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Chapters (27)
  1. "F" is for FUGITIVE
  2. Chapter 1
  3. Chapter 2
  4. Chapter 3
  5. Chapter 4
  6. Chapter 5
  7. Chapter 6
  8. Chapter 7
  9. Chapter 8
  10. Chapter 9
  11. Chapter 10
  12. Chapter 11
  13. Chapter 12
  14. Chapter 13
  15. Chapter 14
  16. Chapter 15
  17. Chapter 16
  18. Chapter 17
  19. Chapter 18
  20. Chapter 19
  21. Chapter 20
  22. Chapter 21
  23. Chapter 22
  24. Chapter 23
  25. Chapter 24
  26. Chapter 25
  27. Epilogue

Royce was on the medical-surgical floor. The soles of my boots squeaked faintly against the highly polished vinyl tiles. I passed the nurses' station, following the room numbers. Nobody paid any attention to me as I made my way down the hall, averting my eyes when I passed an open door. The sick, the injured, and the dying have very little privacy as it is. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that most of them lay abed in a cluster of flower arrangements, get-well cards propped open, their television sets on. I could smell green beans. Hospitals always smell like canned vegetables to me.

I came to Royce's room. I paused just outside the door and disconnected my feelings. I went in. Royce was asleep. He looked like a captive, sides pulled up around his bed, an IV like a tether connecting him to a pole. A clear blue plastic oxygen cone covered his nose. The only sound was the breath whiffling through his lips in an intermittent snore. His teeth had been "taken away from him, lest he bite himself to death. I stood by the bed and watched him.

He'd been sweating and his white hair was lank, plastered in long strands across his forehead. His hands lay palms-up on the covers, large and raw, fingers twitching now and then. Was he dreaming, like a dog, of his hunting days? In a month he'd be gone, this ornery mass of protoplasm driven by countless irritations, by dreams, by desires unfulfilled. I wondered if he'd live long enough to have what he wanted most – his son, Bailey, whose fate he'd entrusted to my care.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

At five-thirty I was knocking on Shana Timber-lake's door, already convinced there was no one home. Her battered green Plymouth was no longer in the drive. The cottage windows were dark and the drawn front curtains had that blank look of no occupancy. I tried the knob without luck, always interested in the notion of an unsupervised inspection of the premises, a specialty of mine. I did a quick detour around to the back, checking the rear door. She'd put a second bag of trash out, but I could see through the kitchen window that the dirty dishes were piling up again and the bed was unmade. The place looked like a flophouse.

I went back to the motel. What I wanted most in the world was to lay my little head down and go to sleep, but I couldn't see a way to pull that off. I had too much work to do, too many troubling questions yet to ask. I stepped into the office. As usual, the desk was unmanned, but I could hear Ori on the telephone in the family living room. I slipped under the counter and knocked politely on the door frame. She glanced up, catching sight of me, and motioned me in.