Ghost Roll Read online

  “Okay. Another time.” He waited. Usually Bell would explain a turn-down. But she didn’t, so he had to pry. “Better offer?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have a date.”

  “Well. Well, now.” His face broke open into a smile. “Do I know the lucky fella?”

  “No.”

  Once again, he waited for more details. Her expression informed him that none would be forthcoming. The silence lengthened, thickened. Many things occurred to her within that silence, and Bell noted them, one by one: Nick was now on the outside of her life, looking in, and even though she’d acknowledged that leaving the sheriff’s job was his decision, that he had to do what was best for himself and for Mary Sue, she still wasn’t reconciled to the change. She missed him. She knew he missed her, too. But if she acted as if they were still close—if she talked with him about her life, the way she’d always done before—then she would be letting him off the hook too easily. He had abandoned her, dammit. He had to face the consequences of that.

  Finally, Nick said, “Guess both of us had better start our day’s work.”

  She put the straightened-out paper clip in her pocket and lifted her jacket from the back of the folding chair. Once it was on, she picked up her purse and her coffee cup.

  “Hey,” Nick said. She paused at the threshold. “We offer free refills on the coffee,” he said lightly. “Make sure you take advantage. For the drive home.”

  Bell didn’t know what she’d wanted him to say right then, but it sure as hell wasn’t about coffee. She was hit by a fusillade of unsolicited memories: cases they’d worked; long afternoons they’d spent together, going over evidence or interviewing witnesses; meals they’d shared while they laughed and swapped stories and demonstrated the kind of support for each other that didn’t require words. Just a steady accumulation of days in each other’s company.

  “One more thing,” he said.

  Here it comes, she thought. Now he’d say something heartfelt, something about how he, too, remembered their daily interactions back in Acker’s Gap, and missed the camaraderie of a shared purpose. Missed, even, the impossible hours and the constant frustrations.

  “No charge for the paper clip,” he said.

  She gave him a brief wave to acknowledge the levity.

  The front part of the store, when she rounded the corner and returned to it, was a different place now, with all three cash registers going full tilt, with lines of customers snaking around the racks and bins, waiting to pay for gas and gum and coffee and lottery tickets and peanuts and candy bars and sunglasses and cigarettes. Bell moved in a haze, preoccupied by her memories of previous mornings with Nick Fogelsong, work mornings, mornings when they’d felt the weight of the world but never really minded it because each had the other one right there, ready to take up the slack when one of them grew weary. The past was a tricky bastard. It called and called to you—and when you turned around and tried to grasp it, it disappeared.

  Reaching the double glass doors, she took a quick look back at the busy store. She was mildly surprised to see the fat man—the one who’d walked in just ahead of her, the one in the green plaid coat and the cap with the oval Peterbilt logo—still on the premises. Must be stocking up. He stood at the start of the soft drink aisle, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, apparently torn by an existential dilemma regarding two-liter plastic jugs of Dr Pepper: diet or regular? The only visible motion came from his jaw, as it grappled with a bountiful plug of snuff, and his eyes, which roved restlessly.

  About the Author

  JULIA KELLER spent twelve years as a reporter and editor for the Chicago Tribune, where she won a Pulitzer Prize. A recipient of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, she was born in West Virginia and lives in Chicago and Ohio. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Also by Julia Keller

  Summer of the Dead

  Bitter River

  A Killing in the Hills

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  Read on for an excerpt from the next book featuring Bell Elkins

  Teaser from The Last Ragged Breath

  About the Author

  Also by Julia Keller

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  GHOST ROLL. Copyright © 2015 by Julia Keller. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by Crystal Ben

  Cover photographs: figure © Miha Pavlin/Getty Images; background © Wing Yin Chan/ Getty Images; playground © Brooks Elliott/ Getty Images

  eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

  e-ISBN 9781466857032

  First Edition: June 2015