Traceless

by Debra Webb

  Not a damned thing.

  “Everything’s pretty much set,” Ray went on, determined not to let the one-sided conversation lull. “Be sure to keep in mind that a job is one of the conditions of your parole.”

  Clint surprised himself and said, “I’ll talk to Higgins about the job.” His voice sounded rough and unfamiliar, even to his own ears, but then there hadn’t been a lot of need to talk where he’d been.

  Ray made the final turn that would take Clint home. The house, weathered barn, and plot of land his mama had owned sat five or so miles outside Pine Bluff proper, surrounded by nothing but woods and mountains and dusty dirt roads going nowhere.

  “You’ve paid your debt to society,” Ray added, as if he hadn’t said enough already. “Start clean from here, Clint. Don’t be looking back.” His gaze shifted to Clint’s as he came to a stop in the driveway. “Looking back will only create problems you’ll regret.”

  The naïve police chief had no idea. Regret was something Clint had learned not to feel, along with a host of other emotions. As if to contradict him, his heart started that fierce pounding that made him feel out of control. He had to concentrate hard to make it slow. That was the thing about prison; there wasn’t much a man could regulate outside his own emotions. Getting real good at that kind of control had been Clint’s only escape.

  But he was home now and with that came baggage he couldn’t hope to dismiss with the usual techniques. Adjustments would need to be made to ensure no one got too close. He couldn’t afford to let that happen.

  His gaze settled on the place he’d called home before his life had gone to hell. The aged, peeling paint left the small frame house a ghostly shade of silvery white. The yard was freshly mown, probably Ray’s doing. Even the perennial plants Clint’s mother had cultivated year after year were in bloom. He felt his chest expand with air. He hadn’t realized until then that he’d stopped breathing.

  He was back.

  “Power’s on,” Ray said. “Well’s working fine. The ladies from church came over and did a little cleaning. I stocked the kitchen so you wouldn’t have to worry about that for a few days.” He propped his elbow in the open window of the driver’s side door. “You’ll need to go into town to meet with Lee Brady, your parole officer. Be best if you did that today. Other than that, you might want to take some time before running into any unnecessary … situations.” He shrugged. “I know it’ll be tough for a while.”

  Situations. Ray meant before showing his face around town any more than necessary. Before coming into contact with the folks who’d stolen a major portion of his life for a crime he hadn’t committed.

  Clint shifted his attention from the house to the man sitting behind the wheel. Anger whipped through Clint before he could stop it. “I don’t need your pity or your advice, Ray.” He knew he should have simply said, Thanks, but he didn’t.

  Ray let go another of those heavy, exasperated sighs. “That attitude won’t help,” he offered in response to Clint’s edict. “Most folks don’t want you back here. But, with time and patience, it’ll all blow over.”

  Clint stared at the house he hadn’t set foot inside in over ten years. “I don’t give a damn what they think.”

  “That may be,” Ray countered, “but your anger won’t keep you from feeling the shame. You might think it will, but it won’t.”

  Clint didn’t remember the last time he’d laughed at something anyone else said, but the words prompted the strained sound from his throat. “That’s where you’re wrong, Ray. There isn’t a damned thing these people can do that will make me feel anything at all.”

  Clint opened the truck’s door and Ray put a hand on his arm, making him hesitate before getting out and sending a new surge of tension through him. He didn’t like being touched, but he let it go this once.

  “You have every right to be bitter, Clint. But what the hell good is your freedom if all you’re going to do is wrestle with a past you can’t change?”

  Clint didn’t answer. He got out of the truck, didn’t look back or say good-bye as he strode forward. Ray’s well-meaning counsel was something he didn’t need. He didn’t need anything or anyone. He wasn’t wasting the effort pretending. He had his own agenda, and nothing or no one was going to get in his way.

  He walked up the steps and across the front porch to the door; his hand shook as he unlocked it. Gravel crunched as Ray drove away. The silence settled around Clint and still he hesitated before going in, waited for permission the way he’d been trained—like a dog—to do. That automatic reaction renewed the anger simmering deep inside him. He didn’t need anyone’s permission to enter his own goddamned house.

  He crossed the threshold, elbowed the door closed behind him, and trembled as a flood of memories washed over him. The house still smelled like her. Felt like her. His chest ached. Same old worn-out furnishings. Same framed photos scattered about, glimpses of his history. Such as it was. He’d graduated from high school by the skin of his teeth, but he hadn’t cared. His future had been all mapped out. He’d owned a fast car, had a slick job, women begging for a date with him, and was the envy of the town’s male population. Life had been full of promise.

  But that happy-go-lucky arrogance had deserted him hard and fast as he lay facedown on a cold concrete floor his first night in prison.

  Pushing aside the memories, he walked to the fireplace and picked up the porcelain music box that sat amid the other cheap knickknacks on the mantel. At seventeen he’d gotten his first decent-paying job. Sylvester Fairgate had paid Clint fifty bucks to deliver a message to a scumbag who owed him money. That had been the beginning of Clint’s tough-guy reputation and his barely legal career. No one could believe he’d driven to Decatur and waltzed into Frank Dennison’s TV repair shop that fronted a small-time bookie operation and passed along the warning issued by Fairgate.

  Lots of balls, not nearly enough brains.

  Afterward Clint had gone straight to Treasures Gift Shop and bought the music box. He’d seen his mama stop many times at the big trinket-filled window to admire the porcelain image of a red-haired beauty in a flowing gown playing a baby grand piano. When he’d given his mama the present, she’d cried and insisted he take it back. He’d refused. She’d cried some more before finally accepting his gift and thanking him again and again. That silly music box had meant the world to her.

  The mistakes he’d made had hurt her. Maybe even worse than those of his no-good, low-down daddy. That bastard had taken off when Clint was four years old. Just another bad-luck chapter in the life and times of Clint Austin.

  He wandered through the house, feeling restless and wary. If he’d been smart, he would have headed anywhere but here. But no one had ever accused him of being a rocket scientist.

  He pushed open the door to his room and felt a ripple of surprise. His mother had painstakingly put everything back just exactly as it had been before the police had ripped it apart looking for evidence. Evidence they hadn’t found.

  Hatred seared him. He’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time. They’d had nothing on him, except bad timing, stupidity, and the testimony of one person.

  Emily Wallace.

  Jaw clenched, he picked up his senior yearbook, still prominently displayed atop the dresser. He wondered how many times his mother had thumbed through it wishing for happier days. He paused on the page showcasing the varsity cheerleaders. There she was, all smiles alongside her best friend, Heather Baker.

  He had thought Emily was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. No matter how many girls he dated, she was the one he fantasized about in bed each night during those final minutes before drifting off to sleep. But she’d been out of his league, a good girl from a well-to-do family.

  Long dark hair, big brown eyes. He’d wanted her so badly.

  That desire had served as the primary motive behind his actions, according to the district attorney. Clint had been obsessed with Emily and had decided that if he couldn’t have her, no one co
uld. Only it wasn’t Emily who’d been sleeping in her bed that night, and when he had realized his mistake it had been too late; Heather was mortally wounded. That was the State’s version of what happened, and they had stuck to it, all the way to closing arguments. The jury had unanimously agreed.

  Clint slammed the yearbook closed and walked out of the room full of pointless memories.

  Emily Wallace was the main reason he’d spent the past ten years in hell. She was the reason his mother’s heart had given out far sooner than it should have, ensuring that he lost the last thing in this world that he cared about.

  The whole damned town had been on Emily’s side.

  The bitterness twisted like barbed wire in his gut. Someone else had killed Heather Baker. Clint might not be able to prove it, but he knew it … because it sure as hell hadn’t been him. And maybe, just maybe, if he dug around long and hard enough, stirred the pot until folks got riled up, the real killer would get nervous and bob to the surface.

  It didn’t matter how long it took. Clint had nothing but time. He would focus primarily on the one other person who had been in the room that night.

  She was the reason he was back.

  Pine Bluff

  3:15 P.M.

  Preparation was essential. In order for Emily’s effort to be of any benefit, she needed to familiarize herself with any and all infractions that translated into parole violations. Austin’s slightest mistake could work to her advantage. She wanted him back in prison. The sooner the better.

  As long as she lived and breathed, he would not get away with what he’d done. The only way to make sure that happened was to come back to Pine Bluff and get it done.

  She owed it to Heather.

  Emily rarely visited her hometown, and when she did she conscientiously avoided other people. Yet here she stood, hesitating at the corner of the block where the streets and the sidewalks crisscrossed on the western end of Pine Bluff’s Courthouse Square. The very heart of town. Once she rounded that corner the pedestrian traffic would be heavier and the likelihood of running into someone who recognized her would be much greater. She’d spent her entire senior year in high school the object of the whole town’s morbid curiosity, and then there had been the breakdown she still hadn’t lived down in her parents’ eyes. The painful memories whispered through Emily, reminded her of just how bad it had been. She’d been running away from it ever since.

  No more running. She squared her shoulders and strode determinedly around the corner. The sidewalk wasn’t as busy as she’d anticipated, allowing her to relax marginally. She picked up her pace, trying not to linger too long in front of any one particular storefront. Most looked the same other than a little new paint or decorating. Cochran’s Shoes, Half Moon Café, she’d loved both places as a kid. And Hodges’s Drugstore. She’d spent part of one summer working behind the old-fashioned soda fountain counter there. An eternity ago.

  As she neared the middle of the block, the crowd of people gathered at the eastern corner caused her to falter. The shouting reminded her of a rally she’d accidentally gotten caught up in back in college. She couldn’t make out the words being chanted. Hand-painted signs that displayed threatening slogans such as “The Wages of Sin Is Death” and “Prison Was Too Good for You” jogged above the sea of faces.

  A demonstration against Austin’s return, she realized slowly. The idea that all these people were protesting at this particular spot because Austin’s parole officer had an office on that corner of the square suddenly sank in.

  That could mean Austin was in there.

  Her palms started to sweat and her heart began that pointless race against disaster. She should just go back to her car and go home. She could talk to Mr. Brady tomorrow. She could ask the necessary questions by phone and avoid a face-to-face meeting altogether.

  The shouting grew more frantic as the crowd grudgingly parted for someone to pass. Emily’s lungs refused to take in any air.

  It was him.

  She recognized the way he moved. Long, confident strides that had once made her heart stop, then thump wildly. Fluid grace combined with the bad-boy good looks that had made her pray that this time, just maybe, she would be the girl he was coming to talk to.

  He came closer. Her mouth felt as if she’d gone days without water. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t run away. He would walk right past her. Would he recognize her? Would he stop?

  She fell back a step, flattened against the brick facade in a futile attempt to become invisible. She should go back to her car … slip into a store … run like hell … anything to get out of his path.

  A dozen or so yards away he abruptly darted across the street before continuing westward—toward her but with the width of the too-narrow street between them. Relief made her knees weak, allowed her to breathe again.

  He reached for the door of a car … his car. The red vintage Firebird he’d driven all those years ago. When he would have gotten into the driver’s seat, he stopped as if someone said his name … or as if he felt her watching him.

  Emily’s heart lurched when his gaze locked with hers. Even from thirty feet away she felt the focused intensity of those gray eyes. She tried to look away but couldn’t master the necessary motion.

  Every horrifying detail of that night flashed in vivid 3-D color. The blood … the struggle. The pain of knowing that nothing Emily had done had been enough … that her mistake was the reason her best friend was dead.

  Austin broke eye contact first, then got into his car.

  Time and place returned with jarring force as he backed out of the parking slot and sped away. Utter clarity washed over Emily for the first time since that night. She had tried to pull Austin away from her friend. She’d hit at him with her fists, screamed at him to stop. All to no avail. It would have been so easy. No one would have blamed her for actions that certainly would have amounted to self-defense. The knife he’d used on Heather had been lying right there on the floor … within easy reach. That was where Emily had made her second mistake.

  She should have killed him when she had the chance.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Probation and Parole Office 3:25 P.M.

  The trouble had already begun, not a block from City Hall. Police Chief Ray Hale had no intention of allowing this first wave of community reaction to trigger a domino effect. It was his job to ensure this kind of thing didn’t happen.

  For ten years his town and the people he served had gone on with their lives, allowing old wounds to heal and a painful tragedy to fade into memory. Now the worst of Pine Bluff’s past had been resurrected and there appeared to be nothing he could do to stop the gathering momentum. He felt the shift in the air like the accumulating charge of an electrical storm.

  Ray had thought the weight of responsibility he felt would lessen once Clint Austin was a free man again. But that hadn’t happened. If anything, the reverse was true considering the reality Ray had had to face this morning. The man he’d brought home from prison wore a hard mask of chilling indifference. Strict regulations had required that Clint keep his black hair shorter than before. The pallor that spoke of little or no exposure to the sunlight had stolen the glow of youth and vigor he’d once radiated. Sometime during his incarceration a nasty laceration had left a prominent scar just beneath his left cheekbone. His lean, wiry frame had morphed into a more heavily muscled build. But the most telling change was in his eyes. Dull, lifeless gray reflecting an unnerving emptiness.

  No, Clint was not the same man Ray had known back in high school or even in those final days before the trial had ended. For that he felt deep regret.

  To top off this crappy day, only steps from the courthouse Troy Baker and his friends had orchestrated a protest to publicly lodge their complaints regarding Clint’s release. Ray heaved a lungful of frustration. Troy was a good man, under normal circumstances very levelheaded. But this situation was anything but normal. Troy’s sister had been the victim. His family had tried everything within their powe
r to stop Clint’s bid for parole to no avail, ultimately accepting the decision the parole board had made. Troy’s intentions, however, had not changed and were as obvious as if he’d thrown down a gauntlet. He would not rest until he was satisfied with the price Clint had paid. If Ray could talk some sense into Troy, that one step would go a long way in keeping down the trouble. Others would be taking their cues from his actions.

  To escape the crowd still loitering outside, Deputy Mike Caruthers herded the ringleaders of the disturbance into Lee Brady’s office, giving the whole lot a good chewing out along the way. Mike’s red hair and multitude of freckles gave him the look of a rather large Opie Taylor from Mayberry, but he was no pushover small-town deputy. Ray counted on him more than anyone else in the department. They’d been best friends since first grade, had graduated from high school together and gone onto the police academy to serve the town they loved. Mike had no patience for this business, either. He was just as pissed off at these guys as Ray and was making no bones about it.

  For the most part, Pine Bluff was a picturesque southern town filled with law-abiding citizens where life was generally peaceful and uncomplicated. A place where folks supported one another through the good times as well as the bad. The problem was Clint Austin’s release didn’t fit neatly into either of those categories. As God-fearing folks, the citizens of Pine Bluff would want to support a man’s bid for a second chance at living righteously. But anyone who offered a hand to Austin was, in effect, turning a hand against the Bakers. In their eyes he would always be a killer. Only time would make a difference, and only if folks would let it.

  Lee Brady sidled up next to Ray. “Chief, I hope this isn’t any indication of what’s to come.”

  Ray wanted to reassure the man who had been saddled with the job of serving as the parole officer on this case, but he couldn’t make any real guarantees, especially in light of Clint’s own attitude. “I’ll do all I can, Lee.”