Page 2 of Prodigal Son

The killer in question – Reese – studied Fox just as Fox studied him, an unselfconscious scrutiny that raised the tiny hairs on the back of Fox’s neck. It was rare that anyone spooked him. He didn’t feel frightened now, but he had to admit Reese was no ordinary dime-store hitman. There was real potential here…and a truckload of identity issues.

Someone had tried to turn this boy into a machine, and the finished product was doubtless more alive than the creator had intended. Fox had the impression of staring at a highly trained military attack dog whose handler had been removed.

He straightened and scratched at the back of his neck, soothing the goosebumps there. “Well then.”

“Well then what?” Ghost asked. He looked tired, like maybe the new baby wasn’t letting him sleep through the night, his stubble coming into a real beard. Which of course meant he looked grouchy. Ghost Teague was nothing if not the most charmingly grumpy person Fox had ever met.

He tipped his head to the side and walked away from the picnic table, the president coming with him, leaving Mercy behind as stand-in dog handler for the moment.

“What’ve you boys gotten yourselves into?” Fox asked when they were out of earshot, fishing a smoke out of his pocket. He offered the pack to Ghost, but he shook his head and waved it away. Ah, right. Baby.

“I already told you the story,” Ghost said.

“Yes, but you failed to impress upon me justhowfucked up this kid is.”

“Ishe fucked up?”

“He’s damaged,” Fox corrected. “But he doesn’t know it. He seems perfectly content to be a robot.”

“You see my dilemma, then.”

“A robot can’t be a brother. And you can’t be in the club if you can’t be a brother.”

“Yeah.”

“Do youwanthim to be in the club?”

Ghost made a considering face, hands on his hips, gaze sweeping across the massive sprawl of the Dartmoor property. “I think he’s valuable,” he said. And then, quieter: “And I think he deserves a shot at being alive, you know? He won’t get that shot anywhere but here.”

Fox nodded. The rest of the world would see a violent liability. Within the Lean Dogs, a kid like Reese could be both an asset, and a valued family member. Loved and cared for, allowed to be as broken and scattered as he needed to be. There was no better place for unwanted and dangerous things than right here in this parking lot.

But Ghost would never allow his wife, and children, and brothers to be at risk. Not from anyone.

“You think he’s salvageable?” he asked Fox.

Fox shrugged. “The only unsalvageable people I’ve met were evil. And he’s not that.”

“Hmm.”

His phone trilled in his pocket. It was the third time in the past hour.

“You gonna get that or what?” Ghost said.

He’d checked the caller ID the first time. “It’s Albie.”

“Trouble back home?”

“Home is Texas.”

“Uh-huh.”

The phone chimed with a voicemail alert. And then started ringing again.

~*~

The dorms in Amarillo were clean – Ghost’s cleanliness had rubbed off on every other chapter – but they weren’tDartmoorclean like the dorm in which he now stood. Orange carpet and worn bedspread, sure, but the room smelled like a fresh rainstorm. Fox breathed deep and said, “Come again?” into the phone pressed to his ear.

Albie took a ragged breath on the other end of the line. Fox pictured his brother bent over the desk in his shop, dark circles under his eyes, cup of spiked tea at his elbow. “It was Dad. Plain as day. On three separate occasions.”

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