Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Bloodhound
Mount Olive Correctional Complex rises out of the West Virginia hills like a concrete tombstone.
I've driven past it a hundred times on runs, never giving it more than a passing glance.
Just another building.
Just another place that has nothing to do with me.
Until now.
I park the truck in the visitor lot and sit there for a minute, gripping the steering wheel, trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing here.
Vanna's pregnant.
I found out two days ago, and I still can't wrap my head around it.
A baby. Our baby.
Growing inside her while she fights for her life in a rehab facility four hours away.
And now I'm about to visit her father.
Rick Smith.
The man who sold laced heroin and got people killed.
The man whose dealing destroyed our family—fed Vanna's mother's addiction until it killed her, left Vanna so broken she chased the same high just to stop feeling.
The man Vanna hasn't spoken to since he got locked up.
But he's also the only person who might understand what she's going through.
The only person who's been where she's been and come out the other side.
I called ahead and arranged a visit.
I didn't tell Vanna because I didn't want to get her hopes up—didn't even know if I'd go through with it until I was already on the road this morning.
Now I'm here, and I'm going in.
The check-in process is long and degrading.
Metal detectors. Pat-downs. Forms to fill out in triplicate.
The guards look at my cut with barely concealed suspicion, but they don't turn me away.
I'm on the approved visitor list—Vanna added me years ago, back when she still thought she might want to see her father someday.
She never did, but the approval never expired.
The visiting room is exactly what I expected.
Plastic chairs bolted to the floor.
Vending machines against the wall.
Families scattered around small tables, talking in low voices, trying to pretend this is normal.
Trying to pretend the fluorescent lights and the guards and the razor wire outside don't exist.
I take a seat at an empty table and wait.
When Rick walks in, I almost don't recognize him.
The last time I saw him was at his trial, twelve years ago.
He was gaunt then, hollow-eyed, shaking from withdrawal.
I sat in the back of the courtroom with Vanna, watching her father get sentenced to life for selling the poison that killed three people.
She didn't cry.
Just sat there, frozen, like she'd already lost him long before the judge spoke.
The man standing in front of me now is different.
Filled out. Clear-eyed.
There's gray in his hair that wasn't there before, and lines on his face that speak to hard years, but he looks... healthy. Present.
He looks like a man who's found some kind of peace.
I think about all the times I found Vanna half-dead in trap houses, needle still in her arm.
All the times I carried her to the hospital, praying she'd make it.
All the times I wondered if she'd inherited more than just her father's eyes.
And now I'm sitting across from the man who started it all.
"Bloodhound." He says my road name like he's testing it out, seeing how it feels in his mouth. "Didn't expect to ever see you here."
"Makes two of us."
He sits down across from me, folding his hands on the table.
His movements are careful, deliberate—the movements of a man who's learned to be still. "How's my daughter?"
Straight to it. No small talk. I can respect that.
"She's in rehab. Pennsylvania. Been there about five weeks now."
Something flickers across his face. Hope, maybe. Or fear. Hard to tell. "She go willingly?"
"Yeah. Almost died first, but yeah. She went willingly."
Rick closes his eyes for a moment, and I watch his jaw clench.
When he opens them again, they're wet. "How many times has she almost died?"
"Too many to count."
He nods slowly, like this doesn't surprise him. Like he expected nothing less. "She's like me. Same demons. Same weakness." He pauses. "Same strength, too, if she can find it."
"That's why I'm here." I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table. "I need to know if it's possible. If someone like you—like her—can actually get clean and stay clean."
"Are you asking if recovery is real?"
"I'm asking if I should hope."
Rick is quiet for a long moment.
The noise of the visiting room fades into background static as he considers my question.
When he finally speaks, his voice is rough.
"I've been clean for nearly twelve years now.
Not because I wanted to be—because I didn't have a choice.
When I was in lesser security jails, I could still access heroin.
Prison took the drugs away, and at first, I thought it would kill me.
The withdrawal, the cravings, the endless fucking need.
.." He shakes his head. "But it didn't kill me.
And somewhere along the way, I started to realize I didn't want to die anymore. "
"What changed?"
"Structure. Routine. Having someone tell me when to wake up and when to eat and when to sleep. My whole life, I was chasing the next high, and everything else fell apart around me. In here, I don't have to chase anything. I just have to exist."
It's not the answer I was hoping for. "So, you're only clean because you're locked up."
"That's not what I said." Rick leans forward, matching my posture.
"I'm saying the structure helped me find the strength I didn't know I had.
Vanna's in rehab—she's got structure too.
Doctors, counselors, people watching her every move.
That's not a cage, son. That's a scaffold.
Something to hold her up while she rebuilds. "
Son. The word hits me harder than it should.
"She's pregnant," I hear myself say. I didn't plan to tell him. The words just come out.
Rick goes completely still.
For a moment, I think he's stopped breathing.
Then his face crumbles—not with grief, but with something else. Something that looks almost like joy.
"Pregnant," he whispers. "My baby girl is having a baby."
"Five weeks along. Give or take."
"And she's staying clean? Even with—" He can't finish the sentence.
"She's fighting. Every day, she's fighting."
Rick wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, not bothering to hide the tears. "You know what that means, don't you? What she's doing?"
"What?"
"She's breaking the cycle." His voice cracks on the words. "Her mother couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. But Vanna—she's doing it. For that baby. For you. For herself."
The hope in his voice is almost painful to hear.
This is a man who's spent years in a cell, thinking about all the ways he failed his daughter.
And now he's learning that she might actually make it.
That she might be stronger than he ever was.
"I want to reconnect with her," Rick says. "When she's ready. If she's ever ready. I don't expect forgiveness—I don't deserve it. But I want her to know that I'm proud of her. That I believe in her."
"I'll tell her."
"Tell her something else, too." He holds my gaze, and for a moment, I see Vanna in his eyes—the same stubborn determination, the same desperate need to be understood.
"Tell her that addiction isn't a death sentence.
Tell her that people like us can change.
It's hard, and it hurts, and most days you want to give up—but it's possible. Recovery is possible."
I nod, not trusting my voice.
"And Bloodhound?" Rick waits until I meet his eyes again. "Thank you. For not giving up on her. For being there when I couldn't be."
"I love her," I say simply. "Giving up was never an option."
The drive to Pennsylvania feels different this time.
Three days ago, when Vanna called to tell me she was pregnant, I was paralyzed.
Couldn't think. Couldn't move.
Just sat on the curb outside the clubhouse, trying to remember how to breathe.
The word kept echoing in my head—pregnant, pregnant, pregnant—until it didn't sound like a word anymore.
Just a sound.
A collection of syllables that was somehow supposed to change everything.
Aunt Ellie found me there, talked me down, helped me process.
She's in the passenger seat now, a thermos of coffee in her lap and a paper bag of breakfast sandwiches at her feet.
She insisted on coming, said someone needed to make sure I didn't drive off the road.
She's not wrong.
My mind keeps drifting—to the baby, to Vanna, to the conversation with Rick.
I have to keep pulling myself back to the road, to the white lines disappearing under my wheels, to the simple act of staying between the guardrails.
"You're quiet," Aunt Ellie observes as we cross into Pennsylvania. "Even for you."
"Got a lot on my mind."
"The baby? Or the prison visit?"
I glance at her, surprised.
I didn't tell anyone I was going to see Rick.
Left before dawn, drove the two hours to Mount Olive, sat with her father for forty-five minutes, and drove back without saying a word to anyone.
She catches my look and smiles. "I've known you since you were nine years old, Garrett. You think I don't notice when you disappear for half a day and come back looking like you've seen a ghost?"
"It wasn't a ghost. It was her father."
Aunt Ellie is quiet for a moment, processing this.
The trees blur past outside, their bare branches reaching toward a gray November sky.
Winter's coming.
By the time Vanna gets out of rehab, there might be snow on the ground.
"And?" Ellie finally asks. "How is he?"
"Clean. Almost twelve years clean." I keep my eyes on the road, watching the mile markers tick by. "He wants to reconnect with Vanna. When she's ready."
"That's a big ask."
"I know."