The Lost Prince (41 page)

Neighbors came out onto their porches, turning on extra lights in front. Daniel crossed the alley between Luanne’s trailer and their neighbor, and kept a steady pace along the dark backyards until he could get back on the street and head for the general store. He needed beef jerky, a poncho, water, and a flashlight. Five minutes tops and then he’d hoof it all the way to Raleigh if he couldn’t pick up a hitch. Probably better to walk anyway with the reward on him.

He was making good time on the graveled lane and about to turn left to head for the store when he heard familiar voices around the corner. He scooted behind the nearest home on the left and then made a right behind it in an L-shaped approach to the voices under cover of darkness. Some bushes on the side of the next house provided good cover. It was McCoy and his crew lit by the laptop light of the computer geek working on the hood of the truck.

“Hurry up,” McCoy said.

“It would help if we knew the bitch’s last name,” the geek said.

“You sure it’s him,” said one of the other guys.

“Positive,” said the computer geek. “Picture’s all over the Internet. Payin’ sixty grand for information leadin’ to his capture. And he’s in Cody’s girlfriend’s house.”

“Hell with information,” said McCoy. “Too easy for other folk to get in on the action, probably have to fight it out with the cop that drags him in. We sack the little fucker ourselves, walk into the station, we don’t split the money with no one. No debate that it’s our reward.”

In the midst of the entire world ganging up on him, Daniel took most umbrage over being called “little.” Sure, he was wiry—but five foot five was actually respectable for someone about to turn fourteen. He still had a few more years to grow … assuming a coalition of North Carolina’s meth dealers didn’t gun him down. A shotgun blast went off in the direction of Bev’s home.

Luanne!
Daniel wanted to go back and check on her.

Luanne’s voice echoed across the trailer park. “You try to come in again, Cody, and I will blow you off the porch!”

No mention of testicles this time. She was growing as a person. More people were coming out of their homes now to check on the hubbub. In the cities, people ran away from gunfire; here they were all curious and in everyone else’s business. McCoy’s crew anxiously piled into the Escalade and took off like a shot past all the other people, heading toward the commotion. If he ever saw Luanne again, Daniel would plant the biggest kiss he could muster on his feral southern belle. One thing he was glad to have done while here was breaking up her and that meth dealer. Hopefully, she’ll find a decent guy on the next round.

Daniel headed up the street toward Jeb’s. The counter guy came out and asked if he heard a gunshot.

“Yep. There’s some crazy business going on back at Bev’s place,” Daniel said.

The counter guy called it in to the police on his two-way radio and then asked Daniel if he’d watch the store for a sec because he was also the security guard for the park and had to run out to see what the problem was. Daniel agreed and stocked up on jerky, processed cold cuts, bread, bottles of water, a dark green poncho, and extra batteries for the flashlight. It was about thirty bucks worth of stuff. He pulled the roll Luanne had given him and found fifties and hundreds.

“Jeezus,” he whispered. “Colby must be stacked.” He put the money on the counter and left.

The rain graduated from a drizzle and came down more consistently. The front gate, only twenty yards away, was open. Right or left? he wondered. Which way was Raleigh?

A station wagon pulled up on the main road by the entrance and stopped. It made a right into the trailer park’s driveway and rolled past him and about thirty feet, then stopped. It waited there for a moment, idling, then made a U-turn. Daniel moved over to the right to let the car through, thinking the man was probably lost, when it stopped beside him.

The guy probably just wanted directions, in which case Daniel would finagle a ride, but he balanced on the front balls of his feet ready to run just in case. The steamy passenger-side window rolled down. Daniel bent down to look in.

The driver was alone—a wiry black man with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, probably in his forties, wearing a dark blue shirt with a clerical collar under a raincoat. He held a small wooden salad bowl in his hand filled with water. The driver looked at something floating in the bowl, then back at Daniel. He had deep soulful eyes, like a bloodhound. He stared at Daniel with an incredulous expression like he knew the boy.

What a weird day,
thought Daniel.

“Excuse me, son,” the man said in a soothing baritone. “Where am I?”

“Trailer park on Country Road Five-eighty-one, near State Road Sixty-four.”

“I see.” The man looked Daniel up and down, saw the backpack and asked, “Do you need a ride?”

Daniel did need a ride, but it was odd how quickly this guy was willing to offer one without knowing a thing about him. For all the padre knew, Daniel could be a murderer on the lam from the police. After the situation with Colby, Daniel was more wary of coincidences. Something about this guy seemed too eager. If he didn’t know any better, Daniel would swear that the guy had come looking for him.

“Thanks, mister, but I’m good,” Daniel lied.

“It’s Reverend … Reverend Grey.” He put the bowl down between the two front seats and placed a Tupperware cover on it. “Catch your death walking in this cold drizzle.”

Catch my death getting in the wrong car,
the boy thought. “Look, Rev, I appreciate the offer, but you don’t want to get involved with me. Really, I’m doing you a favor.”

“I see,” the man said.

The minister looked ahead as if to drive off, but not seeming to have a destination. He looked down at his hands the way one does when something important is stolen from you and you’re wondering if you can rebuild or replace it. The car didn’t move—Daniel wasn’t the betting kind, but he’d put money on it mattering to the reverend whether he got into the station wagon or not. Maybe the man was legit and had a thing about helping runaways. But those types always worked closely with the police.

The reverend got out of the car, leaving it running, and put up a big black umbrella. He walked around the front and stopped before Daniel. The umbrella was large enough for both of them but Reverend Grey respected Daniel’s personal space and left him just outside its shelter. The minister looked up and down the street, as though one of the trailers in the park had his next words painted on their sides. He pursed his lips and turned to look right at Daniel.

“I’ve been a man of God here for thirteen years,” he began. He let that statement sink into the boy. “And I don’t think in all that time He’s given me a clearer sign of His intention than the one that led me to you, Daniel.”

Daniel took a step back. “How’d you know my name?”

“That is not your name,” the reverend said confidently. “Your parents named you Danel, after your paternal great-grandfather; your real parents, not the adopted ones.”

“My … my what…?”

Weird took a huge lunge into
The Twilight Zone
.

“There are some very bad people in the world, son. And they’re after you. And there are some very good people in the world as well … and they are looking for you. You think you’ve been on the run since you fled Baltimore—but it’s been much longer than that. You’ve been on the run your entire life, under assault and constant threat for years. It started far, far away from here, farther than you could ever imagine. The most important decisions you have to make in your entire life will take place in the next few hours … maybe sooner. And it boils down to whether you can tell friend from foe. There will be no second chances.”

“Who the heck are you, mister?”

Every instinct told Daniel to run, but he was cemented to that spot by this man’s crazy talk. He was sincere, that much Daniel believed, but also a crackpot. Escapee from a mental ward.

“God brought me to you. He brought you to where I could save you. What other reason can there be that in all the world you would come to my doorstep—my little corner of the world. I tried to deny my debt to you … to stay out of the fight for the sake of my wife and daughter, but I could not turn my back on this sign.

“Were I in your position, I would not believe me either. I’m telling you this anyway, even though you’ll think I am a crazy old fool—a stranger talking nonsense. But I have told you the truth Daniel Hauer. My life is also in danger now, and I am putting my faith in God. You are a lost lamb in need of shelter and I am His Shepherd. I am trusting in His purpose for us … that by some miracle you will believe me, and let me protect you.”

The rain must have been flying sideways around the reverend’s umbrella; his cheeks were dripping. Daniel was cold and getting wetter by the moment. The heat coming out the passenger window appealed to him, but he couldn’t possibly go off with this crazy person. People he’d never met kept coming out of nowhere with their own agendas for him. Why was a skinny kid from Baltimore on so many adult peoples’ radars? What the hell was going on?

“How do you even know I’m the right person?” Daniel asked. “I’m walking in the rain in the middle of nowhere.”

The reverend smiled. “You have a birthmark in the shape of a bird on your shoulder.”

Daniel’s mouth dropped. But then he thought … that might be on the police blotter from his examination at the hospital a few days ago. He was utterly confused and wished for one of the reverend’s handy dandy signs for himself.

“I know your mother, Sophia,” Reverend Grey said. “You have her eyes.”

No way. No way, no way, no way! This is crazy.
Even John and Rita Hauer didn’t know Daniel’s birth mother.

“I can see you’re of two minds, Daniel. I will not force you. I will stand by you, whatever your decision, whatever the danger to me.” He pulled out a business card and handed it to Daniel. “Should we become separated, that is my church. My home is next door. My daughter would be very excited to meet you.” He smiled when he said that as though in on a private joke.

“If at some point you decide to trust me, I will give you shelter. I can put you in touch with those who want to protect you.” The reverend returned to his car and got behind the wheel. He looked as uncertain of leaving Daniel as the boy felt about going with the man. The man had no intention of forcing Daniel to do anything.

From the back of the trailer park came gunfire and hollering in the night air. Revved-up engines and churned gravel grew louder as the vehicles came back toward the store. Down the county road, a pair of headlights with flashers approached. Daniel had to make a decision. The hoodlums and the cops were all heading right to the spot he stood on. But this preacher was nuts. Daniel could be jumping into the proverbial fire. Maybe the cops could detain the meth dealers while he hoofed it through a lettuce field.

A sheriff’s car pulled in and stopped in front of Jeb’s store across from them. The deputy talked to someone on his radio, and then got out with his walkie-talkie.

“The commotions all the way in the back of the park,” Daniel told the cop, pointing in the direction of Bev’s house.

The deputy said into his walkie-talkie, “Confirmed. Send backup.” He pulled his weapon from its holster and pointed it at Daniel. “Sir, stay in your vehicle!” he told Reverend Grey, never taking his eyes off the boy. “Daniel Hauer, you are under arrest! Hands on the hood! Now!”

The jig was up. He should have hid when he had the chance … he should have run. Daniel underestimated the speed with which the reward on him would spread. Someone in the park had ratted him out. Once he was on the news, he knew it would only be a matter of time. Daniel placed his hands on the reverend’s car. The heat from the engine felt good. A second car with New York plates pulled into the driveway, but with the cop in the middle of the street, there wasn’t room to pass. It parked behind the cruiser. Three men emerged. The driver was tall, like a stockbroker on holiday with close-cropped quaff, square jaw, and wearing a Land’s End jacket and slacks. On the passenger side surfaced a shorter, stocky man in an ill-fitting tux, black with gray pinstripe pants and a bowler hat on a nest of black hair. His teeth were yellow and mangled and he wore cloth gloves with the tips cut off revealing the thick fingertips of a lifelong smoker. Out of the rear driver’s side appeared a giant—like a reject from a
Heavy Metal
story—seven feet tall with long, black rocker hair, arms like tree trunks that seemed too long for his body, a flat nose and fat bottom lip that protruded farther than the top one. He wore only a white T-shirt and jeans, unperturbed by the cold and rain.

“Boy,” the bowler man called out, ignoring the cop between them. “You Daniel Hauer?”

Something in the man’s tone sent shivers through Daniel. Juxtaposing this crew and the preacher, Daniel suddenly found his ability to tell friend from foe.

“This is a police matter!” the cop shouted to the new arrivals. “Stay back!”

Around the corner spun McCoy’s Escalade and Cody’s DeVille and both screeched to a stop before the scene. The rain was coming down harder now. All the vehicles’ headlights lit up the makeshift ring before them like a movie set. The usual suspects as well as the guy running Jeb’s store poured out of the new arrivals. Luanne was nowhere in sight, thank God. A fourth man that only Daniel noticed quietly emerged from the rear passenger side of the New York sedan.

Colby!

The giant moved toward the deputy, who was too distracted by the arrival of Cody and McCoy’s gangs to notice.

“I want everybody to move back from this area NOW!” the deputy yelled at the top of his lungs.

Colby was silently mouthing something at Daniel.
Rug? Rut? Rum…?

The deputy realized too late … the giant placed one hand on his head and the other on his shoulder and twisted like a bottle top until his neck cracked. The cop fell into the mud.

Oh,
Daniel realized … Colby was saying
RUN!

“I think I’d like to meet your daughter now,” Daniel said, throwing his bag through the open passenger-side window and diving in after it faster than he could say
buh-bye
.