud conceded, “But only for a minute.”

  Jaya spun toward her desk to retrieve her purse. “And a root beer float. Can’t have ice cream without root beer.”

  Mud had no idea what a root beer float was, but by the look on Jaya’s face, it had to be good.

  “I’m ready.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Mr. Dyson,” Grace breathed, even more terrified than she’d been in the small bathroom with a drugged-up Jasper.

  Jasper spun ar
ound, apparently just as surprised to see the man as Grace was.

  “Tell her, Jasper.”

  “Tell me what?” Grace managed to get out around her fear.

  When Jasper remained quiet, Horace blew out a bored-sounding breath. “You tell her, or I will.”

  Jasper spoke without facing her. “I had a vasectomy, Grace.”

  Disbelief mixed with Grace’s fear. “What—When? Why would you do something like that?”

  “Because I didn’t want children, Grace. And I had it done a year after we married.”

  So many things fell into place in that moment. Jasper not agreeing to go for fertility testing, him forcing her to stop fostering, and many more moments that suddenly became clear to Grace. But she couldn’t think about that now. She needed to find a way to get out of that bathroom and fast.

  Dyson abruptly stepped in closer, his hand immediately going to Jasper’s face.

  From what Grace could see from her position behind Jasper, Horace appeared to be pulling one of Jasper’s eyelids down.

  “How many times have I warned you about smoking up my product?”

  “Horace, I…” Jasper began, only to close his mouth when Horace pulled a pistol from the waistband of his jeans.

  “Mathew?” Horace barked without taking his gaze from Jasper. “How much of the product is gone?”

  Grace’s heart lurched. Horace’s oldest son Mathew was apparently somewhere in that basement as well. There would be no way she would get out of there alive.

  Several heartbeats passed, with Grace on the verge of hyperventilating, when Mathew called out. “There’s two boxes missing.”

  Horace’s left eye twitched. “Where’s my heroin, Jasper?”

  “I s-sold it,” Jasper choked out.

  Horace raised an eyebrow. “And the money from that sale?”

  Jasper grew quiet, his hands fidgeting at his sides. “Look, Horace. I’ll get you the money. You know I’m good for it.”

  “Just like you were good for getting rid of that Indian cop that Flora ran her mouth to? You couldn’t even do that right. Instead, he ended up discovering the heroin we were shipping under the guise of mission donations. All you had to do was make it look like a hate crime. But you botched that up too. Mathew had to go in behind you and scalp the man. You didn’t even have the stomach for that. You’re weak, Jasper. You always have been.”