Free Cross Justice by James Patterson Page B

whether he was. Aunt Hattie said that soon after my father died, Bell took his profits and went twenty miles north, where he built a big house on Pleasant Lake. He bought up local businesses and gave every appearance of a guy who’d straightened out his life.
    “I don’t believe that for a second,” Ethel Fox snapped. “You don’t change your spots just like that, not when there’s easy money to be made. You ask me, he runs the underworld of this town and the towns all around us. Maybe even over to Raleigh.”
    I raised my head. “He’s never been investigated?”
    “Oh, I’m sure someone has investigated him,” Connie said.
    “But Marvin Bell’s never been arrested for anything, far as I know,” Hattie said. “You see him around Starksville from time to time, and it’s like he’s looking right through you.”
    “What do you mean by that?” Bree asked.
    Hattie shifted in her chair. “He makes you uncomfortable just by being near, like he’s an instant threat, even if he’s smiling at you.”
    “So he knows who you are? What you’ve seen?” Bree asked.
    “Oh, I expect he knows,” Connie said. “He just don’t care. In Bell’s kingdom, we’re nothing. Just like Alex’s parents were nothing to him.”
    “Any evidence linking Bell to Rashawn Turnbull?” Bree said.
    Naomi shook her head.
    Patty Converse seemed lost in thought.
    I asked her, “Stefan ever mention him?”
    My cousin’s fiancée startled when she realized I was talking to her, said, “Honest to God, I’ve never heard of Marvin Bell.”

CHAPTER 21
     
    I AWOKE THE next morning to find my daughter, Jannie, at the side of my bed, shaking my shoulder. She had on her blue tracksuit and was carrying a workout bag.
    “Six a.m.,” she whispered. “We have to go.”
    I nodded blearily and eased out of bed, not wanting to wake Bree. I grabbed some shorts, running shoes, a Georgetown Hoyas T-shirt, and a Johns Hopkins hoodie, and went into the bathroom.
    I splashed cold water on my face and then dressed, willing myself not to think about the day before and Marvin Bell and what my aunts said he’d done to my parents. Did Nana Mama know? I pushed that question and more aside. For a few hours, at least, I wanted to focus on my daughter and her dreams.
    Nana Mama was already up. “Coffee with chicory,” she said, handing me a go cup and a small soft cooler. “Bananas, water, and her protein shakes are in there. There’s some of those poppy-seed muffins you like too.”
    “Fattening me up?”
    “Putting some meat on your bones,” she said, and she laughed.
    I laughed too, said, “I remember that.”
    When I was a teenager, about Jannie’s age, I’d gotten my height but weighed about one hundred and sixty dripping wet. I had dreams of playing college football and basketball. So for two years, Nana Mama cooked extra for me, putting some meat on my bones. When I graduated high school, I weighed close to two hundred.
    “Dad!” Jannie whined.
    “Tell Bree we should be back before ten,” I said, and I hurried out of the house with my daughter.
    Jannie was quiet on the ride over to Starksville High School. It didn’t surprise me. She is incredibly competitive and intense when it comes to running. Sometimes she’s irritable before facing a challenge on the track. Other times, like that morning, she’s quiet, deep inside herself.
    “This coach is supposed to be strong,” I said.
    She nodded. “Duke assistant.”
    I could see the wheels turning in her head. One of Duke University’s assistant track coaches ran the AAU team out of Raleigh during the summer. Some of her athletes would no doubt be on the track. Jannie was out to impress them all.
    I pulled into a mostly empty parking lot next to the high school. At a quarter past six on a Saturday morning, there were only a handful of vehicles there, including two white passenger vans. Beyond them and a chain-link fence and bleachers, people were jogging, warming up.
    “You’re