* * *
From her chair in the living room, Bell heard the honk. Goldie bounced down from the couch, her tail making wild scribbles in the air as she barged toward the front door. Even before Bell opened it, Goldie had somehow sensed that Royce was on the other side. Bell had never seen her quite like this: It was as if every molecule of her being was on tiptoe.
Once the dog spotted Royce, her tail went into a kind of hyperdrive. She rushed out onto the porch.
“Hey, girlie,” Royce said. He handed something to Bell. And then he went down on both knees so that Goldie could reach his face with her tongue, and he rubbed her up and down while she licked and sniffed. “Hey there. How’s my girl?”
Bell stood back and watched the reunion. Goldie had forgotten all about her. Had she meant nothing to this dog? Nothing at all? Then she reprimanded herself: Royce was Goldie’s world. Others might come and go, and Goldie might care for them, but Royce was her world. That would not, should not, change. That was how it was supposed to be: Royce and Goldie. They were part of each other’s story, moving in rugged tandem across the days and the years.
Bell knew now, in a way she could not have fully understood before, that her life story was not her own. She was part of other people’s stories, too, the paths tangling and untangling and overlapping, until finally there was only one story, infinitely thickened by all the stories gathered within it since the beginning of stories themselves.
She didn’t know what would happen to Acker’s Gap, now that the resort and its promise of economic uplift were gone. She only knew that this place was a part of her story, and she of its. She was also part of Carla’s story, and the stories of Shirley and Nick and Mary Sue and Rhonda and Pam Harrison and—maybe—Clay Meckling.
Royce stood up again and shook her hand, without meeting her eyes. They’d said what they needed to say to each other back at the courthouse. He touched the top of Goldie’s head. “Ready to go, girl?” A sharp bark, and another crazy swoop of her tail.
The dog followed him out to the silver pickup truck driven by Chess Rader. Bell waved at Chess, but he didn’t see her; he was focused on the map he’d spread out across the steering wheel. They had six more stops to make and he was checking the locations.
Bell looked down at the object Royce had handed her. It was a notebook with a black-and-white cover, the one she had given him at the start of the trial. She opened it to the first page. Death Imprint, it said. She would read it tonight, when she sat in her chair and tried to keep her mind away from the ache of losing Goldie.
Her attention was drawn back to the curb. Royce was clapping his hands and calling out, “Good girl, that’s my good girl, now,” as Goldie leapt into the back of the truck without the slightest hesitation. She barked and quivered and turned in circles, out of sheer exhilaration. Royce was with her now, and she was with him. No matter where she was going, she was already home.
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
A Killing in the Hills
Bitter River
Summer of the Dead
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Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraphs
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Death Imprint
Part Two
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
About the Author
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.
THE LAST RAGGED BREATH. 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 designed by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photograph © Terry Bidgood/Trevillion
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Keller, Julia.
Last ragged breath / Julia Keller.—First edition.
pages; cm
ISBN 978-1-250-04474-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4319-6 (e-book)
1. West Virginia—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3611.E4245L37 2015
813'.6—dc23
2015017000
eISBN 9781466843196
First Edition: August 2015