Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

could see it now. “It was you,” he said. “You were the one who sent the last letter, not my granddaughter. But how would you know . . .”
    Loretta lowered her gaze.
    “You’re . . .”
    “Don’t matter who I am!” she snapped, her eyes coming back to challenge his.
    Earl examined the woman he’d only just met but now believed to be his daughter. He saw her in a somewhat different light than he had before. More determined than pathetic. More feral than beaten. “Where’s India?” he said.
    “They’s a house out in Walton County, a cabin twenty miles from here, tucked way back in the trees. I was hoping we’d find India at Bo Peep’s, and everythin’d be all right. But now my worst fear is she’s out there with them.”
    “Them who?”
    “The boys. They got this little club, see. An appreciation-of-little-black-girls club. Five of them, including Ray Tarvis. But they ain’t throwing no charity benefit out there, huh-uh! They’re mean and cruel and like to take their aggressions out on sweet young black females.” She avoided looking at him.
    “How do you know all this?”
    Loretta brought her eyes to his now. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. “Kept me out there for nearly a year once.”
    Earl felt his heart cave in. The anguish in her eyes was born of deeply guarded pain. Melon stirred on the seat next to him.
    “Why didn’t you just go to the police?”
    Loretta’s eyes were pleading now. “Daddy, they
is
the po-leece!”
    Earl stared at the daughter he’d never known. He recalled that his estranged wife’s grandmother was named Loretta. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, off the pained, crippled expression on her face. “Can you take me to this boys’ club?” he said.
    “I was so hopin’ you’d say that. I had no one else to call; I got no one. And I wouldn’t get two steps inside ’fore Tarvis would put a bullet in me and drop me in the bottoms someplace.”
    “I understand,” Earl said. “The world can be a hard place. Just take me to her.”
    Loretta wiped at her tears and turned back to the wheel. In minutes, they were on the freeway headed east.
    There was nothing left to say between them. Earl sat quiet in the back, Melon dozing next to him. Loretta kept her eyes on the road.
    By the time they reached the outskirts of civilization, the moon had risen full above them. Loretta exited the interstate and followed back roads into the piney hillscape. Soon, she pulled off onto the gravel shoulder and brought her taxi to a stop.
    “I don’t see anything,” Earl said.
    “It’s through those trees. I’d like to go, but they see me, they’ll deal with both of us the same way, no questions.”
    “Get the car off the road, out of sight,” Earl said.
    Loretta produced a handgun. “You want to take this along.”
    “No, I’ll handle it my way.”
    “There’ll be a guard out front.”
    “Don’t worry,” he said.
    Earl opened the door and stepped out with his cane and dark glasses in hand, his camera still strung around his neck. “Jump!” he called to Melon. And together, they set off through the trees — blind dog and seeing-eye master — to face whatever fate held for them.
    “You stay close now,” Earl said to Melon, putting his dark glasses on.
    Melon gave him a whimper in return.
    In minutes they arrived at a cabin set deep in the woods. There was a single light over the porch. A muscled young white boy in blue jeans and a tank top stood guard outside the door.
    Earl came out of the trees, tapping with his cane, Melon at his cuff.
    “The hell you doing, old man? You lost?”
    “Come looking for Masta Tarvis,” Earl said, laying it on thick.
    “Yeah, well, you got the wrong place. This here’s private property, so just turn your black ass around and head on back the way you came.”
    Earl never stopped walking. He continued tapping his way forward, ignoring the threatening glare, until he was face-to-face with the man.
    The young guy was a good head shorter than him, Earl now realized, and probably half his weight. But Earl was also a good fifty years older. He couldn’t let this boy get the first strike.
    “Nigger, you deaf as well as blind —”
    In one swift move, Earl came up with a right and drove a huge fist into the young man’s face. It caught him square on the nose and dropped him like a loose sack of grain onto the porch decking. The force of the blow also drove pain up Earl’s arm and into his shoulder, and for a second