The Deadlock Trilogy Box Set Read online

  “So what’s the question?” Sean asked.

  “I was walking down the street a little while ago and I saw an F-150 drive by. And it looked exactly like mine. Same color, same detailing, same new truck shine on it.”

  Sean smiled. “That’s a popular truck, Frank. Yours wasn’t exactly one of a kind.”

  “That’s not what I mean. The F-150 I saw had to be almost brand new, and it looked exactly like mine. Sean, I went to prison in 2013. Are you telling me Ford hasn’t changed one detail of the F-150 in the last nine years?”

  The smile fell from Sean’s face.

  “So then I started looking around at other cars. And you know what I noticed? They all look like they did in 2013. There weren’t any changes to the models I remember, and there weren’t any new models.”

  “You’re right,” Sean said. He spoke slowly and carefully. “At least not in Rook Mountain.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Frank asked.

  “When I said that you need to go with the flow, this is the type of thing I was talking about. This is one of the hundreds of tiny things you are going to notice in the next few weeks. Like I said, things have changed here. I don’t feel very comfortable talking about it, especially in public and even more so while I'm on duty.”

  “That’s a pretty weird thing to lay on me and not explain, Sean.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry about that.” He patted Frank on the shoulder and smiled. “Still, beats the hell out of prison, right?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Listen, if you still want to chat about this stuff, why don’t you come over tomorrow night? I’ll throw a couple of steaks on the grill and we’ll drink some beer. I won’t promise to answer all your questions, but with a couple beers in me I’ll be more likely to answer some of them.”

  “Yeah, that sounds great,” Frank said. And did it ever. Steak. Beer. And to think, he’d been excited about the ice cream cone.

  “Awesome. Come by around sixish. I’m still over on Maple Street.” Sean stood up.

  “Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad to see you, Frank. I’ve missed you. Welcome home.”

  Frank felt a lump growing in his throat. When was the last time someone had spoken a sincere kind word to him? He couldn’t remember. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, you got a place to stay?”

  “I was going to head out to my cabin. See if the place is still standing.”

  Sean looked away again, the same as he had when Frank asked about the cars. “Yeah, of course. Cool.” Something in his voice made Frank think Sean did not consider it cool at all. “Just make sure you don’t sleep in the park or something. We’ve got these...regulations against that. We’re pretty strict about them.”

  Frank nodded. “See you tomorrow night.”

  3.

  Will stood in front of the open refrigerator for a few minutes, and then he shut it and wandered back to the living room. He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t stop pacing, snapping his fingers, stretching. Anything to keep moving. He had too much nervous energy.

  Up on Rook Mountain, killing Jessie Cooper had seemed necessary. Now he wasn’t so sure. He had taken the life of a woman who only wanted to be free of this town. He had added another name to the ever-lengthening list of Regulation casualties. And for what? Had it been worth it?

  After the shooting, Will had led the boys down the mountain and joked with them a little bit, but not so much that it disregarded what had happened. At the police station, he had calmly given his statement. He hadn’t left anything out or held anything back. He had told the truth to the best of his recollection. After an hour and a half of questioning, the police had given him instructions to stay home tonight in case they had further questions and released him.

  When he got home, Will had tried to talk to Trevor, but he wasn’t sure how much got through to the kid. No, Trevor wasn’t upset. No, he did not want to talk about it. Yes, he understood why it had to happen. Yes, he knew that he could talk to Will about anything. Will ended the conversation feeling ineffective and out of touch. The way his own dad had once seemed to him.

  The pacing started after the conversation with Trevor. Will felt odd. Tired and hyper at the same time, and a little sick to his stomach. He felt like a hypocrite. He was still pacing almost an hour later when Christine walked through the door.

  She stepped toward him and gave him a tight hug. “Are you okay?”

  “I feel weird. It’s probably the adrenaline. I’m okay.”

  She sighed. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I thought the woman was camping, so I talked Henry into going after her. I figured it would look good to bring in a minor Regulation breaker, you know? As soon as we saw her map, every kid in the troop knew she was headed out of town. I couldn’t see any way out of it, so…”

  He took a deep breath and continued. “Henry wasn’t going to pull the trigger. If we hadn’t executed her, the board of selectmen would have started an investigation. They would have looked into our lives more deeply than they have since right after Jake disappeared.”

  “Honey, you did the right thing. You know that, right? We knew something like this could happen.”

  Will nodded. Her hair tickled his face.

  She pulled away from him and gripped his upper arms. “Will. I found something on the body.”

  “They made you examine it? I thought they would have had someone else do it.” He noticed the intensity on her face, and stopped talking.

  “It was hanging from her necklace. She was wearing it like a charm.”

  She put her hand into her pocket, pulled it out, and slowly opened her hand.

  Will’s breath caught in his throat. “Is it really one of them?”

  Christine smiled. “It has to be, right?”

  Will nodded. “Why would she have it? Where’d she get it?”

  “I don’t know,” Christine said. “Here.” She placed the key in his open hand and closed his fingers around it.

  Will shut his eyes and concentrated on the key in his hand. All the nervous energy drained away, and he enjoyed a moment of peace.

  Will said, “This...this is huge. We have to be careful. We’ve waited this long. We have to make sure we don’t rush into anything.”

  Christine looked at Will. Her eyes were shining. “I know we’re not there yet, but we're getting close to the finish line. If we can stay strong a little longer.”

  Will nodded. Her excitement was infectious. He leaned toward her. His lips were almost touching hers when the doorbell rang.

  4.

  Trevor lay on his bed, his earbuds in his ears, staring at the letter.

  He still wore his clothes from the trip, and he stunk of sweat and campfire smoke. He needed to change and do it soon. Will had been too distracted to notice, but he would have no such luck when Mom got home. She could discuss the dangers of dirty clothes on a clean bed at great length and with deep passion. He should probably take a shower too, to be on the safe side.

  Come to think of it, a hot shower sounded pretty good.

  But he couldn’t stop looking at the letter. No one knew about it, no one but him, and that was part of what made it special. He would have to tell Will and Mom soon, probably that night. Tomorrow at the latest. He wanted to savor the secret for a little longer first.

  What would Will and Mom say? Would they force him to accept? Would they say he was too young? Would they leave the decision up to him?

  He read the letter again, probably for the hundredth time.

  September 13th, 2022

  Trevor Hinkle

  1407 Riley Dr.

  Dear Trevor:

  Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you of your acceptance to the Rook Mountain Beyond Academy for the Fall Semester of 2022. Your acceptance is evidence of our Board of Directors’ confidence in your potential as demonstrated by your academic achievements, your standardized test scores, and your unique personal qualities
. You are now part of a select few, and you will be a part of the fifth graduating class in the Academy’s history.

  RMBA is dedicated to providing the best education for our students. Our faculty strives to find new and innovative ways to prepare students for the challenge of leading our community. While some of our students will go on to careers in Resource Expansion, we expect others will follow other paths such as Law Enforcement, Medicine, and Business Administration.

  Whatever path you choose to follow, we look forward to you starting it with us.

  Sincerely,

  Janet Miller

  Dean of Students

  At the bottom of the letter was a handwritten note:

  Trevor, we are all very proud of you. You have overcome a lot in your life and we believe you can be successful here at RMBA. See you in October! —Janet

  The board of selectmen had launched the Rook Mountain Beyond Academy three years earlier as a school for advanced students. They didn’t accept a set number of students each year, nor did they disqualify students based on age. They accepted eight students the first year, the second year only three. Most of the students were between fifteen and twenty years old. The youngest person ever accepted was thirteen. A full year older than Trevor.

  Trevor would be the youngest ever. But would his folks allow him to go?

  He felt anger building up inside him at the very thought that they might object. Trevor knew Will’s feelings on the school. The man wasn’t usually outspoken, especially when his thoughts went against the official stance of the Rook Mountain board of selectmen. But he couldn’t hold his tongue about the RMBA. He thought it was elitist. He thought it created an unnecessary class system. Most importantly, Will thought it unfairly bypassed the town’s Certification and Mentorship programs, programs which he happened to run.

  Trevor knew that Will had applied to teach at RMBA and been rejected. Janet Miller had told Will he had the book learning but not enough real world experience.

  It didn’t matter. His step-dad couldn’t tell him what to do. Sure, about little stuff. But something big like this? Something that affected his future? No way. Will Osmond had no say in that.

  There was a lot to love about the RMBA. Some of Rook Mountain High’s best teachers taught exclusively at the RMBA. There were certain freedoms allowed to Academy students, certain Regulations they didn’t need to follow. They were all little things, sure, but it was the town’s nod of respect to its best students.

  Those weren’t the reasons Trevor so desperately wanted to join the Academy. The real reason was that the Academy gave him his best chance, probably his only chance, of becoming a Resource Expansion Specialist. And RESpys were allowed to leave town. They hunted down citizens who ran. They gathered supplies for the town. They explored the unknown territories.

  Carl thought Will was a badass. And for what? Shooting a defenseless woman who was sleeping in the woods? Compared with what the RESpys did every day, that was nothing. RESpys faced down the nightmares that wanted to eat the world, and they fought them back.

  Trevor would be a RESpy someday. He knew it. He would leave this town. He would see the plains. Maybe even see the ocean.

  Then he would find his father.

  5.

  Frank walked the edges of the road, staying close to the tree line. Cars driving down the tiny road in the middle of nowhere didn’t expect to see pedestrians, and they drove accordingly. It wasn’t just the thought of cars that pushed him to the side of the road—his desire to be near the trees pulled him toward their shade. He had grown up playing in these woods. He’d climbed many of these trees and fallen out of a few of them. He’d camped out here. Played hide and seek. Drank his first beer and taken his first shot of moonshine. These woods were a constant presence in his life, and after so long away he wanted to be close to them. The crunch of pine needles beneath his feet and the rich scent of the woods in his nose just felt right.

  Frank was walking home, walking toward the cabin he had lived in for six years before his incarceration. He had never owned the place, Jake and Christine had owned all four cabins on the property, but he had lived there long enough that he felt a sense of ownership. After Jake and Christine had moved into town to be closer to the schools for little Trevor, Frank had taken care of the property. And he had taken care of Clark, Christine’s father, until the old man had gotten too sick and spent the last two months of his life at Elizabethton Memorial.

  In some ways, that had been the best year of Frank’s life. His lock business had been growing steadily, and there was plenty to do around the cabins when he wasn’t working. He’d been dating Wendy, and things had been getting pretty serious. He and Christine had patched up their differences—most of them anyway. He had the land to take care of, and he took great pleasure in doing so.

  Frank grimaced as he rounded the bend and saw the driveway. Weeds as high as Frank’s knee sprouted through the gravel. He would have thought Christine would have kept the place up, or at least hired somebody to do so. He walked up the driveway, grabbing randomly at weeds and pulling them out as he passed. He knew he wasn’t doing any good. He wasn’t pulling up the root. But it still made him feel a little better.

  He came to the four-way fork in the drive and took the one on the left that led to the cabin that had served as his workshop after Clark died.

  Frank walked the remaining weedy stretch of the driveway slowly, taking in the sights and the sounds of the place. He climbed up the porch and looked out over the view. He had spent many a pleasant evening on this porch, sometimes strumming his guitar, sometimes sipping Tennessee whiskey, sometimes simply thinking. Or had he really been thinking? He remembered many hours spent out here, sure, but he couldn’t remember what he might have been thinking about so hard. Maybe he had been drifting a little, even back then.

  Frank turned and pulled the keys out of his pocket. They had been in his possession when he was incarcerated, so they were given back to him when he was released. He paused before inserting the key, and took a look at the place. Not bad for nine years of neglect, he decided. The paint wasn’t exactly flake-free, but it wasn’t falling off the door either. Part of the benefit of a log cabin—the age didn’t show as quickly. If it wasn’t for the weeds growing in the driveway, you might not even know it was abandoned.

  Frank reached out and gave the doorknob a wiggle. It turned freely in his hand. Damn, that wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  He had left instructions with Jake and Christine. He had asked them to lock the cabin and leave his things untouched. That was all he had wanted from them. Jake had nodded, and even though he had been furious about what had happened between Frank and Brett Miller, it seemed like he had understood and that he would take care of it.

  There was another possibility. Maybe Jake had followed through and left the place locked tight. Maybe someone had found their own way in. Maybe that someone was still there.

  Frank wished he had thought to bring some sort of weapon. A gun would be ideal, but anything would do. A knife. A hammer. Anything but a tire iron.

  Frank took a deep breath and pushed on the door. It was only open an inch when he heard a voice behind him say, “Don’t move. Put your hands in the air, please.”

  Frank released the doorknob and raised his hands. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, as tight as he could, to clear his mind. Then he opened them. The man hadn’t said he had a gun, but he didn’t need to. In these parts, a man might not have a legal home, but he wouldn’t be caught without a gun.

  Frank gritted his teeth in frustration. He hadn’t survived nine years in NTCC to get shot by a squatter the day he got out. He began turning toward the voice.

  “I said don’t move!”

  Frank froze. “Okay. Sorry. And I’m sorry if I frightened you. I’m—”

  “Yeah, you’re gonna be sorry,” the man said. “You better tell me what you’re doing here, and tell me quick.”

  Frank took a deep breath. “I...I used to live here. I�
�ve been away for a while.”

  “Away? What the hell do you mean, away? You expect me to believe you’re a RESpy?”

  “RESpy?” Frank asked. Sean’s words came back to him. Go with the flow. “No, I’m not a RESpy.”

  “Okay, then I guess you’re a Reg Breaker. That means I could shoot you dead and be a hero. They might even give me these cabins legally. Put them in my name as a way of saying thanks.”

  Frank’s jaw ached with tension. No way in hell was this asshole getting the cabins. He wasn’t about to say that now, though. “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve been in prison. Up at NTCC. Got out today.”

  “Holy shit. You’re that Hinkle boy, ain’t you?”

  Frank nodded slowly. “Yeah. I am.”

  “Ha. I thought you looked familiar. It’s Gus Hansen. From 3rd Street Baptist.”

  Gus Hansen. It took Frank a moment, but he finally placed the man. He had been an usher at church. Always sucking on mints. The man had always had a mischievous little smirk on his face. Frank had never really understood what the man did for a living, but he'd had the impression it was not exactly legal.

  Frank lowered his hands. “Gus. Yeah, of course.”

  “Keep them up!” shouted Gus. “The fact that I knew you in the Before don’t mean nothing.”

  Frank put his hands back up. “Okay. Sorry.”

  There was a long silence. So long that Frank began to wonder if the older man had nodded off or something.

  Finally Gus said, “Frank, you’ve put me in a bit of a pickle here. I don’t want to hurt you, and I know you didn’t come out here with any ill will toward me and mine. You’re just a man enjoying his freedom.”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “I don’t mean you any harm.”

  “At the same time, here you are, mucking up a nice situation for me. See, I lost my house in one of those goddamn property regulations. Thankfully, we found this place and made ourselves a nice little arrangement with the owner. Part of that arrangement is we don’t let people go snooping around on the property.”