Last Chance Book Club

by Hope Ramsay

  Dash would ask Savannah’s permission to finish this project. It made no sense from a money point of view. But that didn’t matter. If he built it, people would come. And he’d have the kids in the theater to go along with the kids in the horse program and the kids in Little League and the kids in the football program.

  Heck, it was damned hard to feel lonely in a place like Last Chance.

  Dash ran into Todd and Champ on his way back to the house. The boy was crying.

  “Hey,” Dash said, his voice sounding dry and rusty in his own ears. “What’s the matter?”

  The kid rubbed his eyes and gave a shrug. “Did Mom tell you? We’re going back to Baltimore.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  “My dad said he wanted to see me on weekends.”

  “That’s a good thing.”

  Todd nodded, his mouth quivering. “Yeah. I’d like that. But we have to live with Grandmother for a while.” He gave Champ a little pat. And then it was almost as if the kid collapsed. He plopped down on the sidewalk and buried his face in the dog’s flank. And Champ smiled and licked his face with the adoration only a dog could give.

  Dash’s chest got so tight he could hardly breathe.

  He’d hung on to a dog like that once. On the morning, decades ago, when they’d come to take him away from the ranch where he’d spent the first eleven years of his life. His life had been hell on that ranch, but he didn’t want to leave it. Not if it meant leaving that old dog; Murphy was his name.

  He’d cried himself out that day. That good-bye had been the hardest one of all. He never did know what happened to that dog. The social service people probably sent Murphy to the pound.

  “I’ll take care of Champ for you,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about him.” Dash hunkered down and squeezed Todd’s shoulder. “I’ve been where you are now. I know exactly how it feels. Like someone is taking away your best friend in all the world. But having a chance to spend time with your dad is more important. You don’t have to worry about Champ. He’ll never want for anything. Ever.”

  “But I promised Zeph.”

  “What did you promise, son?”

  “I promised I would always be there for him.”

  “I’ll take that on for you.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  Oh, God, this kid was going to grow into a good man. Even if his no-account father didn’t come through, Todd had his mother. And Savannah was like a momma lion when it came to her boy. She would do the right thing by this child.

  “I’m glad you’re taking that responsibility so seriously, son. I’m proud to know you,” Dash said, his voice growing embarrassingly gruff.

  Todd raised his head. “Are you crying?”

  Dash forced a laugh then. “No, I don’t do that sort of thing.”

  The kid studied him. “You are crying, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I’m trying not to. I’m going to miss you.” And the words got stuck in Dash’s throat. Until he uttered them, he didn’t even know how true they were.

  A big fat tear rolled down the kid’s cheek. “Me too. I wish my dad was like you.”

  A fountainhead opened up in Dash’s heart, and a spring of something clean and heady bubbled right through him. The spring became a creek, became a brook, became a river that grew and grew until its current washed away the self-pity he’d been feeling and smashed down the walls that had taken a lifetime to build.

  And he didn’t fight the current. He expected it to smash him and batter him, but it didn’t do that. It carried him along to a peaceful place.

  In that humbling moment, he had a name for the emotion that clogged up his throat and watered up in his eyes. He loved the kid. And the miracle wasn’t that he could love, but that the kid loved him back. But having Todd love him carried all kinds of responsibility with it.

  He vowed, in that moment, that as long as he drew breath Todd would never want for anything. He would take care of this child, and he’d do everything within his power never, ever to let him down. And right now, doing right by this child meant letting him go.

  “C’mon. I know you want to spend time with your dad, don’t you?”

  Todd nodded. “But why can’t I have both?” He looked up at Dash. “Why can’t I be your friend?”

  “You can. I’ll always be here. You can call me anytime.”

  Todd wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “I don’t think so. They say you’re a bad man.”

  “Who says?”

  Todd shrugged. “Some lady who came to the school and asked me a bunch of questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Like whether I ever saw you drunk. Or whether you ever got into fights. Or whether you…” The kid looked away and pressed his lips together.

  “Whether I what?” Dash’s temper made a sudden and unmistakable reappearance. His hands closed into fists, and the adrenaline surged through his system.

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “Touch me.”

  Dash had to work very hard not to speak the long string of profanity that ran through his brain.

  The kid looked up at him. “I told them you were okay. I told them that just because you liked to play catch you weren’t some weirdo. The woman who came and asked the questions didn’t believe me. She kept asking the same questions over and over again. I finally told her she was a bitch and that got me into all kinds of trouble with Mr. Middleton. But to tell you the truth, that woman was a bitch.”

  Dash stood up. “It was probably a mistake to use that word.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I’ve heard my father use it plenty of times.”

  Dash squeezed his eyes closed. The fury he felt was like a white-hot poker to his insides. But he held himself together. “I’m grateful you told the truth.” It was amazing how calm he sounded.

  The kid turned away. “Yeah, it didn’t get me very far, though. I mean, now I have to go to the Gilman School and live with Grandmother, and I can’t take the dog, and I can’t go to football camp.” He sighed. “And Zeph was going to take me fishing.”

  “Zeph?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I see him around town. He knows all the good fishing spots. There’s no place to fish in Baltimore.”

  “Son, there are always places to fish. You need to get your daddy to take you.”

  The kid looked up at him. “Right, like that’s going to happen. Dad is more likely to take me to some pool hall and make me sit in the car. But hey, he buys me video games.”

  The boy wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I’m going to walk the dog down to the theater. We’re leaving on Saturday. So I need to say good-bye to Zeph.”

  Todd turned and headed in the direction Dash had just come from.

  Dash headed back to the house.

  He was furious.

  CHAPTER 21

  Savannah stood in the kitchen working on supper and trying to think of a good way to tell Miriam that she and Todd were leaving on Saturday.

  She was wrist deep in biscuit dough when Dash came slamming into the house. His boots struck the hardwood floor like hammer blows as he stalked right into the kitchen.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “About Todd being interrogated at school by the Department of Social Services.”

  Oh, good Lord. Todd must have spilled the beans. She closed her eyes and prayed for strength. “Because I knew it would hurt you. I didn’t want you to be hurt.”

  “Don’t you think I’m hurting right now? Don’t you think this crazy decision of yours hurts me?”

  He was breathing hard. His hands were folded into fists. His eyes were brighter than bright, which was saying something because no one had blue eyes like Dash’s.

  “Dash?” Miriam’s frail voice came from the hallway. “Are y’all fighting again?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  They gla
red at one another as Miriam came shuffling into the kitchen leaning heavily on her cane and looking a little wild-eyed without her glasses. Her crown braids were a mess today. Guilt assailed Savannah.

  She’d been so consumed by her own problems that she’d neglected Miriam. Lately the old lady needed help getting her hair done in the morning. Who would take care of Aunt Miriam when she left?

  Dash would do his best, but he had no idea how to braid her hair. He couldn’t cook for her either.

  “What is it now?” Aunt Miriam asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Savannah said, glaring at Dash.

  “Oh, you think it’s nothing? I want to know why some person at Todd’s school is asking nasty questions about me.”

  “What kind of questions?” Miriam said.

  Savannah let go of a deep sigh. “Look, this is just Claire White using every means possible to get me to see things her way.”

  “So that’s why you’re leaving?”

  “You’re leaving?” Miriam asked in a quavery voice.

  Savannah wanted to punch Dash in the mouth. “Thanks, Dash. This is exactly the way I wanted to tell Miriam about my change of plans.”

  “You’re leaving?” Miriam said again. “Oh, dear, I didn’t count on that.” The old lady immediately started messing with her hair. It sure did look as if she was taking it down so she could rebraid it, right there in the kitchen.

  “Yes, Aunt Mim, she’s leaving. She’s running away from a fight.”

  “No, I’m not doing any such thing. And for the record, Dash, the last thing I want is for Claire White to smear your reputation in this town the way I did when I was ten. And furthermore, if I fight this thing, social services could swoop in and put Todd in a foster home. Is that what you want?”

  He seemed to back down a little. “You don’t have to go.”

  “Yes, I do. I told you before. Greg was here today, and he made it clear that if I don’t go back, then I’m going to have to fly Todd up to Baltimore every other weekend.”

  “It could be done. Or you could work something out with him so Todd spends his summers up in Baltimore. You don’t have to go.”

  “If I did that, Claire would smear your name from one end of this county to the other. And where would you be? No one would trust you. Your business would be gone. Little League and Pop Warner would shun you. Dash, I have to go. I won’t do that to you. I care about you. Don’t you realize that?”

  He stood there breathing hard. She wanted to run to him. She wanted to tell him how much she wanted to stay. But she couldn’t be that selfish.

  “Will you let me finish the theater?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to ask him why, but then she thought better of it. Maybe he needed the theater, too.

  “I’ll give you the theater,” she said.

  “You’ll give it to me?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll be living in Baltimore. I can’t exactly take it with me, and I haven’t been a great owner these last ten years. I let it fall down before I found the courage to do something about it. And even then, I couldn’t have started the project without your help. So I’ll talk to Eugene Hanks and see about having the deed transferred. It’s the least I can do, given all the money you’ve poured into it.”

  “The money’s not important.”

  “Yes, Dash, it is. It’s important to me.”

  He took a deep breath. Then he turned and walked out of the house. It was an ominous sign when he didn’t slam the door.

  The theater was his. Dash had signed the papers on Friday afternoon in Eugene Hanks’s office. And then he’d come here and collapsed onto this hard folding chair in the lobby. Champ’s muzzle rested on his boot top. The puppy was asleep for the moment.

  The workers had gone an hour ago. The theater was mostly dark, except for the utility lights strung up on the ceiling. The old, ornate carpets had been pulled up, leaving a bare concrete floor. The woodwork was beginning to come alive under Zeph’s care.

  Maverick sprawled on the top of the candy counter, purring like a fiend. The cat was not all that friendly to Dash or Champ, or anyone for that matter, except Savannah.

  The cat had a serious thing for Savannah. Whenever she came into the theater, he would wrap himself around her legs and meow until she picked him up. Dash had never seen a half-wild mouser behave so shamelessly. The cat even let Savannah carry him around like a babe-in-arms.

  “You and me, Mav,” he said to the cat. “Just a couple of old toms in love with the wrong woman. And that, cat, is the story of my life.”

  He picked up his Nehi orange and took a long swig. “I wonder what Uncle Earnest would do in a situation like this?”

  “Meow.”

  “Thanks. That was very helpful advice. I reckon Uncle Earnest never would have gotten himself into a situation like this.”

  Dash let go of a long breath. “She’ll be gone tomorrow, and all I have is the theater and a dog and a cat. I guess it could be worse. Although I’m having a hard time figuring out how.”

  He wanted to fight for her, but it was a lost cause. He couldn’t keep Todd from his father. And he sure couldn’t risk the fight that might ensue if Savannah stayed. He’d checked with Eugene earlier, and what the lawyer had told him made his blood run cold. A fight over Todd could be expensive. And since Dash already had a reputation, the fight would get ugly.

  Dash didn’t want Todd to have to endure something like that. He’d promised himself that he would do the best thing possible for Todd, and that was pretty clear.

  It meant giving up Savannah. It meant letting her go. It meant letting the boy go. And it hurt. Bad.

  He closed his eyes and thought about the twelve steps that he’d been working on as part of his recovery. The first step was to admit that he was powerless, and the second was to admit that only a power greater than himself could restore him to sanity. And the third step was to decide to give his life over to God as he understood Him.

  He’d known from the start that Savannah was like an addiction. And even if it hadn’t felt like a destructive addiction, he still wanted her with his body and his soul. He didn’t think he could live without her. A part of him just wanted to find a bottle of bourbon in order to numb the pain.

  But he also wanted to be the kind of man she saw in her dreams. He wanted to be her hero. He wanted to be a man like Uncle Earnest, who had been married to the same woman for fifty years. He didn’t want to let her go. He didn’t want to let her down. He wanted to be Todd’s father. And this situation was tearing him apart.

  “Please, God, please help me.”

  And he lost it. The tears flowed in a way that had never happened before. Not since he was old enough to know that crying only made Gramps beat him harder. He wept. All alone in Uncle Earnest’s theater.

  Champ woke up and put his front paws up on his knee. Dash sank down onto the bare concrete and hugged that dog the way he’d hugged Murphy all those years ago.

  When he’d cried himself out, he just sat there holding the dog. Letting the pup lick his face. He’d have to take up reading. Maybe he could learn to be alone like Zeph. Maybe. But it was going to take everything he had to do it.

  And then his cell phone vibrated. He didn’t answer it. Five minutes later, it vibrated again, and this time he pulled it out of his pocket as he wiped the tears from his cheeks.

  It wasn’t a number he recognized.

  He checked his missed calls. There were more than a dozen from this same number.

  He pressed the talk button. “Dash Randall.” His voice sounded gruff. His throat was still thick with emotions he was working overtime to keep contained.

  “Finally,” a male voice said.

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “This is Andrew Prior of Prior, Jacobson, and Howard.”

  The investigation company Dash had hired weeks ago. He’d almost forgotten.

  “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t pick up before.” He pressed the heel of his right hand into his right e
ye.

  “Mr. Randall, we’ve just discovered something that you need to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s about Gregory White, the man you asked us to investigate.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s a deadbeat, but that’s hardly very interesting. He’s behind on all his bills, and he spends a lot of time at Pimlico. He’s also at least a year in arrears on his child support payments, which makes him a scumbag. But that’s not the most important thing.”

  Dash straightened, the knot in his throat easing. “What else?”

  “We didn’t figure it out until today. Back on April thirteenth, he had lunch with someone at McCormick and Schmick’s in Baltimore. We didn’t know who the guy was. We have photos, though.”

  “Yeah. Tell me it was a Mafia don.”

  “Sorry. It wasn’t anything that dramatic. But we finally figured out that the guy in the photo is John Rodgers, the principal of JBR Construction of Allenberg County. White’s been in South Carolina for the last few days, and he stopped by the offices of JBR. And then we realized that JBR was the contractor on the job when the fire was started. We haven’t been able to find any link between White and the snake incident, but since that happened before we were retained, I’m not that surprised.”

  “April thirteenth, you said?”

  “Yes, that’s a week before the arson at the theater. And near as we can tell, John Rodgers doesn’t have any reason to be in Baltimore. He’s never traveled there before or since.”

  “You have a photo?”

  “I do. Would you like me to e-mail it?”

  “Yeah, right away.”

  They ended the conversation.

  He stood up and started pacing the lobby. It seemed to take forever for that photo to arrive. The minute it hit his inbox, he forwarded it to Stone Rhodes, the Allenberg sheriff.

  Stone called him before Dash could finish dialing the number. “Did you get the photo I just sent?” Dash asked.

  “No, I didn’t. I was calling to let you know that we’ve got a lead in the snake mystery. We think those snakes were purchased at Jungle Jim’s Reptile World on Long Island. It turns out there aren’t a whole lot of places where someone could buy a diamondback rattlesnake, so we were able to track down most of the dealers and review the purchases made in the weeks prior to the incident. It’s very unusual for someone to buy two diamondbacks, but we found someone who did. He used a credit card, and he has a rap sheet a mile long.”