The Lost Prince

by Edward Lazellari

  Daniel had been smitten with her since before she came into his bed, something he never tried for or imagined could happen. She was completely wrong for him, yet somehow they filled a need in each other. Danny wanted to tell her anything else but the truth … make up something less horrendous. He couldn’t stand to experience her revulsion over what he’d done. But he couldn’t lie to her either.

  “I—I killed my stepfather,” he said.

  She sucked in her breath. “Oh, my God.”

  “He was abusing me—tried to kill me. I fought back—and now he’s dead.”

  Luanne’s eyes widened, reflecting the trickle of light in the dark room. What is she thinking? he wondered. Fear? That she took a murderer into her bed?

  Luanne was stuck, her pouty mouth opened, probing her thoughts as she gazed into him to confirm his confession. He fought back tears, but his eyes welled up anyway, confessing his shame—revealing his burden. Luanne approached and placed her hand on his chest. His heart pulsed against her warm palm and perfectly manicured nails. Luanne put her arms around Daniel, pressed her naked flesh against him, and gave him a powerful hug. She kissed him tenderly on the cheek and neck. His tears fell, streaking his cheek before landing on his lover’s shoulders. And he knew that against all the odds in the world, Luanne cared about him.

  “I wasn’t supposed to have feelin’s for you,” she said. “It was just a job. I don’t know how it happened.”

  “Huh?”

  “You need to run,” she told him, wiping tears from her eyes. “Away from here … from Uncle Cole, too.”

  “Huh?”

  “He paid mama to take you in. He paid me to keep an eye on you.” She looked at her shopping bags, finally answering his question about the money. She found her purse in the mess and pulled a roll of money out. She stuffed it into Daniel’s jean pocket.

  “Colby’s broke,” Daniel said, confused. “A transient I ran into in the Baltimore bus station … randomly.”

  “He’s a private detective in New York,” Luanne corrected. “Smart as the devil, too. Mama said he had a run of bad luck with the law up north. Can’t be broke, though, ’cause he gave me three thousand dollars to make you stay put. Said you were in trouble—that people after you were worse than the police. He might be on your side or workin’ a reward angle to get in good with someone. Who knows with Uncle Cole? Danny, you can’t trust anyone.”

  Daniel tried to process this new information, but had trouble getting it down. He wasn’t anyone of note before killing Clyde—just a regular school kid. Why would he be on anyone’s hit list? No one had even heard of Clyde’s death when he was at the bus station in Maryland. Why was he on some New York detective’s radar?

  Headlights momentarily illuminated the room as a car turned the corner. It came to a halt outside Luanne’s front door, horn blaring. Cody, his lackeys, and Eljay spilled out of the DeVille like clowns from a circus car.

  “LUANNE!” bellowed Cody from outside. “Send that piece of shit artist out now and get your white trash ass out here, too!”

  “Jig’s up,” Daniel said.

  “I can’t believe she told!” Luanne said. “We pinkie swore!”

  “Water under the bridge,” Daniel said, zipping up his jacket and throwing his pack on. He wanted to ask her to come with him, but she was already in enough trouble. Once the authorities realized he’d stayed there, they’d drag her and Bev to the station for questioning. Before tonight, Luanne and Bev could claim they didn’t know. Going forward, though, it’s aiding and abetting.

  “Is Cody going to hurt you?” Daniel asked.

  “Cody? If that meathead ever tried, my mother would rip his nuts out. Brooklyn Bev don’t put up with that shit. Go out the back. I’ll hold him off in front with mama’s shotgun—make him think you’re hidin’ under the bed for a while.”

  That was not the kind of image Daniel wanted to leave people with, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. She kissed him one last time; his hand brushed her nipple softly and he felt it stiffen. She smiled. He mustered his last remaining will to pull away, and exited by the rear deck.

  CHAPTER 29

  I’LL TAKE CRAZY-ASS MESSENGER OF GOD FOR $300

  Daniel shut the sliding door behind him softly. A cold, light rain fell intermittently. The backyard was pitch black, unlike the front, which had porch lights. He quietly maneuvered the slick creaky wooden steps and stopped at the edge of the trailer. Cody continued shouting out front. Footsteps approached his position from around the corner. Daniel guessed he had about a second before the person’s eyes adjusted to the total darkness in the back. He crouched low below the sight line and hoped it wasn’t the really big redhead or Eljay because he wasn’t comfortable hitting giants and or girls.

  Luck was with him … it was greasy Weasel. Weasel turned the corner, and walked past Daniel, but then stopped, just making him out in the darkness. He was about to shout to his crew, but Daniel used the surprise advantage to launch his fist into Weasel’s larynx before the kid could even get his hands up in defense. Weasel made a gasping sound, like someone choking on a chicken bone. He gasped, unable to draw air or shout for help, staggered a bit, and fell to his knees near the deck. Daniel drove Weasel’s head into the deck with a straight kick to his temple. The toady slumped to the ground motionless. Out front, Luanne was screaming at Cody to go to hell or she’d blow his nut sack off.

  Was it just him, or did Luanne channel a lot of her anger toward testicles?

  Neighbors came out onto their porches, turning on extra lights in front. Daniel crossed the alley between Luanne’s trailer and their neighbor, and kept a steady pace along the dark backyards until he could get back on the street and head for the general store. He needed beef jerky, a poncho, water, and a flashlight. Five minutes tops and then he’d hoof it all the way to Raleigh if he couldn’t pick up a hitch. Probably better to walk anyway with the reward on him.

  He was making good time on the graveled lane and about to turn left to head for the store when he heard familiar voices around the corner. He scooted behind the nearest home on the left and then made a right behind it in an L-shaped approach to the voices under cover of darkness. Some bushes on the side of the next house provided good cover. It was McCoy and his crew lit by the laptop light of the computer geek working on the hood of the truck.

  “Hurry up,” McCoy said.

  “It would help if we knew the bitch’s last name,” the geek said.

  “You sure it’s him,” said one of the other guys.

  “Positive,” said the computer geek. “Picture’s all over the Internet. Payin’ sixty grand for information leadin’ to his capture. And he’s in Cody’s girlfriend’s house.”

  “Hell with information,” said McCoy. “Too easy for other folk to get in on the action, probably have to fight it out with the cop that drags him in. We sack the little fucker ourselves, walk into the station, we don’t split the money with no one. No debate that it’s our reward.”

  In the midst of the entire world ganging up on him, Daniel took most umbrage over being called “little.” Sure, he was wiry—but five foot five was actually respectable for someone about to turn fourteen. He still had a few more years to grow … assuming a coalition of North Carolina’s meth dealers didn’t gun him down. A shotgun blast went off in the direction of Bev’s home.

  Luanne! Daniel wanted to go back and check on her.

  Luanne’s voice echoed across the trailer park. “You try to come in again, Cody, and I will blow you off the porch!”

  No mention of testicles this time. She was growing as a person. More people were coming out of their homes now to check on the hubbub. In the cities, people ran away from gunfire; here they were all curious and in everyone else’s business. McCoy’s crew anxiously piled into the Escalade and took off like a shot past all the other people, heading toward the commotion. If he ever saw Luanne again, Daniel would plant the biggest kiss he could muster on his feral southern belle. One thing he was gla
d to have done while here was breaking up her and that meth dealer. Hopefully, she’ll find a decent guy on the next round.

  Daniel headed up the street toward Jeb’s. The counter guy came out and asked if he heard a gunshot.

  “Yep. There’s some crazy business going on back at Bev’s place,” Daniel said.

  The counter guy called it in to the police on his two-way radio and then asked Daniel if he’d watch the store for a sec because he was also the security guard for the park and had to run out to see what the problem was. Daniel agreed and stocked up on jerky, processed cold cuts, bread, bottles of water, a dark green poncho, and extra batteries for the flashlight. It was about thirty bucks worth of stuff. He pulled the roll Luanne had given him and found fifties and hundreds.

  “Jeezus,” he whispered. “Colby must be stacked.” He put the money on the counter and left.

  The rain graduated from a drizzle and came down more consistently. The front gate, only twenty yards away, was open. Right or left? he wondered. Which way was Raleigh?

  A station wagon pulled up on the main road by the entrance and stopped. It made a right into the trailer park’s driveway and rolled past him and about thirty feet, then stopped. It waited there for a moment, idling, then made a U-turn. Daniel moved over to the right to let the car through, thinking the man was probably lost, when it stopped beside him.

  The guy probably just wanted directions, in which case Daniel would finagle a ride, but he balanced on the front balls of his feet ready to run just in case. The steamy passenger-side window rolled down. Daniel bent down to look in.

  The driver was alone—a wiry black man with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, probably in his forties, wearing a dark blue shirt with a clerical collar under a raincoat. He held a small wooden salad bowl in his hand filled with water. The driver looked at something floating in the bowl, then back at Daniel. He had deep soulful eyes, like a bloodhound. He stared at Daniel with an incredulous expression like he knew the boy.

  What a weird day, thought Daniel.

  “Excuse me, son,” the man said in a soothing baritone. “Where am I?”

  “Trailer park on Country Road Five-eighty-one, near State Road Sixty-four.”

  “I see.” The man looked Daniel up and down, saw the backpack and asked, “Do you need a ride?”

  Daniel did need a ride, but it was odd how quickly this guy was willing to offer one without knowing a thing about him. For all the padre knew, Daniel could be a murderer on the lam from the police. After the situation with Colby, Daniel was more wary of coincidences. Something about this guy seemed too eager. If he didn’t know any better, Daniel would swear that the guy had come looking for him.

  “Thanks, mister, but I’m good,” Daniel lied.

  “It’s Reverend … Reverend Grey.” He put the bowl down between the two front seats and placed a Tupperware cover on it. “Catch your death walking in this cold drizzle.”

  Catch my death getting in the wrong car, the boy thought. “Look, Rev, I appreciate the offer, but you don’t want to get involved with me. Really, I’m doing you a favor.”

  “I see,” the man said.

  The minister looked ahead as if to drive off, but not seeming to have a destination. He looked down at his hands the way one does when something important is stolen from you and you’re wondering if you can rebuild or replace it. The car didn’t move—Daniel wasn’t the betting kind, but he’d put money on it mattering to the reverend whether he got into the station wagon or not. Maybe the man was legit and had a thing about helping runaways. But those types always worked closely with the police.

  The reverend got out of the car, leaving it running, and put up a big black umbrella. He walked around the front and stopped before Daniel. The umbrella was large enough for both of them but Reverend Grey respected Daniel’s personal space and left him just outside its shelter. The minister looked up and down the street, as though one of the trailers in the park had his next words painted on their sides. He pursed his lips and turned to look right at Daniel.

  “I’ve been a man of God here for thirteen years,” he began. He let that statement sink into the boy. “And I don’t think in all that time He’s given me a clearer sign of His intention than the one that led me to you, Daniel.”

  Daniel took a step back. “How’d you know my name?”

  “That is not your name,” the reverend said confidently. “Your parents named you Danel, after your paternal great-grandfather; your real parents, not the adopted ones.”

  “My … my what…?”

  Weird took a huge lunge into The Twilight Zone.

  “There are some very bad people in the world, son. And they’re after you. And there are some very good people in the world as well … and they are looking for you. You think you’ve been on the run since you fled Baltimore—but it’s been much longer than that. You’ve been on the run your entire life, under assault and constant threat for years. It started far, far away from here, farther than you could ever imagine. The most important decisions you have to make in your entire life will take place in the next few hours … maybe sooner. And it boils down to whether you can tell friend from foe. There will be no second chances.”

  “Who the heck are you, mister?”

  Every instinct told Daniel to run, but he was cemented to that spot by this man’s crazy talk. He was sincere, that much Daniel believed, but also a crackpot. Escapee from a mental ward.

  “God brought me to you. He brought you to where I could save you. What other reason can there be that in all the world you would come to my doorstep—my little corner of the world. I tried to deny my debt to you … to stay out of the fight for the sake of my wife and daughter, but I could not turn my back on this sign.

  “Were I in your position, I would not believe me either. I’m telling you this anyway, even though you’ll think I am a crazy old fool—a stranger talking nonsense. But I have told you the truth Daniel Hauer. My life is also in danger now, and I am putting my faith in God. You are a lost lamb in need of shelter and I am His Shepherd. I am trusting in His purpose for us … that by some miracle you will believe me, and let me protect you.”

  The rain must have been flying sideways around the reverend’s umbrella; his cheeks were dripping. Daniel was cold and getting wetter by the moment. The heat coming out the passenger window appealed to him, but he couldn’t possibly go off with this crazy person. People he’d never met kept coming out of nowhere with their own agendas for him. Why was a skinny kid from Baltimore on so many adult peoples’ radars? What the hell was going on?

  “How do you even know I’m the right person?” Daniel asked. “I’m walking in the rain in the middle of nowhere.”

  The reverend smiled. “You have a birthmark in the shape of a bird on your shoulder.”

  Daniel’s mouth dropped. But then he thought … that might be on the police blotter from his examination at the hospital a few days ago. He was utterly confused and wished for one of the reverend’s handy dandy signs for himself.

  “I know your mother, Sophia,” Reverend Grey said. “You have her eyes.”

  No way. No way, no way, no way! This is crazy. Even John and Rita Hauer didn’t know Daniel’s birth mother.

  “I can see you’re of two minds, Daniel. I will not force you. I will stand by you, whatever your decision, whatever the danger to me.” He pulled out a business card and handed it to Daniel. “Should we become separated, that is my church. My home is next door. My daughter would be very excited to meet you.” He smiled when he said that as though in on a private joke.

  “If at some point you decide to trust me, I will give you shelter. I can put you in touch with those who want to protect you.” The reverend returned to his car and got behind the wheel. He looked as uncertain of leaving Daniel as the boy felt about going with the man. The man had no intention of forcing Daniel to do anything.

  From the back of the trailer park came gunfire and hollering in the night air. Revved-up engines and churned
gravel grew louder as the vehicles came back toward the store. Down the county road, a pair of headlights with flashers approached. Daniel had to make a decision. The hoodlums and the cops were all heading right to the spot he stood on. But this preacher was nuts. Daniel could be jumping into the proverbial fire. Maybe the cops could detain the meth dealers while he hoofed it through a lettuce field.

  A sheriff’s car pulled in and stopped in front of Jeb’s store across from them. The deputy talked to someone on his radio, and then got out with his walkie-talkie.

  “The commotions all the way in the back of the park,” Daniel told the cop, pointing in the direction of Bev’s house.

  The deputy said into his walkie-talkie, “Confirmed. Send backup.” He pulled his weapon from its holster and pointed it at Daniel. “Sir, stay in your vehicle!” he told Reverend Grey, never taking his eyes off the boy. “Daniel Hauer, you are under arrest! Hands on the hood! Now!”

  The jig was up. He should have hid when he had the chance … he should have run. Daniel underestimated the speed with which the reward on him would spread. Someone in the park had ratted him out. Once he was on the news, he knew it would only be a matter of time. Daniel placed his hands on the reverend’s car. The heat from the engine felt good. A second car with New York plates pulled into the driveway, but with the cop in the middle of the street, there wasn’t room to pass. It parked behind the cruiser. Three men emerged. The driver was tall, like a stockbroker on holiday with close-cropped quaff, square jaw, and wearing a Land’s End jacket and slacks. On the passenger side surfaced a shorter, stocky man in an ill-fitting tux, black with gray pinstripe pants and a bowler hat on a nest of black hair. His teeth were yellow and mangled and he wore cloth gloves with the tips cut off revealing the thick fingertips of a lifelong smoker. Out of the rear driver’s side appeared a giant—like a reject from a Heavy Metal story—seven feet tall with long, black rocker hair, arms like tree trunks that seemed too long for his body, a flat nose and fat bottom lip that protruded farther than the top one. He wore only a white T-shirt and jeans, unperturbed by the cold and rain.