VINDICATE

A JACK DILLARD NOVEL

SCOTT PRATT

J.D. PRATT

© 2025 Phoenix Flying LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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THE JOE DILLARD SERIES

An Innocent Client

In Good Faith

Injustice for All

Reasonable Fear

Conflict of Interest

Blood Money

A Crime of Passion

Judgment Cometh (And That Right Soon)

Due Process

Last Resort

Vindicate

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Kody Rowe and Andrew Wolfendon for breathing life into this story

KRISTY

This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit and to her inspirational courage. I loved her before I was born and I’ll love her after I’m long gone.

THE CALL

A great man doesn’t seek to lead. He is called to it, and he answers. And if your answer is no, you’d still be the only thing I ever needed you to be: my son.

– Duke Leto Atreides (character), Dune

PROLOGUE

Three years earlier

The full moon bathed the mountains in a bluish glow half as bright as daylight. Not a good night for traveling incognito. And Aurora Eden did not want to be recognized. Not tonight. 

Drum Circle was going full bore. A pair of wild-haired, cackling figures shuffled down the trail toward her from the noisy hilltop. Weed smokers. Aurora pulled the visor down to shade her face in the moonlight. She marched to the steady drumbeat that filled the forest, reverberating off the trees. It felt like a war march.

Aurora wore a loose hoodie and baseball cap—not her usual kurta and head kerchief—and had removed her emerald nose stud. She was a well-known figure at Drum Circle, liked by everyone in Shanti Springs, but tonight was not about meeting friends or dancing till dawn; tonight was strictly business. 

Things had happened to Aurora. Unspeakable things. And restitution needed to be paid.

She zipped her sweatshirt higher against the early autumn chill and trudged up South Hill on a lesser-used path toward the source of the drumming. She dodged the probing eyes of a young woman she recognized as one of the Flower Children—burnouts and vagabonds who drifted in and out of Shanti Springs. Like so many others.

Shanti Springs, North Carolina, was an unincorporated township northwest of the artsy city of Asheville. Not really a town at all, it had sprung up organically over the past fifteen or twenty years as Asheville had ballooned in population, pushing some of its “fringier” inhabitants westward. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the Tennessee border, the community sat roughly between the Hindu ashram on Mount Soma and the Buddhist retreat in Hot Springs. It had become a quiet mecca for spiritual seekers as well as those seeking sanctuary from all manner of worldly woes. 

Drum Circle was the focal event in Shanti Springs culture. Every start of the moon’s cycle, the entire community, and many outsiders as well, turned out for the all-night ceremony. Its meaning was… whatever you chose it to be.

Aurora pounded her bootheels up the zigzagging trail, hands jammed in her pockets. Her chest reverberated with the dual rhythms of the twin ceremonies blaring from the adjoining hills. Drum Circle had tripled in size in just the fourteen months she’d lived here. Originated by a group of shamanic practitioners as a spiritual ceremony, it had soon spawned an offshoot group more interested in drumming for fun. That group now attracted a wide assortment of participants, including musicians, hippies, dance and movement lovers, hookup seekers, drifters, bikers, cultish types, and—more and more of late—druggies. The core spiritual group still held its circle atop North Hill; the partyers used South Hill, just a hundred yards away. But people drifted freely between the two ceremonies and into the woods surrounding them.

Anything and everything could happen in the woods around Drum Circle on any given full moon.

“Hey, Ro,” said a female voice behind Aurora, making her feet jump out of rhythm. Wondering how someone had recognized her from behind in her loose jeans and huge hoodie, she turned and looked: Mariama, a six-foot-two-inch psychic intuitive from Nairobi. Mariama had her own ways of knowing things. “Caught your aura, Aurora. Can’t hide it from me.” 

Mariama strode up beside Aurora with her long, wiry legs. Aurora loved Mariama but was in no mood for conversation. “I’ll catch up with you later, hon,” she told her lanky friend. “Right now, there’s a sitch I need to deal with.”

“Heard.” Mariama legged her way forward, up the hill, turning back to say, “You watch your back, sister, y’hear?”

Watch my back? Why would Mariama say that?

Aurora forged on. She was here to collect, plain and simple. She and the other party had chosen Drum Circle for the payoff, a place where many dark deals went down. But also, a place where the safety of the crowd provided some protection.

As Aurora circled South Hill to its rear side, she thought about what she would do with the money. First, she would allow herself one last release, one last weekend of unbridled consumption. Whatever brain candy she wanted. Then she would clean up her act. Pay her back rent, get some business cards printed up, rent some space from Gayatri at The Co-op, and start seeing clients as a spiritual counselor. And then she would bring her daughter out to live with her. A thrill of excitement coursed through her at the thought. She was going to do this, she really was. She was going to have it all—her freedom, her chosen path in life, and her child.

Then the anger washed over her again, heavy and dense, like a wave of mercury. First things first. Get the money. She trudged up South Hill and crept up on the large clearing, taking courage from the pounding of the drums. 

Drum Circle was going full throttle. Two dozen men and women of every size, shape, race, age, and hair design beat ecstatically on drums of even greater variety—congas, djembes, doumbeks, Celtic hand drums… Dancers, locking hands, moved in two concentric circles around a fire, tossing their heads and gyrating their hips in rhythm. Onlookers clapped and bobbed their heads, imbibing their chosen substances in the firelight. Silhouettes moved chaotically in the trees beyond the lighted circle. 

A pair of familiar eyes on the far side of the circle locked in on Aurora’s. Not the eyes she was expecting. Crap. What was he doing here? This wasn’t the plan. And she’d been clear as quartz crystal: there were to be no changes of plan. The man gave her a come with me head toss.

Aurora’s inner alarms rang like fire bells. 

Screw this. I’m out of here. She turned and headed down the narrow trail. Within seconds, footsteps scurried up behind her. Multiple pairs of feet surrounding her on three sides. A hand clutched her sleeve. This is not the plan. This is not the plan.

Breaking into a trot, she looked up at the sky and asked the Moon Mother for protection. The moon flashed blood-red in Aurora’s vision, and she felt her root chakra, at the base of her spine, go cold. 

It told her she had witnessed her last full moon.

PART I

1

Present day

Iarrived just in time for the 7 p.m. start and sat in one of the two empty folding chairs.

“Welcome to tonight’s meeting of Justice Deferred,” said the group leader with the bald head, soulful eyes, and sagebrush mustache. “As you know, we are a support group for victims and families affected by wrongful accusations. My name is Earl, and I see one or two new faces tonight. Would anyone care to tell us a little bit about themselves?”

His roving gaze landed on me.

Terrific, on the hot seat already. I’d been looking forward to this meeting about as much as an IRS audit. But I wanted my wife, Charlie, to know I was working on my “issues.” Since the closest group met in Knoxville, I’d driven the hundred miles west from Johnson City.

“Hi. My name’s Jack Dillard,” I said, “and I was accused of something… heinous.” I didn’t want to name the crime aloud—child abduction and murder—because I had learned the hard way that once those words were uttered in concrete syllables, there was no unhearing them. “I was vindicated pretty quickly,” I added, “and there wasn’t even a trial, but that hasn’t stopped people from assuming I must have done something. Can’t be framed if you’re not somewhere in the picture, right? I’m here tonight because… well, I just want to get my life back.”

Earl gave me a chance to elaborate. I didn’t. “Thanks, Jack,” he said. “Maybe you’ll tell us a little more about yourself when you feel more comfortable.” He turned to the circle of ten in the basement of the Beaver Brook Baptist Church in North Knoxville. “Tonight’s meeting is an open discussion format, so let’s everyone introduce yourselves and tell us briefly what brings you to Justice Deferred. Then we’ll open the floor.”

It took a good fifteen minutes for everyone to offer thumbnail versions of their personal stories. We heard from Bernard, whose twin brother was on death row in Texas for shooting motorists from a bridge and whose only crime, according to Bernard, was being homeless in the wrong place; Rosa, whose son had been wrongly convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend in North Carolina; Charmaine, whose husband had been falsely accused of killing their baby while on family vacation in Myrtle Beach; and five other “justice” victims as well as a bearded young man with glasses whose stated reason for attending was, “I’m passionate about this cause, and I want to do whatever I can to help the falsely accused find vindication.” You do you, buddy.

When Earl opened the meeting to discussion, I tried to blend in with my chair as others raised their hands. People shared some of the problems they were facing. Charmaine, fighting tears, spoke about how her husband had succumbed to pressure from the DA’s office to offer an Alford plea, whereby he would maintain his innocence but accept a minimum five-year sentence in state prison. He thought it was the quickest route to reuniting with his family. 

Good grief. And I thought I had it bad.

Several times, as the members were speaking, I caught the bearded young man with the crusader’s agenda looking at me with a piercing gaze, as if he knew me. I supposed recognition was possible, given the notoriety of my case. Still, his stare was unsettling.

The members’ stories had a cumulative effect on me. The defensive shell I’d worn when walking in the door cracked and fell away. The folks in this room were kindred spirits, I realized.

Surprising myself, I raised my hand.  

“Jack?” said Earl. “Feeling ready to talk a bit more now?”

I nodded, wondering where to start.

“Like I said, my name’s Jack Dillard. Some of you might remember a case up in Johnson City, little over a year ago. Girl went missing and was believed to have been murdered.” Three or four people nodded their familiarity. “I was the guy they arrested.”

I expected shocked reactions but saw only accepting expressions.

“I might be the only person you’ll ever meet who’s guilty of a killing he was never charged with and innocent of one he went to jail for… maybe I should start at the beginning.” I laced my fingers, leaned forward, and regarded the circle of faces from a lowered vantage. “I’m an attorney. I know, I know, hold your applause. My wife’s an attorney too, and a couple years ago—before we were married—she was attacked by a knife-wielding crazy woman outside a courtroom. I intervened. Body-slammed the assailant. Her skull hit the pavement. She died and left two kids motherless and alone. A lot of people witnessed my actions, and no one found me culpable. Well, not no one.” My hand went to my chest, almost unconsciously.

“I had a rough time afterwards. And then things got even worse. A girl on the Little League team I coached went missing, a girl I was trying to help. People started telling stories, painting my relationship with her as something it wasn’t. Before I knew it, I was sitting in Washington County Jail, framed for kidnapping and murder. 

“Seems my dad, also an attorney—maybe you’ve heard of him, Joe Dillard—had some powerful enemies, and I was collateral damage in their crusade to destroy him. But my father redeemed me. Tracked down the missing girl in Arizona, found her alive, caught the guys behind it. I was fully exonerated, but as some of you know, there is no ‘fully exonerated’ when it comes to certain kinds of crimes. People still whispered about me. I didn’t help my case by adopting the girl. Abigail. Abby. But she was a good kid, she had lost everything, and my wife and I just wanted to give her a fighting chance in life. Well… no good deed, et cetera, et cetera. For some people, it confirmed that my interest in the girl was less than… proper.

“So now, here I am, a year later, trying to make it as a defense attorney, but—surprise, surprise—all my firm’s clients seem to gravitate toward my wife. And it’s not just clients who avoid me. Prosecutors no longer want to negotiate with me in good faith. As a defense attorney, you need to be able to make deals for your clients.” A sigh leaked out of me. “I try to contribute to the practice in my own way by doing the investigative legwork, chasing down leads, trying to find evidence to help our clients. My wife and I both know it’s not enough, but we pretend it is. 

“We probably ought to move away. Leave the Tri-Cities altogether. But we love East Tennessee, and Abby has been through enough traumatic change. And I’ll admit, part of me just says hell no. No one’s going to chase me out of my home, especially when I did nothing wrong.

“So… that’s my tawdry tale of woe. My wife kinda pressured me to come here. But now I’m glad I did.”

There was a round of light applause, and Earl said, “Maybe now’s a good time for a break. Help yourselves to some refreshments and we’ll meet back here in ten.”

I headed for the table with the supermarket cookies and generic soft drinks, avoiding eye contact with anyone, feeling a little self-conscious after my unburdening.   

“Zane Nelson,” spoke a voice to my left. I turned to see the dark-bearded young man with eyeglasses—the crusading one who’d been eyeing me from across the circle—standing beside me, his hand extended. His smile seemed genuine, so I shook his hand.

He winced theatrically, pretending I’d crushed it. “Aaagh, ye hast the grip of an Uruk-Hai. Guess all those workouts must be paying off.” His words threw me, but before I could unpack why, he added, “I followed your story in the papers last year, when I was still in college. Another classic American case of ‘guilty until proven innocent.’ Sounds like your life has become a veritable basket of flowers and puppies.” 

I laughed. “Not the exact phrase I would have chosen, but—” 

“Hey, listen,” he interrupted, “I need to cut out early tonight, but can I give you my card?” Not awaiting my reply, he dug a business card out of his man-purse, placed it in my hand, and said, “Give me a jingle if you get a chance. Or maybe I’ll see you at the next meeting. I think you and I might be able to help each other.” 

Help? With what?

Zane turned and strode toward the door. It was only after he left that I realized why his remarks had caught me off guard. Two reasons. First was his use of the term Uruk-Hai, the name of a race of powerful orcs in The Lord of the Rings. A pretty obscure reference. Did he know I was a huge Lord of the Rings fan? If so, how? The second was his comment about the workouts paying off. Ever since my time behind bars, I had vowed never to let myself be so vulnerable again. In addition to daily gym workouts and protein shakes, I was learning advanced self-defense techniques. Did he know about that too, or were his remarks coincidental? 

My gut said no. 

I looked down at the card in my hand. It read in simple black Helvetica, “Zane R. Nelson. Investigative Journalist. Podcaster. Truth Warrior.” And then, scrawled in pencil, “Will you not take the Ring?”

Who was this Zane R. Nelson? And what did he want from me?

I intended to find out. After all, time was one thing I had on my hands.

2

“Another beauty, Ab!” Charlie Dillard shouted from the outfield, positioning herself under the high fly ball her daughter had just hit. Snagged. A couple evenings a week, Charlie and Abby came out to Peterson Field with their portable pitching machine to hold batting practice, even though Little League season was over. Abby batted, Charlie fielded. It was a bonding thing. Baseball was what had brought Abby into Jack’s life, and Charlie felt it was important to be part of it herself. Baseball was a positive force in Abby’s world, and Charlie intended to keep it that way, even though Jack no longer coached her team.

Crack! Another smack to the meat of the ball, another towering fly, one that would be a homer in any Little League field. Abby was getting stronger without losing her bat control. She also had a cannon for an arm and was a dominant presence on the pitcher’s mound.

Charlie felt her phone vibrate in her pocket but ignored it. Leave a message, she mentally commanded. This is my Abby time. Adopting a girl who was nearly twelve had not been a conventional or easy decision for two newlyweds just barely out of their twenties, but Charlie and Jack Dillard had done it with open eyes and an open heart, a little over a year ago, when they wed. Abby was a Little League player in whom Jack had taken an interest and whom he’d been falsely accused of kidnapping and killing. She had been found alive but only after suffering more trauma than most people face in a lifetime. Meanwhile, her unstable mother had committed suicide, and her sketchy part-time father had gone to jail. And so, Jack and Charlie, a couple young enough to be her siblings, had adopted her.

Crack! A line drive this time, but Charlie needed to take only two steps to haul it in. “Nice one, girl! Woo! You’re bringin’ it tonight.”

The adoption had gone smoothly. Almost too smoothly. Yes, Abby suffered nightmares and sometimes slipped into dark or tearful moods. But she was in therapy with a good child psychologist, and she was sharing her struggles with Jack and Charlie. Overall, she seemed grateful to be part of the Dillard family and happy in her new life. Charlie couldn’t help wondering, though, if maybe the reason Abby hadn’t exhibited more “problem” behavior was that she didn’t feel safe enough yet. And when she did—when she truly felt accepted, loved, and secure in her new family—her young parents might be in for some rough waters.

But for now, Charlie planned to enjoy the uncomplicated time she was having with Abby. Hitting balls on a late summer evening.

“Two more pitches and then what do you say we do something bad?” Charlie shouted at Abby. Ice cream cones at Sooper Scoops in Johnson City were a frequent post-ball ritual. 

Charlie felt her phone buzz again. Thoughts of work crowded her mind. She had two important calls to make this evening, a brief to write, and an early day in court tomorrow. She probably shouldn’t have suggested ice cream. But maybe Jack could help her with the brief when he got home from his support group. Crack!

The ball sailed over Charlie’s distracted head.  

“Ground Control to Charlie!” Abby still didn’t address her as Mom, but Charlie wasn’t about to force that issue. As Charlie trotted to shag the ball, Abby yelled, “Let’s stop there. I hear some Chocolate Brownie Crunch calling my name.”

Abby helped Charlie gather the hit balls in a cloth sack. Charlie slung it over her shoulder, and they headed toward the backstop where Abby’s bat awaited. As she walked, she slid the phone from her pocket. The two text messages she’d missed were from Bev, the law firm’s office manager. The first one read, Call me ASAP. The second was more specific: Don’t bother going to court in the AM. Client fired us. No reason given. 

No reason needed. Client cancellations had become a fact of life at Dillard Law. New business at the firm had fallen by forty percent since Jack’s troubles a year earlier. The “drop rate” had also gone up considerably. Charlie had gotten used to issuing clients refunds. 

On the plus side, no need to write that brief tonight. Charlie could relax and enjoy her ice cream with Abby. On the minus side…

There were many minuses. Many. But they were worries for another day.

“I don’t know about you, Ab, but I’m ready for a double scoop tonight.”

For no discernible reason, I decided to stop for a drink on the way home from the meeting. As I drove along East Main Street in Johnson City, my thirst became more pronounced.

That was the strange thing about drinking, I’d found. Well, my drinking, anyway. Much of the time, it had no apparent trigger. I could go for weeks without even thinking about amber liquid, and then, seemingly out of left field, the thought would lodge in my head, “A drink, or several, might be nice right about now.”

This compulsion was something I was going to have to figure out and deal with. Soon. I was a family man now. And how the hell was my family supposed to trust a man who couldn’t trust himself with a drink in his hand?

Oh, but look, there was Gatsby’s, Johnson City’s Roaring Twenties–themed bar. What a coincidence.

Every decent-sized town has a bar where the lawyers hang out. If there’s a courthouse in town, it’s usually the one nearest there. If not, then any joint with a dark wood bar, thick wooden tables, and a dartboard will suffice.

In Johnson City, Gatsby’s was the designated lawyers’ bar. Sessions Court used to be held one street over but had moved to the new Justice Center in Jonesborough. Still, Gatsby’s endured by habit.

The downtown street was lined with cars as I parallel parked my Toyota 4Runner in an open spot and headed toward the building festooned with blue awnings. I opened the faux-antique wooden door, stepped inside, and made a beeline toward the less populated end of the bar. There were still a few guys in suits and a woman in a silk business blouse hanging around at one of the tables, laughing uproariously. Lawyers. The day’s final stragglers. Lawyers’ bars were usually busiest in the late afternoon and early evening. Then, by six thirty or seven, most of the drinkers, after boasting about their exploits in court or ragging about stupid cops, lying clients, and pompous judges for an hour or two, would head home, duly fortified, to their spouses and kiddos. 

Any barrister still lingering in a place like Gatsby’s after nine was either a problem drinker or had other issues they weren’t dealing with.

The group of lawyers burst into laughter again. But the laughter had an edge to it. Or maybe I was just imagining that. By means of the bar mirror, I took a longer look at the table. I knew most of the lawyers by name, all of them by sight. Two of them were well-known jerks. Jerks whose booze tanks were now on Full.

There was still time to make my exit; I hadn’t caught the bartender’s eye yet. Still time to make a wiser decision. Go home, Jack. Don’t be an idiot. Go home, have a can of flavored seltzer, and watch an old Peaky Blinders episode with Charlie. I was in the process of rising from my seat to leave when the bartender spotted me. “What’s your pleasure, my friend?”

What does pleasure have to do with this? “A Bud Light in a bottle, please,” I said, in memory of my mom, who had passed away a year ago and whom I missed like a lost limb. “And a Maker’s Mark, straight up.” My face flushed hot. I knew drinking was a mistake, but I seemed powerless to change course. What was my motive here? Why tonight? The support meeting had gone well, better than I could have hoped. I’d felt a connection with the people in that room and, for the first time since my arrest, experienced a sense of acceptance.

But the meeting had done something else too, hadn’t it? Talking to the others about my wrongful arrest and its fallout had lit the anger fuse. And I knew, once that fuse started burning, an explosion was on its way, sooner or later.

My father used to tell me about something similar in him. He described his anger as a constant pressure, pulsing at the edge of his awareness, that he fought to keep at bay. I was starting to wonder if maybe it was a hereditary trait, one that had been dormant in me for much of my life, just waiting for some sort of trauma—or in my case, series of traumas—to set it off. Or maybe my mom had been the shell that kept my powder contained. And with her gone, there was nothing to prevent it from blowing.

The bartender set the beer and bourbon down. My hand, acting on its own, steered the bottle toward my mouth. It had barely grazed my late-day whiskers when a voice a few yards behind me said, “Golly, fellas and gals, look who’s gracing our establishment: Uncle Jacko himself.” And then, side-mouthed, “Guess the Girl Scouts aren’t meeting tonight.”

His colleagues laughed.

“Objection,” came a second male voice, “taunting the witness.” 

A third voice, the woman’s, said, “I’ll allow it.”

Peals of drunken laughter.

I’d known this was coming, hadn’t I? Wasn’t it, in fact, the very reason I had stopped here in the first place? Still, I did my best to play the rational adult. I ignored them and drank my beer. They hadn’t said anything… actionable yet.

“Can you turn that up?” I said to the bartender, pointing to the TV over the bar. The Braves were playing the Marlins in the rubber match of a three-game series. The barkeep obliged, and I focused my attention on the game.

After about a minute, the first lawyer’s voice rang out again. “Yup, Coach likes his baseball. But I’m confused; I thought he was a fan of the minor leagues.” Laughter.

Okay, I could see where things were headed. Time to issue a “fair warning.” I turned around on my barstool and faced the inebriated jurists. “Gentlemen—and women—you’re all astoundingly clever. Stipulated. But I came in here to enjoy a quiet drink. And so, I will give you a polite warning. Back off. Or we will have a problem.”

There were oohs of mock fear, and one of the men—a smarmy, goateed slickster from one of the larger defense firms—said, “Aye aye, Your Honor.”

“He’s not ‘on her’ now, but he will be soon enough.” More high-pitched laughter.

“Final warning, guys.”

Something in my tone must have told them I wasn’t kidding; their liquid courage seemed to evaporate. I was six-two, an inch shorter than my notoriously intimidating father but a couple inches broader, with a square jaw. I often wore dark-framed glasses to help offset my slightly “brutish” appearance. I wasn’t wearing them tonight. And the vertical scar on my cheek—a souvenir of my prison stay—did nothing to make me look more angelic. I pretended to be captivated by a razor commercial. 

The table of idiots remained on good behavior throughout the next inning, but then the woman in the silk shirt, rising to leave, couldn’t resist a parting shot. “Goodnight all you fine, upstanding folks,” she said, a slur in her words. “And Counselor Dillard too.”

The man with the goatee chimed in, “Oh, he’d be upstanding too—boing!—if you were wearing a middle-school uniform.” 

I lost it. I pushed away from the bar, turned, and launched myself at the guy, taking him down to the floor in one fluid motion. By the time his buddies and the bartender peeled me off him, the guy was whimpering like a middle schooler himself, and my knuckles were bloody.

I couldn’t remember how it happened.

3

“What did I say before we got married, Jack?”

“‘I think I may be making the worst mistake of my life’?”

Charlie shot me a look that said I’m not in the mood for humor. She tied her bathrobe sash with a yank and marched out of the bedroom to the kitchen. I followed her. “What I told you was: I’m not going to be one of those wives who constantly nags her husband, trying to change his behavior.”

Abby was at school this morning, and so Charlie and I had the house to ourselves. We lived in my family’s longtime home on Boone Lake, which my dad had given us as a surprise wedding gift.

“So why does it seem,” Charlie went on, “that you are determined to turn me into that kind of wife?” She opened a cabinet, grabbed a coffee mug, and set it down, a bit harder than necessary, on the counter.

“That’s not what I want to do, Charlie. Look, I know I’ve been—”

“You and I have talked about this,” she said, cutting me off. “The only kind of marriage worth having—in my book—is one that’s a covenant between two adults. Two adults who are self-aware enough to observe their own behavior and the effect it has on others, and who are mature enough to change what needs changing.”

“I think I am that kind of person, Charlie. At least I’m trying to be. That doesn’t mean I don’t slip up now and then.”

“By going out to bars and getting in fistfights? If I’d wanted to find that kind of husband, I’d have gone down to the Waffle House at two in the morning and thrown a dart.”

Ouch.

She filled her cup with coffee and marched out onto the porch. I filled mine, too, and walked up behind her. With caution. She softened her posture.

“I’ve been trying to give you time and space, Jack,” she said, staring out at the trees blowing in the wind. “I know you’ve been through ten kinds of hell the last couple of years. The death of that woman, losing your mom, the whole Abby nightmare… But that’s not an excuse to give in to the ‘dark side.’”

“I know. You’re right. I’m trying, I really am.”

“Some things don’t involve ‘trying.’ Some things are just black-and-white. Like not going to bars full of loudmouth lawyers looking for trouble. And not getting into fistfights. Period. How are we going to explain it to Abby when you get charged with aggravated assault?”

“That probably won’t happen. I talked to the guy this morning.”

“‘Probably won’t happen.’ That’s encouraging. You’ll be lucky if you don’t lose your law license.” She paused poignantly and added, “Not that it’s doing us a lot of good right now.”

Ah, there it was. On the table. The heart of the matter. My failure to hold up my end of our business partnership.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said quickly. “That was a low blow. I know you can’t wave a magic wand and change the way people treat you. But still, you can’t let your demons win either, even for a minute, and that’s what you did last night.” She turned and splayed her fingers lightly on my chest. I welcomed the closeness. “Want to know what I think was going on in that bar?”

Under the circumstances, I couldn’t really say no.

“I think you were imagining how your father would act if he were in your position, and I think some part of you was trying to be him.”

My face flushed, a mash-up of anger and embarrassment. She was cutting close to the nerve, and I didn’t like it. My relationship with my dad was complicated. I loved him more than any man on the planet, and he was my friend and confidant. But still, he cast a shadow on my life that was hard to crawl out from under. And hard to match in size and reach. I often wondered if I’d ever be his equal. He was in the military; I wasn't. He was a killer in the courtroom; I wasn’t sure I was even competent as a lawyer. He was a local hero, for all the right reasons; I was infamous, and for all the wrong reasons. But more than all this, he had a surety about him. He knew when it was time to talk and when it was time to act. Truth was, I was jealous of his moral clarity and afraid I would never find mine.

“I’m going to take a walk,” I told my wife, my hands and voice shaking. “I have a lot to think about.”

I turned and left the house, taking care not to slam the door. The Dillard anger was pressing in on my skull again, but I would never allow myself to vent it on Charlie or Abby.

Charlie knew there was only one person on Earth who could help her make sense of her husband’s behavior and state of mind. She found “Dillard, Joe” in her contacts list and pushed the call button.

“Charleston Story Dillard, now that’s a nice name to see pop up on my phone.”

“Joe, how are you?”

“Standing on a deck on Grand Cayman Island—how bad could I be?”

After Jack and Charlie’s wedding—and the harrowing rescue of Abby in Arizona—Joe had gone to the Caymans to sort things out for himself. He had planned to return to East Tennessee after a few weeks but was still living in the Caribbean over a year later, him and his dog Rio. Charlie was pretty sure she knew why. The events around Abby’s kidnapping had revealed just how many enemies he had made over the years, and he was loath to put his family in danger again. But more than that, she thought Joe had deeply personal reasons for staying in the Caymans—reasons rooted in the loss of his beloved wife, Caroline, whom cancer had finally claimed after a long and courageous battle.

“Joe, I need to talk to you about Jack.” She explained about Jack’s bar fight and his erratic behavior of late. “I know he’s had a rough time of it these last few years. He kills that woman by accident, then he gets accused of being a child molester, then he loses his mother and winds up in jail… then you move away. People are ghosting him because of something he didn’t do, and that’s so damn unfair I could scream. But I’m afraid he’s using it all as an excuse to… drift.”

“How so?” Joe asked.

“Sometimes he just disappears. Goes off to interview a witness or track down some supposed lead, and I don’t see him for hours. He disappears emotionally too. He tries to be a good husband and father, but a lot of the time, he’s just… not there.” She paused to focus her thoughts. “And the thing is, Joe, I think a lot of it has to do with you.”

“Say what’s on your mind.”

“He loves you so much, and he misses you, and I think he’s afraid he’s never going to be the man you are. And if I’m being completely honest, there’s a little part of me—” She paused a beat, stopping herself from saying more.

“Listen to me, Charlie, because this might be the most important thing I ever say to you. It’s true: Jack will never be the man I am. And thank God for that. He’s better than I am, in every way, and by the time he’s finished his life’s journey, he will be ten times better. I know that in my bones, but the problem is, Jack doesn’t know it yet. He hasn’t quite found his stride. And yeah, a big part of that’s my fault.”

“Your fault? Why?”

Joe’s voice dropped in pitch. “I wasn’t the greatest father in the world.”

“Jack thinks you were.”

“I know, and that’s the problem. Jack and I love each other with a nuclear bond, and so he thinks the version of manhood I laid down for him is something to emulate. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I can see that I screwed up in so many ways. I’m a headstrong idiot, Charlie, and I have a terrible habit of thinking I know what’s best. For others. And Jack bore the brunt of that. I was so determined to see him get a better crack at life than me that I projected my wishes onto him, and he loved me so much he went along with it. Take baseball. I think part of him loved playing the game, but a bigger part knew how much I loved watching him play. And he wanted to make me happy. He looked up to me, and so when he saw me act recklessly, like grabbing some blowhard by the collar, he thought that was the way a man behaves.

“But Jack’s different than me. He’s more thoughtful, more measured; he looks at things from more angles. He always does what’s right—always—but sometimes it takes him a while to figure that out. He needs to take that time, not act like his hotheaded dad. ’Cause when he works out what the right thing is, he’s unshakable, and he’s braver than anyone I know.”

“I’ve seen that too.”

“He’s been my moral rock more times than he knows, and he has stood up to me when most kids would have been trembling in their Nikes: ‘Dad, you need to go apologize to Mom.’ ‘Dad, you’re being a jerk.’ He’s a genuinely good human being, Charlie, and that’s coming from a man who’s a harsh damn judge of character. He loves you with all his heart—Abby too—and he would die rather than let you down. He is going through a lot of pain and confusion right now, but he will find his way out, and he will rise to his own expectations of himself. And I believe that’s a thing worth waiting for.”

Charlie suddenly realized there might be another reason Joe was staying in the Caymans—he was stepping out of Jack’s light so his son could grow his own roots and branches.

“Thank you, Joe. I needed to hear that.”

Iwalked the trail along the edge of Boone Lake, licking my wounds and concluding that Charlie was right. My behavior in the bar had more to do with my relationship with my father than the jackass lawyer I’d punched. I loved my father, but I needed to start living life on my own terms. I didn’t really know what that meant, but it was time to find out.

I came back to the house, bracing myself for more of Charlie’s justifiable anger and disappointment, and ready to eat a heaping helping of humble pie.

She surprised me by stepping into my path as soon as I walked in the door. “I know you regret what you did last night,” she said, “and I know you will do everything you can to make it right. I love you and I trust you, Jackson Dillard.”

All I could say, in a faint voice, was, “I don’t deserve you.”

She pressed her body against mine, looking up at me and wrapping her arms around me. “Yes, you do. And the day you believe that, with all your heart, will be the day I know I have my husband back.”

She kissed me, and something stirred in me.

No, not that.

Well, yes, that. But something deeper too.

4

“Charlie, your eleven o’clock is here.”

“Thanks, Bev. Send her in.”

Charlie looked up from her cluttered desk to see a waifish, thirty-something woman with long, wavy, light-brown hair, wearing an embroidered peasant blouse and full-length skirt, waft in the door as if riding on a draft. She had a pale complexion and nervous eyes, and Charlie thought she resembled a young Mia Farrow, if Ms. Farrow had grown up in the Tennessee hills instead of Beverly Hills.

“Sage McBain?” said Charlie.

“The very item.”

“I’m Charleston Story.” Though she and Jack had been married a year, Charlie sometimes still slipped and used her maiden name. These days, she didn’t always correct herself, at least with potential clients. The name Dillard wasn’t exactly a business magnet anymore.

As Sage took her seat across the desk from Charlie, she flashed a quick smile, revealing teeth that were cared for, though certainly not the “after” picture in an orthodontist’s brochure.

“You and me is family,” the woman announced without preamble or follow-up.

“Oh?” said Charlie, pulling back unconsciously. Not what she’d been expecting to hear.

“Cousins.”

Sage explained that she was Charlie’s mother’s sister’s daughter and lived in Unicoi County. The blood connection meant little. Charlie’s mother had abandoned her as a child and had made only one failed attempt to reconnect with her later in life. In Charlie’s view, family was a choice you made, not a matter of genetics.

“I figured if I ever needed a lawyer,” Sage said, “I should come to family.”

Charlie let the word “family” land on her again. She didn’t know how to feel about it. “Thank you for choosing our humble firm. How can I help you, Ms. McBain?”

“One of my men done kilt the other.”

Sage folded her hands, letting her statement hang in the air.

Charlie waited for clarification, half-expecting the words to turn out to be the lyrics of a country song. One o’ my men done kilt the other, better watch out, better run for cover… No clarification came. “Please, Ms. McBain…”

“Sage.”

“Sage. Do explain.”

“I got two men in my life. That is, I did till last Thursday. That’s when the first one shot the second one on my front walk. And I’m here to ask you to represent him.”

“I think I read about that shooting in the paper,” Charlie said. Shootings in Unicoi County weren’t exactly a rare occurrence. “It happened over in Banner Hill, right?” Sage nodded. Charlie worked her mouse and keyboard and brought up the news article on her computer. “Here it is. The story says you have two children?”

“Yes’m. Two girls. One’s by one, the other’s by the other.”

“One girl’s father is the accused, the other’s is the deceased?”

“That’s the sorry truth. Aden, my ex—he’s the one done the shooting—is Sadie’s daddy. She’s my oldest. LeRoy—he’s the one took the bullet—is Willow’s daddy. I was watchin’ from the front stoop when it all went down, so I’m the only one who knows what really happened.”

“Hmm. According to the paper, Aden Anderson, your ex—ex-husband, is it?”

“Nope, I’m crazy, but not that crazy. We never got hitched.”

“He’s about six foot two, has a history of assault, and was armed with a rifle. LeRoy Jenkins was five-eight, one-sixty, and empty-handed. Mr. Anderson shot Mr. Jenkins from a distance of about six feet. Those are the facts as reported here.”

“And those facts are correct.”

“And Mr. Anderson is being held on one count of second-degree murder.”

“Correct.”

“And you want to hire our firm to represent him?”

“Also correct. What ain’t correct is the charge. ’Twasn’t murder, Ms. Story. And I would like to tell you why.”

“Let me stop you right there… Sage. In cases where the facts are so… damning, sometimes the less I hear about guilty or not guilty, the better. That means it’s best if I ask the questions and you give me straightforward answers. So, let me start by—”

“No, I want to tell the story, and I want to tell it my way. Because the truth ain’t obvious from just the facts.”

Charlie leaned back in her office chair, giving Sage the go-ahead sign.

“To make sense of the whole thing, I gotta go back a bit.”

“Please.”

“I knew Aden first. Him and me was together less than a year. We burned hot, but we burned fast. He was from California and knew a lot about the world. Skater-boy type, not what I was accustomed to, and so he sorta swept me off my feet. We had our ups and downs, but Aden has a temper. And when it got to be more downs than ups, we called it quits. He went back to California, and good riddance, I said. Then I found out I was pregnant.” She glanced at her belly with a slight grimace. ’Bout a year later, me and LeRoy got together. LeRoy’s more the easygoing type. That’s what drew me to him, I guess. Him and me had a kid together too.”

Sage smiled wistfully, and Charlie saw a spark light her eyes before they welled with tears. “Well, Aden comes to see his daughter now and then,” she went on, “and I usually let him stay at the house. There ain’t no Holiday Inns in Banner Hill, and Sadie likes it when he stays with us. He sleeps on the couch and minds his business, and we eat a few meals together, maybe go out and do some things with the girls. LeRoy didn’t love the arrangement, but, like I said, easygoing type. He’d always make himself scarce whenever Aden was in town.

“Last Thursday, though, Aden was stayin’ at the house, and LeRoy, plumb outta nowhere, gets this killer bee in his bonnet about the whole setup. Calls up, says he’s comin’ over and takin’ our daughter, and if me or Aden give him any trouble, someone’s gonna get hurt. Says he’ll be toting a piece. Weren’t like him at all. Sure enough, he shows up, and as soon as he gets out of his car, I see this look in his eyes—even from the house—like he’s possessed by Satan himself. Pure evil. And madness. Aden went outside and tried to stop him, but he kept comin’ and Aden pulled the trigger. He was protecting me and the girls. From the devil.”

Sage nodded with finality, her story finished.

Charlie didn’t know what to think. “I’ll need to speak to Aden myself,” she said, “before making a final decision about whether I’ll take the case. If I accept it, Aden will be my client, not you. Regardless of who pays the bill.” Sage nodded. “And the bill won’t be cheap, I hope you know. A murder defense is an expensive proposition.”

“Understood. Thank you, cousin.”

Charlie wasn’t sure she liked the familial appellation but let it pass. Sage rose to leave and then heaved her shoulders heavily and said, “There’s one other thing I ought to tell you.”

“Oh?”

“LeRoy’s daddy. Do you know who he is?”

“Should I?”

“Yes, ma’am, you prob’ly should. He’s Jonathan Jenkins.”

“Oh.”

The surname Jenkins hadn’t raised any red flags for Charlie—you couldn’t swing a dead possum by the tail in East Tennessee without hitting a Jenkins or two. But Jonathan Jenkins? That was another matter. Jonathan Jenkins was a major real estate developer, former county commissioner, and one of the most powerful men in Unicoi County. His great-great grandparents had bought a huge amount of farmland in East Tennessee when land could be purchased for a fiddle tune. For decades, Jenkins had been developing that land into pricey subdivisions and selling it off at apparently huge profits. With his string bow ties and white suits, he was a well-crafted caricature of southern wealth. But his influence was genuine.

“You’re probably wondering,” said Sage, “how a son of Jonathan Jenkins ended up plantin’ a kid in the likes of me—who ain’t exactly on the social register, last I checked.”

Charlie considered saying no for politeness’ sake but shrugged an honest yes.

“LeRoy was what you might call the black sheep of the Jenkins flock. But now that he’s dead, his daddy’s all up in righteous arms, vowin’ justice for his ‘boy.’ Make no mistake, Ms. Story—or Dillard, whichever you prefer—if you defend Aden Anderson, you’ll be making an enemy of Jonathan Jenkins. No hard feelings if you decide to pass. Call me after you talk to Aden, and I’ll cut you a check… or not.”

Sage McBain turned and headed for the door.

“Can I ask you something?” Charlie called out, stopping Sage at the threshold. “You seemed to have loved LeRoy, and you don’t seem to like Aden a whole lot. So I suppose I’m wondering why you’re going out of your way to help him.” She was privately wondering where the money would come from too. “Especially when doing so will put you in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful men in the county.”

“Well, it’s like I said, Aden might be a lot of things, but he ain’t a murderer. So I guess the answer is just because… it’s the right thing to do.”

Sage exited, leaving Charlie with an odd kink in her gut.

5

As I navigated the tail end of Knoxville’s rush-hour traffic, I was looking forward to tonight’s Justice Deferred meeting. I needed it more than I cared to admit. I was also more than a little curious to see if Zane R. Nelson would make another appearance.

Tracking down information on him hadn’t been difficult. The only tool I needed was the internet. His name and photo popped up on the masthead of an old issue of the University of Tennessee’s Daily Beacon, a respected student-run newspaper in Knoxville. Just a year earlier, as a college senior, Zane had been the news editor. In his junior year, he won a student journalism award for uncovering a scandal involving a Knox County trustee who was paying himself salaries under three different names. Zane also wrote a running human interest feature called “Hearing Voices,” in which he interviewed street people in Knoxville about their lives.

I found myself half-admiring the young guy, but I still had no idea why he’d singled me out. Or how he knew things about me. Or why.

I arrived ten minutes early for the group, put a fiver in the donations cup, and helped myself to a glass of Diet Dr. Perky, Food Lion’s creatively named caffeinated soda. Surveying the multiuse church basement with its daycare-center toy bins, Pilates balls, and upright piano, I spotted Zane in the corner. He was embroiled in a heart-to-heart with the woman who’d introduced herself last week as the mother of a wrongfully convicted man in North Carolina.

Zane caught my eye and signaled me to join them. “Jack, I’d like you to meet Rosa Sanchez. You met her in the group last week, but I wanted you two to meet personally. Rosa, Jack Dillard.”

Rosa would have stood about five feet tall in stiletto heels. She looked young, but then I saw the lines around her eyes. I shook her hand, remembering her story about a son who was serving time for the murder of his ex-girlfriend. She had claimed he was innocent, but I couldn’t help wondering if that wasn’t just a mother’s wishful thinking. In fact, who was to say that half the people here—or their accused family members—weren’t guilty as sin? And who was to say the rest of them weren’t thinking the same about me?

I reminded myself to tread carefully, even in this room.

“I think you’ll find Rosa’s son’s case extremely interesting,” said Zane.

“Yes, she talked about it at the last meeting,” I said, trying to be polite. The truth was, from what Rosa had said about her son’s case, it wasn’t particularly interesting: Couple splits up. Woman takes child, moves away from man. Woman then disappears, presumed dead. Ex is accused of killing her. Not exactly the stuff of a Netflix-Hulu bidding war.

“There’s a lot more to the case,” said Zane. “Stuff Rosa hasn’t talked about.”

Before I could extricate myself from the conversation, Rosa whipped out a phone, showing me a picture of a girl about four years old with dark, curly hair. The girl was beaming, but her eyes hid a well of sadness. “This my granddaughter. Her name is Kaia. She live with me now, Mr. Jack, but she need her father.”

Zane and Rosa stared at me with expectant faces. I didn’t know what they wanted from me. Luckily, I was saved by the bell when Earl summoned us to join the circle.

I grabbed a chair and tried to put Rosa and Kaia out of my mind.

There were no new people at tonight’s meeting, so we got down to business right away. I surprised myself by volunteering to speak first. “I don’t know if this is appropriate to talk about at a meeting like this, but…” I recounted my poor decision a week earlier to stop in a bar, along with my attack on the loudmouthed lawyer. “Luckily, the guy’s okay, and he was already on thin ice with his firm, so he decided not to press charges. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was way out of line in attacking him and I shouldn’t have gone into the bar in the first place.”

My story sparked a lively discussion. I learned I wasn’t alone in having anger issues. Virtually everyone in the group was struggling with anger in one way or another. Being shunned and distrusted by your fellow man, it turns out, is not a rollicking good time for anyone. It’s bad enough when you’ve done something to deserve it, but when the distrust is unmerited, a special breed of anger develops. And you need special skills to deal with it. Skills I apparently didn’t yet possess.

Soon it was time for our mid-meeting break.

As I headed for the refreshment table to get a refill of Dr. Perky, lost in my thoughts, Zane beckoned me. He was again standing with Rosa Sanchez. I sighed.

“You’re probably wondering why you’re getting stalker vibes from me,” he said with a laugh.

“Well…”

“I just thought you, in particular, would find Rosa’s son’s case interesting. He was charged with murder without a corpus ever being delicti’d. No body. Same as with you.”

In my situation, though, the “body” had turned up alive. And I ended up adopting her. In the case of Rosa’s son, things hadn’t gone so well.

“My son is a good boy, Mr. Jack,” said Rosa. “He love that woman, the mother of his child. And he love his daughter. He never hurt them. No way, Mr. Jack. Somebody make him look guilty.”

“We believe he was framed,” Zane added, “just like you were.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But are you looking for an attorney? Is that why we’re talking? Are you hoping to appeal his conviction?”

“Eventually,” explained Zane. “But first things first. Right now, Rosa needs help coming up with proof that her son didn’t commit the crime. She’s reached out to a couple of organizations, like The Innocence Project. But they’re drowning in cases and don’t have the manpower. And she doesn’t have the resources to hire private investigators. That’s where we come in.”

“We?”

“You and I.”

I exhaled through my nose. “Explain, please.”

“I’m developing an investigative true-crime podcast. I’ve been looking for a story for our opening season, and I think I’ve found it in the case of Rosa’s son.”

“Ah,” I said, again wondering why he was telling me this.

Rosa stared up at me with the eyes of a dog begging for a walk. Her gaze was making my arm hairs bristle.

“Can I speak to you alone for a minute?” I motioned to Zane.

I walked away and stood in an alcove off the basement room. Zane excused himself from Rosa and joined me.

“What’s going on here?” I asked him. “Last week you said some provocative things. Now you’re pushing this Sanchez woman on me. Are you going to tell me what this is all about? What do you want from me?”

“Do you believe in coincidence, Jack?”

“Depends. Why do you ask?”

“Well, like I told you, I followed your case last year when I was still a starving journalism major—before I became a starving journalist.” He gave me a dry laugh. “Something about it grabbed me. I had a gut feeling you weren’t guilty. And then you were exonerated, and I was, like, ‘knew it.’ Same thing happened in another case, and I started to think maybe I had a nose for this stuff—a sort of Spidey sense for the falsely accused. So I decided I’m going to start a podcast—you know, to expose false convictions. I won’t be the first to do it, but I think I can do it better. I need a good story for season one, so I started coming to this group—I mean, what better place to find someone falsely accused, right?”

I shrugged agreement.

“When I saw your name on the Meetup page for last week’s meeting, I did some googling to see if you were the same Jack Dillard whose case first inspired me.”

Ah, this was starting to add up. I had registered in advance for the meeting, using the Meetup app. That was how Zane knew I’d be coming and had time to research me beforehand.

“Lo and behold, you turned out to be you,” he went on. “But here’s the weird part. When I was googling you, I found out you had also posted comments on Dark Realms Armory.”

Dark Realms Armory was a website for collectors who bought and sold swords and other weapons inspired by Lord of the Rings and other fantasy franchises. I was a longtime collector. It was a passion that had started in childhood and hadn’t fizzled out.

There was a bit of backstory to that. When I was a young kid, I loved to read. But then, when I got a bit older, I hit a slump. My father gave me The Hobbit to rekindle my appetite, and reading it was like a religious experience. I moved on to Lord of the Rings and devoured it twice. My Dad and I watched the LOTR movies together, and then I discovered that you could buy replicas of the swords they used in the films. Real swords, with real blades. My dad gave me three of them for Christmas one year, and I’d been hooked ever since.

“So?” I said to Zane.

“Dude,” he replied, whipping his phone out. The photo on the screen showed him at about age sixteen, holding a huge, silver-hilted Sword of Boromir and grinning from ear to ear. Behind him, a half dozen other Lord of the Rings weapons were mounted on a wall.

“A collector? You?” I said in disbelief. “Get out.”

“I kid you not.”

We both immediately turned into ten-year-olds, comparing notes on our respective weapons collections. He showed me on his phone the centerpiece of his collection: a Glamdring sword that had actually been used in the Lord of the Rings films. I showed him my prized, museum-quality Anduril sword and scabbard, feeling a sense of instant camaraderie with this odd little guy. Collecting weapons inspired by a fantasy franchise might seem a strange hobby to most people, but for me it served as a kind of inspiration. When I held the hilt of a sword that mirrored one held by a hero in an epic literary battle, it reminded me that heroism wasn’t dead, that it was important to fight for things you believed in.

My bonding moment with Zane was followed by a stab of embarrassment. “Ah, I get what this is. You’re working me.”

“No, no, the sense of connection was real,” he protested. “The sense of… fellowship.” A carefully chosen word, as we both knew. “And then, when I did a little more research, I saw your law firm had a reputation for going above and beyond other firms. You guys don’t just charge a big fee then negotiate a plea deal for your clients. You actively try to find new evidence that can exonerate them. That sealed it for me.”

“And so you thought I could… what? Ride in on a white steed, like Gandalf, and prove Ms. Sanchez’s son innocent while you capture it all in Dolby surround sound?”

“Well… yeah.” He smiled disarmingly.

I had to laugh. “And on a pro bono basis too, I’m sure.”

“Rosa has a bit of money put aside. And I have a small investment fund. Well… it’s more of a piggy-bank situation, but—”

“Here’s an idea,” I said. “If Ms. Sanchez wants to hire our firm, she can make an appointment and come to our office in Jonesborough. But she should know, we’re only licensed in Tennessee. We’d need to partner with a North Carolina attorney to spearhead any appeals.”

“She can’t afford to hire you officially to take on an appeal. Not yet. I just thought maybe we could buy a few hours of your time. See if her son’s conviction… gets your juices flowing.”

“Why? Again, why me?”

“I already told you. Plus, you know the local ropes better than I do. I went to school here in Knoxville, but I’m from Connecticut; I don’t really know how things work down here. And I just thought, with the similarities between your case and Rosa’s son’s…”

“I hear your words, Zane, but what’s the real reason? Why are you homing in on me like I’m the answer to your prayers?”

“Instinct,” he said. His voice and eyes carried a conviction that took me aback. We stared at each other in silence for several long seconds.

A folding chair squeaked.

“I think the meeting’s about to start again,” I told him and walked away.

“All I ask is that you talk to the guy,” Zane said to my back. “Rosa’s son. We’ll pay for your time. Just talk to him and see what you think.”

I gave him a polite “no, thanks” head bow and joined the circle of chairs.

“His name is Joel,” Zane said, sitting across from me. “And he’s an inmate at Craggy, just outside Asheville.”

I was no longer listening. I had my own issues to work on. For example, the constant pressure I could feel pulsing at the edges of my awareness.

When the meeting began winding down, I stood up and made my exit before it officially ended. I didn’t want to be intercepted by Zane R. Nelson or Rosa Sanchez.

But I could feel their eyes burning a hole in me as I marched toward the stairs.

6

“This way, Mrs. Dillard,” said the corrections officer as he escorted Charlie to the visitors’ area of the Unicoi County Jail. His warm manner surprised her. All too often, corrections people went out of their way to show disdain for defense attorneys—especially for female defense attorneys. And most especially for those whose spouses had served time.

“I pitched against your husband, Jack, in high school a few times,” he explained. Charlie followed the man down a beige-tiled corridor, waiting for the inevitable barrage of insulting jokes to begin. “And I’ve never seen such a dominant hitter. I remember once he went five for five against me, and I had my good stuff cooking that day.”

Charlie was still wary about the guy, but she mused, “Yeah, if he hadn’t had that injury, who knows? Maybe the majors.” A line drive to the head had ended Jack’s baseball dreams. Years before that, in high school, he’d been hit between the eyes by a speeding fastball, an injury that had left him medically at risk. The second hit was the knockout punch.

“But then you two might not have met, right?” the officer said. “Everything happens for a reason.”

“I suppose so,” she agreed politely.

“The thing about Jack,” the guard went on, “was that he never had that attitude like most of the big jocks. He was humble, treated everyone right. But what I remember most was… I have this cousin, right? He lived in a group home for teens with intellectual challenges. Jack used to go there, two or three Sundays a month, and hit balls with the kids. Just had fun with them, no self-promotion. I doubt he ever even told anyone about those visits.”

It was the first Charlie had ever heard of them.

“I know the talk that goes around about him,” the officer said quietly, “and I just want you to know, Mrs. Dillard, there are folks around here who know what kind of people the Dillards are and who still hold the Dillard name in high regard.”

Charlie felt tears threaten to gush, but she tamped them down. Not a good place for showing vulnerability. She thanked the guard and took her seat in front of the plexiglass partition, feeling a rare-of-late appreciation for humanity.

The feeling didn’t last.

Aden Anderson was marched into the visitors’ area and parked on the opposite side of the glass. Anderson wore a sneer of male superiority that pushed all Charlie’s buttons, and his blonde, aging-surfer hair hung across his face in a carefully disheveled manner. She disliked him instantly. But she reminded herself she might be serving as his defense attorney.

She wasn’t his attorney yet, though, so it was still a behind-the-glass visit. The conversation would remain unrecorded, however, for privacy reasons. She picked up the phone handset and said, “Mr. Anderson,” through the clear divide. “My name is Charleston Story.”

“Well, if you’re the story, babe, I’m the audience.”

With her thick mane of auburn hair and fiery, sapphire eyes, Charlie was a strikingly attractive woman. Earlier in her legal career, she had tried to downplay her appearance, but she no longer fought that losing battle. If people couldn’t handle her natural good looks, that was their problem. Still, she had no patience with cheesy flirtatiousness.

“I’m here to talk to you about potential legal representation.”

“When I heard a new lawyer was coming to see me, I was all set to tell him to stick it where the rubber glove goes, but now that I’ve seen my ‘potential legal representation,’ my good manners have come storming back. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Storybook…”

“Story. And it’s missus.”

“My bad. But why are you here, pretty lady? I already have a lawyer.” Aden Anderson had been assigned a public defender, Charlie knew. “So why would I want you? Aside from the rather obvious reasons.” His eyebrows bobbed up and down.

Charlie ignored the gesture. “The reason you would want me, Mr. Anderson, is that I am an exceptional attorney who will do everything humanly possible to expose the weaknesses in the state’s case against you. But I’m not here to sell myself. Sage McBain has offered to hire me if you are interested in using my legal services and if I agree to provide them. However, you’re perfectly free to use the attorney you’ve been assigned.”

Anderson narrowed his eyes. “How’s Sage gonna afford someone like you when she doesn’t own a pile of sticks for kindling?”

Charlie wondered the same thing. But at this point, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to represent Aden Anderson. The money was a concern for later.

“That’s not your business or mine. The only question right now is, are you open to talking to me, or are you committed to working with your public defender?”

“Open as a baby bird’s mouth, sweetheart.” Somehow, he made the statement sound obscene.

“Fine. But if you call me ‘sweetheart’ or ‘babe’ one more time, this conversation ends.” Anderson held up his hands in surrender. “Very well,” Charlie said. “Let’s get started. Can you give me your version of events on the day Mr. Jenkins died, and your understanding of why you’re being held on murder charges?”

Aden Anderson surveyed Charlie for a long moment, then banished the cocky smile from his face.

“Sage pro’ly told you, but me and her had a thing a few years back. I met her when she came to California. Dreaming of stardom, working at a car wash. Tale as old as time, right? She had the looks, but not a speck of talent you could find with a team of bloodhounds. She figured that out pretty fast. Went back to Tennessee with her tail between her bony legs. I came with. Things didn’t go so great for us—rural Tennessee didn’t really check my boxes—so we called it quits. It was only after I went back to sunny Cali that I found out she was pregnant. Since Sadie was born, I’ve been trying to do right by her. Send her money when I have some, come see my daughter when I can. Try to be part of her life.”

“And you stay at Sage’s house when you visit?”

“We both like Sadie to have a feeling of family, so we kinda act like a family when I’m there.”

“Can you describe your relationship with Mr. LeRoy Jenkins?”

“We didn’t have a ‘relationship.’ She hooked up with him after I left. Never saw the attraction. Skinny little pickerel-faced dude, wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to a nervous crow, but we got along okay, few times I met him. He took pretty good care of the two girls, his and mine, and he got out of the way when I came to visit. I had no beef with the guy. But I guess he had a screw that wasn’t quite tightened, and it came loose last week.”

“Tell me about that.”

“I was at Sage’s. He called her out of the blue, told her to put me on the phone. Said he was coming over to take Willow—that’s his kid—and if anyone got in his way, people were going to get hurt. Said he’d be packing. Sounded like he was out of his damn mind, maybe high on crank or something. I told him he was the one who’d get hurt if he set foot on Sage’s property. Sage hid the girls, and I grabbed the old bolt-action she keeps in the closet. LeRoy showed up in his car about ten minutes later, and I went out to meet him. I’m telling you, the look in his eyes was something that chilled my damn bone marrow. Like some rabid animal. I told him to stay in his car. He pushed the driver door open so hard, he sent me flying into the fence. I’ve got forty pounds on the guy, and he flung me like a bag of kettle corn. That kind of strength only comes from crazy. Drug crazy. I knew he was planning to do some damage.”

Aden blinked for the first time and swallowed. “I got up and ran to the front stoop, to block him from getting inside. He was marching with a possessed look on his face. I pointed the gun and told him to stop. He didn’t. I told him a second time, and he kept marching. I was shaking, I don’t mind admitting. I pulled the trigger, hit him square in the chest from two yards away. But he kept coming. Like the damn Terminator. It took two more slugs to bring him down.”

The blood had drained from Aden’s face, and Charlie could see in his eyes that he was reliving the scene as if for the first time. If this was playacting, it was a Golden Globe–worthy performance.

“And that’s the God’s honest truth, Mrs. Story.”

Charlie half wished he had called her “sweetheart” or “babe” again so she’d have had an excuse to reject the case. Because she knew one thing with gut certitude: whatever had happened on Sage McBain’s front walk last Thursday wasn’t murder. And that meant Aden Anderson, a man she found utterly repugnant, deserved a vigorous defense.

“I have some other questions, Mr. Anderson, but from what you’ve told me so far, our firm is prepared to offer you representation, provided Ms. McBain really has the funds. So… shall we continue this conversation?”

Before Anderson could answer, Charlie’s phone buzzed in her purse. Since it was a no-contact visit, she hadn’t been required to surrender it. She glanced at the caller ID: “Pemberton Academy.” The new charter school Abby had just enrolled in. Why were they calling? She’d get back to them as soon as the interview was over.

“Let’s talk turkey,” said Anderson, his arrogant grin returning.

7

Charlie and I arrived in the school parking lot at the same time. I parked beside her.

I’d received the call while at the law office, where I was tooling around on some of our professional databases—IDI, IRBSearch, TLOxp—looking for background information on a larceny case Charlie was handling. While I was at it, I’d found myself also taking a peek into Joel Sanchez, currently serving time for murder at Craggy Correctional Center in Asheville. No criminal record, though multiple police reports of domestic disturbance.

The call had come from the principal of the charter school. She said she wanted to see both of us ASAP. All she would tell me was that Abby had been involved in an “incident,” that it was “sensitive,” and that she wanted to talk to us in person.

I waited for Charlie to get out of her car and took her by the arm.

“We should mark this special day,” I said to her with attempted humor as we walked toward the school building. “Our first call from a school principal’s office.”

“Right,” she replied with a hollow smile. “Most parents get at least six or seven years to prepare for this. We never even went through a Care Bears stage!”

“Thanks for coming, Mr. and Mrs. Dillard,” said Principal Bristol Stoddard, a broad-shouldered woman with swooping bangs and horn-rimmed glasses. “It’s good to see you again, though I wish it was under different circumstances.” We sat at the two seats in front of her desk. “I’ll cut to the chase. I’m afraid your daughter—it’s still hard to believe a couple your age has a child in middle school…” She shot us an almost suspicious look, though she knew about Abby’s unusual adoption circumstances. “…was involved in an assaultive situation.”

“Oh my God, is she okay?” said Charlie.

“Your daughter is fine,” Stoddard said. “As for the other child…”

“Oh Lord, what happened?” asked Charlie.

“Here is what we know. Abby was at her locker between classes, when, according to her, a boy came up from behind and pinched her—” Stoddard paused, flushing, “on the buttock.”

“Who is this kid?” I said, half-ready to punch him myself.

Stoddard ignored me and continued. “Abby apparently spun around and struck the boy in the face with her elbow, causing a nosebleed and a contusion.” I silently applauded Abby’s technique but hoped the kid wasn’t seriously hurt. “The boy—his name is Jayden—denied having done anything wrong and claimed Abby’s attack on him was unprovoked.”

“Abby doesn’t lie about things like that,” Charlie said.

“Well, as it happens, two other children came forward as witnesses, corroborating Abby’s version. When we questioned Jayden again, he broke down and admitted having initiated the contact. He said he was put up to it by several eighth-grade boys.”

“So it was a group project,” said Charlie. “That makes me feel so much better.”

“Mrs. Dillard, this incident has put the school in a rather awkward position. It’s true that Jayden did touch your daughter in an inappropriate way, but the ‘assailant’ in question is a twelve-year-old boy, not an adult with full reasoning capacity. Your daughter’s actions are of graver concern to us. The force she used was vastly out of proportion to the ‘crime at hand.’ His parents are already threatening a lawsuit, as you can imagine.”

“Abby is only twelve too,” I pointed out.

My wife crunched her brow, going into lawyer mode. “She was facing her locker with her back turned, right?” The principal nodded. “So she didn’t know who had pinched her. It sounds to me like she reacted instinctively. Which only happened because the boy did something wildly inappropriate.”

“But again, we’re talking about children here, Mrs. Dillard. According to everyone we’ve spoken to, she wasn’t in physical danger, and it’s unlikely the pinch caused her any physical pain.” Stoddard paused for a laden beat. “Before we accepted your daughter to this school, in our interview with you, we discussed her unfortunate past experiences. And I expressed concerns as to whether she was ready to attend a middle school with mixed genders.”

“Ah, blaming the victim,” said Charlie. “That train’s never late.”

I knew Charlie didn’t really regard Abby as a pure victim; she was simply trying to protect Abby’s interests. And ours.

“Mrs. Dillard, if you could see that boy’s face right now, you might change your tune about who the victim is here.”

Her comment silenced us both.

“That being said,” Stoddard continued, “we are hoping both sets of parents will be reasonable and will regard this incident as a ‘teachable moment.’ But for now, both students are suspended while we review the case and decide on the best response.”

Stoddard stood, cueing us the meeting was over.

After collecting Abby from the vice principal’s office, we marched across the school parking lot as a family, toward the two cars that would take us home.

Looking at Charlie’s hard-set features, I ventured, “What are you thinking?”

“That I’m the odd person out here—the only member of the Dillard family not guilty of assault. Maybe I should change that by punching the two of you.”

She was only half joking.

As Abby opened the door to Charlie’s car, she shot a freighted glance at me, and I knew exactly what that glance was saying: Don’t worry; I won’t throw you under the bus.

Both my daughter and I knew I had played a role in what had taken place at Abby’s locker. For weeks, unbeknownst to Charlie, I had been giving Abby lessons in how to defend herself if she was ever assaulted. Knowing what she’d been through, I wanted her to feel safe venturing forth into the world. As usual, I had failed to consider unintended consequences. Such as a twelve-year-old boy’s face being rearranged.

And now I was going to have to find a palatable way to explain all this to Charlie. Another strike against me when I was already down in the count.

8

Edmund Barfield Norris stepped cautiously between two pine trees, following the female figure deeper into the forest. The tension in his chest ratcheted up. Her prancing movements, white flowing robes, and braided golden locks made her look like a woodland nymph or something out of Greek mythology. But he knew her real identity.

Well, perhaps “real” was the wrong word. She was almost certainly a hallucination. Norris’s rational mind—what was left of it—knew that. But she visited him every year on this date. September third. She came to him at other times too, but always on September third. And she came expecting tribute.

Edmund Norris had gathered his offering already—seven flowers of the forest: bloodroot, red columbine, honey bell, ironweed, mountain laurel, bee balm, and swamp lily. One of each, tied together with a fresh runner of honeysuckle vine. Now he just needed to locate the site.

It wasn’t easy to find, even after repeated annual visits. He had to climb around the back side of Crescent Rock and work his way along a little ridge overgrown with brambles. Then he had to find the area where the land sloped down into a curving funnel. Ah, there it was.

And now he could see it. The spot he was looking for. Hidden in shadow.

A wave of cold air washed over him as he stood before the site and said the words. Not some ancient incantation or carefully memorized prayer, just a simple, “I’m sorry.”

Then he tossed the flowers and scrambled away as if running from the devil himself.

Itook a right on College Street and headed toward the office.

Charlie told me she had no more appointments for the day, so she offered to work from home and stay with Abby while I went back to the office. I think she was trying to make me feel like I had a real job. I appreciated the gesture. And today, in fact, I did have something to do: preliminary digging on the new case.

Charlie had agreed to represent Aden Anderson, and Sage McBain had PayPaled her a start-up deposit in the low five figures. We couldn’t afford to turn down a murder case right now, but at the same time Charlie and I wondered how her newfound cousin had come up with that kind of scratch—along with assurances that she could pay the rest of our bill. Sage lived in a tiny, run-down house in Banner Hill and worked part-time as an office temp. And why was she willing to spend that money defending the man who had shot her daughter’s father to death?

It struck me that I might get a better answer to such questions—and questions about the case itself—by going directly to the scene of the crime. Sage’s home. Skipping the left turn for our office, I stayed on College Street and drove through the center of Jonesborough, then picked up Route 81 toward Unicoi County.

Half an hour later, I was standing outside 34 Jefferson St., a century-old bungalow-style dwelling painted in a faded coral-pink color not used since 1975. It was a two-bed, one-bath affair that appeared to be no more than seven hundred square feet, surrounded by a sliver of yard enclosed in chain-link fence. No police tape marked the area where the shooting had occurred. No investigation seemed to be underway.

The house didn’t have a driveway or garage. There was no car on the street either, so I guessed no one was home. Fine. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. All I wanted to do was get a feel for the scene, see if it spoke to me in any way. Supposedly, good homicide investigators can often get an intuitive sense of how a killing went down just by walking around a crime scene and taking it in. Aden Anderson had given us his version of events, and I wanted to see if my “Spidey sense” of the scene—as Zane Nelson would say—jibed with his account.

Nothing jumped out as odd or in conflict with the known facts. But that wasn’t surprising. After all, this case didn’t hinge on “Did he do it?” Everyone, including the accused, agreed that Aden Anderson had shot LeRoy Jenkins three times in the chest on the front walk of Sage McBain’s house on August 28th. The only question was whether or not it was warranted. The state was charging that a larger, armed man shot a smaller, seemingly unarmed man who was his romantic rival, in a clear case of excessive force. Charlie’s defense would no doubt revolve around some combination of the “castle doctrine,” whereby a person has a right to use deadly force against intruders in his home, and Tennessee’s “stand your ground” allowance.

I was hoping that by coming here in person, something would ping my gut, but that wasn’t happening. My intuition was flatlining. I felt useless and impotent, like I was trying to play detective while my wife did the real work.

As if in response to my thoughts, my phone chimed. A text from Zane R. Nelson. I’ll be in JC this afternoon. Wanna meet 4 a beer, discuss Sanchez case? A pause, then: I’ll bring my Glamdring sword if u absolutely twist my arm.

In sharp contrast to the disengaged feeling the Anderson case was giving me, Zane’s text made me feel a tingle of… something. I wasn’t sure what.

There was no good reason for me to meet with the guy though. I had more important things to do, and his “case” was a financial dead-end for us.

I was mystified, therefore, when my thumbs typed: If I meet u, will u leave me alone?

His answer came seconds later: I promise. Final pitch. If u say no, I will slink away in ignominy. So… beer?

I typed, How ’bout coffee? Brew Bros on Stapleton at 3:30? He sent me the thumbs-up. Better hold on tight to that Glamdring, I texted, or she might find her way into the trunk of my car.

He replied with a GIF of the Gollum character from Lord of the Rings raging in petulant anger. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Why was I doing this? Why was I meeting Zane Nelson?

Was it as simple as the fact that it felt good to be wanted?

“I’m telling you, Jack,” said Zane, “the guy is innocent.”

“And you know this how?” I took a sip of my Breakfast Blend and set the cup between us like a property divider. “Because his mom says so? Because of your ‘Spidey sense’? Or is it just because you have a podcast to produce and need a good story?”

“Cheap shot,” said Zane. “But totally fair. Truth? Don’t laugh when I say this, but it’s the way his daughter loves him. And the way they both loved the girl’s mother. The victim.”

“Plenty of kids love parents who do stupid or violent things.”

“I’m telling you, there’s no way Joel Sanchez would take this child’s mother away from her. And here’s the thing. We don’t even know for sure the mother is dead. A body was never found. All the prosecution had was a bit of the victim’s blood in Sanchez’s car, reports about the victim acting skittish before she disappeared, and two eyewitnesses who claim they saw Sanchez with a shovel and something resembling a human body the night she disappeared.”

“Who was this woman, anyway? The victim.”

“Alleged victim. Her name was Aurora Eden. Real name: Sydney Woods. New Age, free-spirit type. Loved her family, family loved her. But impulsive and hard to rein in—known for slipping away without notice and then resurfacing days or weeks later. That’s how she ended up in Shanti Springs, the town where the supposed crime took place. She just moved there without telling anyone because, I don’t know, Bigfoot spoke to her chakras or something.”

“I hate when that happens.”

“Right?”

“It’s incredibly difficult to get a guilty verdict without a body,” I said. “And yet Joel Sanchez was convicted. Why?”

“Well, he doesn’t create the greatest… impression. I’m guessing he didn’t exactly warm the cockles of a jury’s heart.”

“But for some reason, you believe the guy.”

“Well…”

“Well, what?”

“I haven’t exactly spoken to him.”

“What do you mean?” I slapped my hands down on the café table. “You told me you went to see him at Craggy.”

“I did. He came out, sat behind the glass, looked at me, looked at my card, then stood up and walked back to his cell without saying a word.”

“You do have that effect on people.”

He laughed. “It’s my mutant superpower.” Then he leaned forward on his elbows. “But that’s why I was hoping you would talk to him.”

“Dragging me into this again. Why?”

“People take one look at me and they see northeastern, intellectual, fair-trade-coffee-drinking, independent-cinema-loving, wise-assed nerd.”

“Whereas they take one look at me and think, ‘beer-swillin’, rat-shootin’ good-old-boy’?”

“You’d definitely rock an orange jumpsuit better than I could. Seriously, though, Sanchez might feel a connection with you. You’ve both been on the inside, you’ve both been accused of a crime you didn’t commit, you’re both the same basic… ‘chassis model.’”

“What do you really want from me though, Zane? What’s your end game here? I’m not going to make a podcast with you. You know that, right?”

“Just talk to the guy. No strings attached. One-time thing.”

“Why?”

“Because I value your opinion.” He set his coffee cup down and looked me hard in the eye. “That’s the truth. I don’t fully trust my instincts about Sanchez. His innocence. And, like I said, I’ll pay you for your time. In advance. I’m guessing it wouldn’t feel terrible to bring home a paycheck, even a small one, right about now.”

“No strings attached?”

“No strings.”

I took a long drink of my coffee and stared out the window. Then I turned my head back to him and let out a sigh. “So, where’s this damn sword of yours?”

9

Abby awoke with a tremor that rocked her body like an electric shock. She’d had the dream again. The one where she killed Godfrey Edelberg—the multibillionaire pedophile who’d come within inches of violating her eleven-year-old body a year earlier. The killing was always so vivid it felt like a memory, not an illusion.

But it wasn’t a memory. It couldn’t be, because Grandpa Joe, not Abby, had been the one to kill Godfrey Edelberg. Not that Abby hadn’t tried. When Edelberg let his guard down during that awful encounter in his bedroom, she had grabbed the scissors from his desk and sprung on him, wielding the blades like a knife. But he had knocked her hand aside, grabbed the scissors, and pinned her to the floor. And then Grandpa Joe had stormed in and driven Edelberg through the wall. Edelberg got stabbed in the process.

She knew that was true because Grandpa Joe had told her. The FBI even looked into it and wrote a report saying the same thing.

So why did she remember the way the cold, white, ceramic blade felt sliding into Edelberg’s belly, the sickening pop of resistance as the skin was punctured?

You stabbed him, Abby Pruitt, said the 3 a.m. voice in her head—the vicious, hate-filled voice that only came out at night. You stabbed him, and you know what that makes you? A murderer! You’re a murderer, Abby Pruitt!

She jumped out of bed, panic flooding her body, and began pacing the floor.

You’re a murderer, the voice taunted. You might be able to hide your crime from everyone else, but you can’t hide it from yourself, and you can’t hide it from God because God sees everything.

She felt a sickness in her gut. I didn’t do anything, another inner voice fired back. That was just a dream. Dreams aren’t real. Dreams just try to make you feel bad. Dreams are stupid!

No, the first voice said. You’re a bad person. That’s why your real mom put a rope around her neck and jumped off a balcony. She didn’t love you.

Abby paced and paced. She hated it when she woke up like this. In the middle of the night, the truth came out, and there was no hiding from it. In the middle of the night, everything looked black and hopeless and unforgiving.

The only people in the world who seem to really care about me are Jack and Charlie, and now I’m messing things up with them too. I’m getting in trouble at school, and they’re not going to want me anymore.

She should have known her one chance at being happy wasn’t going to last. Good things never did. She shouldn’t have shown up in Jack and Charlie’s life. They would be better off without her.

A thought arrived in Abby’s head like a surprise delivery from UPS. It was a brand-new idea, one that had never occurred to her young mind before.

She stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the bed, her muscles suddenly still. She held the new thought like a mystery object, turned it around, and looked at it from different sides.

I don’t have to stick around if I don’t want to, said the thought. I can log out of the game. Just like my mom did. And everyone would be happier. Maybe I would too.

For the first time ever, Abby realized she had the power to make such a choice. It felt like a very adult thought. A dark and terrible one, but exciting too, in its own way. To think she had such power. Over life and death.

She stood up from the bed and soft-footed to the door. All was quiet in the house. Her heart thumping, she tiptoed to the stairhead and descended the carpeted steps—slowly, softly.

She crept into the kitchen and turned on the hood light over the stove. There, on the counter, sat her quarry: the wooden block of kitchen knives. Sharp and ready.

Just the sight of the gleaming black handles, in a neat row, caused her heart to race. She reached for the razor-sharp chef’s knife Jack and Charlie used when cooking. But before her fingers could make contact, her skin flushed hot from head to toe and her heart nearly exploded in her chest. NO! her mind screamed. NO! She pulled her hand away and ran back through the house and up the stairs without even turning off the stove light.

My eyes shot open, and my lungs gulped air. The bedside clock read 2:50 a.m.

I’d had the dream again. The one where I killed Sheila Self—the woman who attacked Charlie outside the courthouse. The dream always ended the same way. I slammed Self to the pavement, and the light went out of her eyes, as it had in real life. But in the dream, she began to giggle. Her dead eyes opened, and she laughed at me through bloodied teeth. A mocking laugh, and I knew exactly what it meant: Jackson Dillard, you’re not who you fool yourself into thinking you are. You’re not a good man, like your father. You’re rotten to your core, and you deserve to suffer. Forever. This pronouncement was always what launched my head from the pillow.

I was wide awake now, no chance of getting back to sleep. I threw on a pair of sweatpants and went downstairs. The stove light was on in the kitchen. Someone else must have been up too.

I couldn’t get Sheila Self out of my head. Her death had been a turning point in my life. And not a good one. I didn’t believe in curses, but that was what it felt like. After that incident, everything started to sour. My mother died, and I became confused and resentful. Bitter. I was accused of a horrible crime, and my career went down the chute. My father, whom I admired and relied on, moved to the Caymans. I was living in his old house, which felt like a constant reminder that I would never fill his shoes—as well as a daily memo of my mother’s passing. And my marriage still hadn’t found its legs. I loved Charlie deeply and believed in my heart that we had infinite potential as a couple. But for some reason, we weren’t fulfilling that promise. Something was holding us back.

And that something was me. I just couldn’t seem to get myself on track.

Why? Maybe because I was punishing myself for Sheila Self’s death by depriving myself of happiness and fulfillment. Or maybe because of something more insidious.

Maybe I was flawed by nature. Maybe I truly lacked a moral compass. My mother had always been my North Star when it came to making good life decisions. That star had now burned out. And maybe all that remained was a void.

I wanted a drink. That might shut my mind up and let me get back to sleep. I went to the cupboard and looked for the pint of bourbon I stored behind Mom’s old cookbooks.

Stop. Bad idea. Don’t do it, Jack.

I shoved the cookbooks back into place and made a beeline for our home gym. Better to get my fix through endorphins than booze.

For the past year, I’d been doing intensive weight workouts and taking protein supplements in addition to learning Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense system. Originally developed in the 1940s to train soldiers, its prime emphasis was on neutralizing the enemy quickly and efficiently, by whatever means available. Hence, my teaching Abby the fateful elbow attack. But Krav Maga also stressed that physical confrontation should be a last resort—a nuance I had failed to communicate to my adopted daughter.

I grabbed the remote and turned on the old TV we kept in the home gym. The Krav Maga studio where I took classes provided instructional home videos that led you through a range of fighting moves and provided a great cardio workout as well. I shut my mind off, cued up one of the videos, and started a 3 a.m. workout.

Halfway through my session, an idea struck. Maybe I could share Krav Maga with Abby. In a more formal and well-rounded way. Bring Charlie in on it too. We could take classes together. It would give Abby something to focus on now that Little League was over, it would teach her how to use self-defense more responsibly and mindfully, and it would give our family something to do together. It felt like an inspired idea.

And I needed all the inspiration I could get.

10

Three weeks later

Zane Nelson was right. Joel Sanchez didn’t make a warm first impression—I could only imagine how a jury must have regarded him. He had a heavy, angry-looking brow, stood a muscular six-one, was covered with Māori warrior-style tattoos, and wore huge, prison-made, clay gauges in both earlobes.

I went first. “I’m Jack Dillard.”

He nodded from behind the glass partition. At least he didn’t stand up and head for the door, as he had with Zane.

“I’m an attorney, but I also do some investigative work. I’m here because your mother asked me to come.” I chose not to mention Zane Nelson’s name. Not yet anyway.

Sanchez rocked back with folded arms, appraising me in silence.

“I was incarcerated too,” I told him. “Accused of murder. But I got out because someone on the outside cared enough to prove my innocence. Otherwise, I’d probably be rotting away in Riverbend right now.” I wasn’t trying to offer hope or tell him I believed in his innocence, but I was holding that door open. It had taken me three weeks to get clearance to see him. My application had to go through the wringer because of my own incarceration history. And now I wanted our meeting to last long enough to give Zane a fair assessment of Sanchez. “Some people feel pretty strongly that you don’t belong in here,” I added.

Joel Sanchez shrugged.

“You disagree with them?”

He shrugged again. This was shaping up to be a scintillating conversation.

“Help me understand if I’m wasting my time here,” I pressed him. “You do belong behind bars?”

“Things happen as karma dictates,” he said at last, with a slight lisp and in a voice softer than I would have guessed from his outward appearance. At least he was using language now.

“So I’m looking at a guilty man?” Silence again. “You murdered Aurora Eden and buried her body in the Blue Ridge Mountains?”

His eyes flashed hot. “That’s not what I said.”

“Not guilty then?”

“Didn’t say that either.” A wisp of a Mexican accent came through. “You seem to have trouble hearing, Mr. Dillard.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re not saying anything, Mr. Sanchez. If you want me to leave, just say the word. I’ll tell your mother I did my best. But if you want this conversation to continue, it would be handy if you participated in it. Unlike you, I’m not on prison time. I have other appointments today.” I didn’t, but that was beside the point.

He flipped a palm forty-five degrees. A concession.

“Okay then,” I said. “Guilty or not guilty?”

He crunched his heavy brow and appeared to be considering the question for the first time. His eyes then focused in on an inner image and grew moist. “Some people who come into this world of density don’t really belong here,” he said. “Do you agree with that, Mr. Dillard?” Now it was my turn to shrug. “They come here for us, not for themselves. They’re like angels. They’re bringers of the light. But they need protection in this realm of strife.”

“Okay.”

“I was her protector. And I failed.”

“You’re talking about Aurora Eden.”

“She was on a higher frequency than most of us. All you had to do was look at her—those crystal-blue eyes, that golden hair glowing like a halo—and something inside you… sprouted wings.” Joel Sanchez, prison poet. “I knew the first time I laid eyes on her that our souls were linked. But I also knew I could never have her, never keep her penned. No one could. Her spirit was too big.” His face fell. “But she was fragile too. Like a flower made of glass. It was my job to keep the world from shattering her. But I failed.”

“And you blame yourself for her death? Is that why you think you deserve to be in this place?”

“Karma always collects her debts.”

I tried to bring the conversation back to Earth. “How did you meet? You and Aurora.”

“I’m a glassblower by trade, Mr. Dillard. I lived and worked in a converted barn near Richmond, where I’m from. She was visiting a friend, came into my shop one day. She fell in love with one of my pieces, a black glass spider. But she couldn’t afford it. She showed up at my door later, without her friend, and we… worked things out.” A wistful smile crossed his face. “The next morning, I made her breakfast, and she offered to help at the studio. Cleaned it up, changed the energy flow, arranged the pieces like a gallery. And then—I don’t really remember how it happened—she was just there, all the time.”

“She moved in?”

He shrugged. “It was never official. Me, I was just happy to spend as much time with her as she was willing to give me. I never thought it was forever. But then…” He looked at a tattoo on the back of his hand: three interlocking hearts. “Kaia came along.”

“Your daughter.”

“She wasn’t planned, but Ro wanted her. After that, things changed. Ro loved being a mom—she was amazing with Kaia—but at the same time, she didn’t love feeling caged. And she started resenting me, like I was the one doing the caging. We argued a lot.”

“Argued? Or fought?”

Rage flared in his eyes again. “Semantics, Mr. Dillard.”

“Semantics? Really? I’ve seen the police reports. I know the cops came to your house several times for domestic disturbances. I know things got physical.”

“Then you already know the story.”

I guessed I probably did: Guy falls for “free-spirited” gal. Guy and gal move in together. Guy tries to put clamps on gal’s free spirit. Bruises ensue.

“I want to hear your version of it,” I said.

“Why? So you can put it on your ‘podcast’? I know why you’re here, and I know who really sent you. Zane Nelson. He’s got my mother’s ear right now. She’s easy prey for people like him. Every convict’s mother wants to believe her boy is innocent. So he’s selling her on a promise. Meanwhile, she’s just a dollar sign to him, his ticket to success. Well, you can tell Zane R. Nelson this: a podcast about Joel Sanchez isn’t worth a dime. Justice has been served.”

He stood up and did what he’d done to Zane—walked off toward the cell block where he was joined by a guard. Meeting adjourned.

I sat for a few moments and pondered his final words: justice has been served. Why didn’t I believe them?

Why was Joel Sanchez so eager for me to think badly of him?

I left Craggy Correctional Center by the visitors’ entrance and stepped out into the late September sun. I got into my car and headed straight for the Buncombe County Courthouse, where the transcripts from the murder trial of Joel Sanchez resided.

11

Charlie heard the brakes of the school bus and then the slam of the screen door as Abby entered the house. She and Jack were planning to meet at the house this afternoon to talk to Abby about a sports opportunity that had arisen. Charlie wasn’t sure how Abby would react, so she wanted Jack to be here too. But Jack wasn’t home yet. The situation wasn’t exactly urgent, but it was time-sensitive, and a decision needed to be made quickly.

“How was school?” Charlie asked as Abby dropped her book bag on the kitchen floor with a thud.

“School-like.”

“Care to paint a more detailed picture?”

“Boring, pointless, and totally infuriating.”

“Wow. All those things at once?”

“No. Math and English were boring, PE was pointless, and social studies was infuriating. Do we have anything to eat?” Abby began rummaging through kitchen cabinets.

After the locker incident at school, both Abby and the boy, Jayden, had received a two-day suspension and a warning. Abby had handled it well. But in the weeks since then, she had become almost unrecognizable. Without consulting her new parents, she had cut off her long, wavy hair in favor of a short, spiky look. Her favorite outfit was now a shapeless gray sweatshirt, loose jeans, and work boots. Charlie was no child psychologist, but she understood what was going on. Abby was trying to downplay her premature puberty and desexualize herself. Given her experiences, it was understandable. Jack and Charlie chose not to challenge Abby on her new style choices, figuring she’d work things out for herself.

What dismayed Charlie more than the outward changes was the attitude shift. Abby was becoming sullen, sarcastic, and snippy. A delayed reaction to her trauma, no doubt, triggered by the incident at school. Charlie had been expecting this kind of developmental change, even welcomed it in a way, but that didn’t make it fun to live with.

Abby sat at the table with a bag of tortilla chips. “What’s that?” she said, pointing to the brochure Charlie had left lying on the table.

Charlie had been hoping Jack would be here for this discussion but decided to seize the moment regardless.

“There’s a softball clinic starting in Kingsport soon. It’s an intensive program, where they train girls from twelve to fifteen with athletic talent to be excellent softball pitchers. And I just thought, with baseball season behind you, you might—”

“But I don’t play softball; I play real baseball.”

“Softball is just as real as baseball, and for girls it can offer more opportunities—like scholarships and—”

“But I don’t play softball,” Abby repeated with emphasis. “Softball is soft. You pitch underhand and you play with a big squishy ball on a small field. It’s, like, for babies.”

“Tell that to Monica Abbott.”

“Who’s that?”

“Only one of the most badass athletes ever to wear a Tennessee uniform. Look her up. Anyway, I’m not telling you to give up baseball. I’m just saying maybe you could give softball a try in the offseason, see if it’s something you might be interested in. This program runs throughout the school year on Saturdays, but we need to sign up by the day after tomorrow.”

Abby made a sour face and shook her head no.

Charlie wished Jack was here to help with the sales pitch. “A great softball pitcher can dominate a game even more than a great hardball pitcher,” she said.

That seemed to catch Abby’s attention, but she shifted gears. “Why does there need to be a ‘girly’ version of baseball anyway? Why can’t girls play regular baseball?”

“There’s nothing ‘girly’ about softball. And girls can play regular baseball; there are leagues for that. But most colleges and universities don’t have women’s baseball teams, and there aren’t many scholarships available. There are more opportunities in women’s softball.”

“But why should I even have to play ‘women’s sports’? Why can’t I compete against guys? Why can’t I try to play in the majors?”

Now Charlie really wished Jack were here. “You should try to do whatever you want to do, but… I mean…” She stopped and tried to reframe her thoughts. “You’ve done great in Little League, Ab, but the older you get, the harder it will be to compete in men’s sports. Men are…”

“You don’t think I can do it!”

“Yes, I do, Ab.”

“You don’t believe in me!”

“I do believe in you, a hundred percent. In fact, I’ve never believed in anyone mo—”

“Liar! You just say that. You and Jack are like everybody else. You say stuff like ‘Follow your dreams,’ and ‘You can do anything you set your mind to,’ but you don’t really mean it. You don’t believe I can play against boys in high school and college. You just want me to take the safe and easy way!”

Grabbing her book bag from the floor, she stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

“I’m so sick of people telling me what I should be!” she yelled. The door to her room slammed with a loud bang.

Where are you, Jack? I could really use your input right about now.

As I read the State of North Carolina vs. Sanchez transcripts on the courthouse computer, what jumped out at me was the weakness of the case Joel’s public defender had presented. He called only two witnesses, and Joel Sanchez, the defendant, didn’t take the stand. That in itself was hardly unusual, but it seemed an odd choice in this case. Sanchez was a visually intimidating character, but when he spoke, he came across as gentle, intelligent, and sympathetic. As a defense attorney, I would have wanted the jury to see that side of him and to hear how much he loved and respected the victim.

The defense’s case wasn’t an outright botch-job—probably not enough to obtain a reversal on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel—but it was surprisingly tepid.

Sanchez was convicted without a body, which usually requires rock-solid circumstantial evidence. In this case, the only physical evidence the prosecution offered was a small amount of the victim’s blood in the car. But the victim had often driven that same car when living with Sanchez in Virginia, and they both often worked with glass. The blood expert, on cross-examination, acknowledged that the blood could have come from the victim at an earlier time.

The most damaging aspect of the prosecution’s case was testimony from two eyewitnesses and from the lead detective in the case. The witnesses—both residents of the Shanti Springs community—said they saw Joel Sanchez on a dirt road at dusk, holding a spade and standing over a blanket-wrapped object the size and shape of a human body. They testified that he saw them drive by in their car and then quickly loaded the “body” into the trunk and sped off before they could double back for another look. One of the two witnesses also testified that she had spoken to Aurora Eden earlier that day and that Aurora was in a state of terror, believing she was in imminent danger from Sanchez. Allegedly she had told Sanchez she was planning to file a motion to get primary custody of Kaia, and Sanchez did not take it well.

The lead detective, Lieutenant Robert Black, testified that two days before the disappearance, the police had been called to Aurora’s apartment in Shanti Springs for a domestic disturbance. Under cross, however, he admitted that Aurora denied being assaulted and refused to press charges against Joel. A Virginia police officer testified that two similar incidents had occurred in Richmond, at Sanchez’s residence. Lieutenant Black also reported a conversation he’d had with Aurora—he’d run into her at a craft fair, he said—in which she confided that she was worried Joel would kill her soon. He further testified that a piece of chewing gum with Joel’s DNA on it was found at the roadside location where the witnesses claimed to see him with the “body.” A handwritten will, leaving all Aurora’s possessions and money—$437 in a savings account and $25 in a checking account—to her daughter had also been found among the victim’s effects, along with a note saying, essentially, Kaia, if anything happens to me, just know that I love you. Both were dated the day before her disappearance.

Those were the prime bullets in the prosecution’s gun. Not the weakest case in history, but hardly ironclad. And yet the defense had offered surprisingly little in the way of rebuttal. No credible alibis, no expert witnesses. The only two witnesses it called were the defendant’s mother and a friend of Joel’s from Virginia. Mom served as a character witness, telling the jury how gentle Joel was and how much he loved Kaia and Aurora. Joel’s friend tried to testify about a conversation in which Joel told him about an alibi he had on the night of the disappearance. His testimony, however, was ruled as hearsay and therefore inadmissible. The friend also testified, on cross, that on at least two previous occasions, Aurora had vanished without explanation and had turned up later in a distant locale. It was possible, therefore, that she was still alive.

The defense seemed to be counting primarily on its closing arguments and the lack of a body to cement reasonable doubt in the jury’s mind. But the jury went ahead and found him guilty. And yet, there was no attempt at an appeal. It almost looked as if Sanchez wanted to be convicted. In that case, why hadn’t he just pled guilty in the first place?

Something about the case felt off to me.

I was about to start rereading the transcript when I looked at my phone. It was 2:35. I’d told Charlie I’d meet her at the house at three o’clock so we could talk to Abby about a new softball program. I was about an hour from home. Damn.

I abandoned the computer and headed for my car.

Inoticed the yellow Dodge Challenger behind me as I exited the parking lot in downtown Asheville and wasn’t concerned when it hung behind me all the way to I-26. But when it continued to follow me for several miles on the double-lane interstate, even as I pushed my speed up to eighty-five, I started to pay more attention. The yellow Challenger remained a few car lengths behind me, through Mars Hill and all the way up to and across the Tennessee border, switching lanes whenever I did, speeding up when I sped up, slowing down when I slowed down. Whoever the driver was behind the black-tinted windshield, they weren’t trying to hide their pursuit. To test that theory, I took the exit for Route 81. The Challenger exited too. My heartbeat shifted to a higher gear. And then that “pressing” feeling in my skull kicked in, right on schedule.

I got hold of my anger and forced myself to maintain a leisurely pace along 81. Then I sped up around a big curve in the road and gassed it for another mile or so till I got to a roadside motel. I pulled into the parking lot, turned around and waited, squeezing the wheel like I was trying to break it. A minute later, the yellow car crept into view. It began inching up the road in front of the motel in short bursts like a cat hopping after a mouse, making its engine roar. Then it peeled out at high speed, screeching its tires and leaving a blue-gray cloud in its wake. I jumped in my seat, my nerves raw and my muscles tensed for action.

When the car didn’t return, I headed home.

Fifteen minutes later I walked through the door of my house. “What did I miss?”

12

Rupert McPhail had worked at the Stone Mountain Grab ‘N Go for nine months and had already been robbed at gunpoint twice. He supposed that was the price you paid for not finishing high school. At the ripe age of nineteen, he thought he had seen everything the convenience-store world could hurl at him. But even two armed robberies, a fatal drug overdose in the men’s room, and a drunken, biker-woman striptease in the parking lot had not prepared him for what was about to go down at 6:10 a.m. on Friday, September 28th.

The white-bearded man in the red hoodie wore a jolly smile as he strolled into the Grab. If not for the yellowish tinge to his beard and teeth, he looked almost like Santa Claus. Which might be why it took Rupert a couple seconds to notice he held a short-barreled shotgun at his side. North Carolina was an open-carry state, but a bright NO FIREARMS ALLOWED sign hung on the door. Before Rupert could open his mouth to confront the issue, the Santa-almost-lookalike swung the gun barrel up to chest height and aimed it at Rupert.

Here we go again, thought Rupert McPhail. His eyes flashed toward the emergency alert button just above the floor two feet away.

“You’re a handsome young specimen,” said the bearded man, cracking a gap-toothed grin that mimicked the jack-o’-lantern on the counter. “I’ll give you that.”

Rupert didn’t know how to interpret this opening line.

“But the fake pimple on your chin gives you away. A bit too perfect, don’cha think?” The man studied Rupert as if he were a museum exhibit. “Yup, I can see what’s happening beneath the skin. Your larval form is about to transmogrify.”

Rupert’s brain tried to process what it just heard. It failed.

“So here’s what I want you to do. Don’t touch that call button, and don’t make that godforsaken warblin’ noise your species makes when it gets alarmed. Just gimme the door key and step out from behind the counter.”

Rupert had been taught to cooperate with armed robbers. Press the panic button if possible, but let them take the drawer money. Rupert vacated his post at the register, handed the man the key, and watched him lock the doors.

Rupert and Santa were deadbolted within. No other customers.

“Now…” said the yellowed Santa, “come with me.”

The man led Rupert at gunpoint to the wall of bagged snacks—chips, popcorn, pretzels. What the hell’s going on? mused Rupert. He wants Funyuns instead of cash? That’s a new one.

Santa grabbed all the bags containing cheese-flavored snacks and tossed them on the floor. Then he said, “Now, start emptying them bags, and keep emptying them till we find what I’m looking for.” A fresh wave of panic coursed through Rupert. How nuts was this guy?

Rupert began tearing open party-size bags of Cheetos, as ordered, and dutifully dumped the contents onto the floor. On bag number five, Santa called out, “Eureeky-deeky!” and crowed like a rooster. He reached down, plucked a gnarled, misshapen Cheeto from the floor and held it up in triumph. “The transponder! Found it! Thought you could hide it from me, huh? I’m two steps ahead of you, larva boy.”

He held the malformed Cheeto up to Rupert. “Now… stick it in that orifice of yours masqueradin’ as an ear.”

Rupert blinked.

“Stick it in your ear!” cut-rate Santa screamed. “STICK IT IN YOUR EAR!”

Rupert grabbed the orange lump with a shaking hand. On the verge of tears, he inserted it into his left ear canal.

“Beep, beep! Mission accomplished!” shouted Santa. “The signal has been sent. Ha-ha! You and me’s going home. You remember where that is, don’t you?”

Rupert was too shaken to reply.

“Look up at the ceiling.” Rupert did as he was told. “See all them red speckles?” Rupert saw only white ceiling tiles with brown water stains. No red speckles. “That’s a map of the star system we’re headin’ to right now.”

Santa lifted the shotgun barrel. Rupert only had time to mouth the shortest prayer known to man: Please, God. And then Santa placed the barrel under his own chin and pulled the trigger. With a deafening bam, his head disappeared in a cloud of pink mist.

While Rupert waited for the police to come, he stared, transfixed, at the ceiling where a black hole now marked the center of a galaxy of bright red dots. His only thought was, I want to go home, I want to go home.

Iwas on my way to Asheville again, by dawn’s early light.

Zane had offered to pay me my per diem rate to accompany him to Shanti Springs, where he planned to talk to some of the locals. Having done some background research, he was ready to start digging into the Sanchez case in earnest and capturing some audio for his podcast. Officially, he was paying me for my “investigative and legal expertise,” but I think he was also paying for my six-foot-two-inch frame and my companionship.

Charlie and I had agreed that, as long as I was earning some pay, modest though it was, I could work with Zane, and she would work on the Aden Anderson case. There was a hearing this morning on the Anderson matter. I had helped her prepare for it, but she would handle the court appearance herself.

Zane and I were planning to meet at a coffee shop in Asheville and drive into Shanti Springs together. As I drove along in the misty air of early morning, I felt a twinge of excitement. I loved gathering information and uncovering new facts; it fired me up. And the Sanchez case had piqued my curiosity. I intended to enjoy my one day as a paid “detective.”

Zane and I made easy conversation over breakfast at the café in Asheville and on the twenty-five-minute trip to Shanti Springs. In addition to our passion for collecting swords and other weapons, we shared a lot of the same tastes in books, movies, and TV shows. And humor.

As I drove up the wooded mountain road toward the New Age community, he said, “I suggest we start by trying to talk to anyone who lives near or around the victim’s old apartment. There are bound to be people around who knew her.”

I agreed.

The hand-painted sign with the yin-yang symbol—“Shanti Springs Welcomes You. Namaste.”—gave us a sense of what we were in for. The place didn’t look like much of a town. Most of the houses were set back from the road, hidden amongst the trees.

One thing was obvious: Shanti Springs had no building code to speak of. The houses were a hodgepodge of designs, colors, and constructions—treehouses, geodesic domes, log cabins, converted shipping containers, “tiny homes,” and weird glass enclosures. Some of the properties were strewn with junk; others were neat and artistically laid out, with sculptures and Zen gardens.

We eventually found “downtown” Shanti Springs—a couple run-down residential/commercial buildings, a vegan diner, and a general store with an old-fashioned gas pump. Everything was painted in hippie colors from the 1960s. The largest business was called The Co-op, but it wasn’t clear what kind of co-op it was.

We parked and struck off on foot.

Zane readily identified the building where Aurora Eden had rented her studio apartment several years earlier. Its ground floor housed a used bookstore and a consignment clothing shop, both of which looked as if they could count their daily customers on one hand. The apartments were on the second floor, over the shops. The door to the stairway stood open; we took that as an invitation to ascend.

We knocked at the doors of all four apartments and rousted only one resident, an older Native American man with a ponytail and one tooth. He told us he had known Aurora casually and that she was a “sweetheart.” But he declined to do an interview on mic. He directed us to an apartment nearby where a friend of Aurora’s supposedly still lived.

We found the residence at the rear of a two-washer, two-dryer laundromat. The door had a sign painted on it: “Psychic Readings. Tarot. Intuitive.” It stood open, and a voice from within said, “Enter, please” before we could knock.

The woman inside the small, dark apartment was a very tall, bone-thin, African American woman in her thirties who sported a massive afro. She introduced herself as Mariama and asked which of us was there for a reading. Zane told her about his podcast and asked her if she had known Aurora Eden. Mariama said they’d been friends and agreed to talk on the record. But first we would have to pay her reading fee—this was, after all, “professional” time for her. Zane graciously agreed to pay the thirty-five dollars, though I knew he didn’t have cash to burn. He was clearly eager to start capturing some actual audio.

“Aurora was a rare soul,” Mariama said, after Zane fired up his digital recorder, “and her life was cut short. She would have brought healing to this world if she had been given the chance.” She explained that Aurora had plans of becoming a spiritual counselor, but she had some life issues to clear up first. “She was always ready to give you the shirt off her back.”

Mariama went on for several minutes extolling the virtues of the victim. Aurora apparently knew everyone in town, and people were always happy to see her.

“Did you know Joel Sanchez?” Zane asked at last.

She hesitated. “A bit. He came around every couple months, so Aurora could spend time with Kaia—her daughter. He lived somewhere in Virginia. Sculptor or welder, I think.”

“What did you think of him?” Zane’s open, conversational tone seemed to put people at ease.

Again, Mariama paused. “Seemed to be a caring dad. Seemed to love Aurora, even though he was the jilted man. Those two could get up into it though.”

“Get up into it? You mean arguing?”

“I think it was more than just words. Aurora didn’t like to talk about it, but sometimes the long-sleeved shirts and big sunglasses came out when he was visiting. But, I never saw any actual bruises.”

“Do you think Joel Sanchez killed Aurora Eden?”

She shrugged and smiled elusively. “A jury found him guilty, right? And I figure any man who can assault a woman—if he did that—can also kill a woman. So…”

“Sounds like you’re not totally sure.”

“I wasn’t there when it happened.”

I was about to point out that her advertised psychic powers should help in that regard but decided to keep my mouth shut.

“Do you think it did happen?” Zane continued. “Or do you think Aurora just up and vanished? Moved somewhere else? I hear she had a habit of doing that.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“But what does your intuition say? I’m paying you for an intuitive reading, right? Is she alive or dead? What does it seem like to you?”

“One thing you’re going to learn, my friend, is that nothing is what it seems in Shanti Springs.”

13

Zane and I spent the next ninety minutes wandering around the “town center,” asking anyone who would talk to us whether they had known Aurora Eden. Most of the foot traffic was wandering into and out of The Co-op, which turned out to be a combination farmers’ market and arts-and-crafts cooperative. Several tables in the middle area offered local produce, baked goods, jams, and salsas. Booths were arrayed around the walls, and sellers offered services such as reiki healing and water dowsing.

A fair number of people we spoke to had known Aurora, but in almost every case they gave off guarded vibes. Her disappearance had clearly been a disruptive event in the self-protective community, and people were reluctant to talk about it, as if for fear of tearing open a scab. Everyone who knew Aurora, however, gushed about her. By all descriptions, she was a bright, beautiful, spiritually sensitive, generous person who had touched the lives of this eccentric village. More than one person did mention having seen her at “Drum Circle,” a major monthly event in town, the night she disappeared. That had come up at trial too.

Coincidentally—or perhaps synchronistically—we noticed blue photocopied flyers posted all around town: “Drum Circle Tonight!” Zane and I each grabbed one from a stack at the front of The Co-op.

The picture we were getting of Aurora Eden—born Sydney Woods—was that many people knew her casually, but few knew her well. We did pick up a few names of contacts though. Two or three people mentioned a person known as Dreddy Eddy, who had supposedly been a friend or associate of hers. Someone else mentioned having seen Aurora at “Bluegill’s place” shortly before she vanished. We also learned that her former landlady, a woman named Portia Malloy, might be worth a chatting up.

Dreddy Eddy was hard to pin down, we discovered. Everyone knew who he was, but no one seemed to know his actual address or if he even had one. He was a couch-surfin’ kind of guy. Bluegill lived somewhere out in the local wilds in a strange house; no one would commit to where. Portia Malloy, on the other hand, was an easy find. She ran the used bookstore and owned the building that housed it—the building where Aurora once rented an apartment.

Second Life Books was a New Age–themed used bookstore that featured titles on spirituality, “magick,” and the occult while also offering the usual assortment of old romance novels, cookbooks, and lawnmower manuals from 2002, most priced under a buck. Clearly, the owner derived most of her income from renting out the upstairs apartments.

We found Portia Malloy, proprietor, at the back of the store, clipping coupons from magazines. She was in her fifties and had long, iron-gray hair parted down the middle, a headband, and large, round-rimmed glasses.

She didn’t look up as we approached. “Anything in the front racks is thirty percent off unless it’s got a red sticker. Those are fifty percent off.”

“We were wondering if you knew Aurora Eden.”

She didn’t answer right away. “Depends who’s asking.”

We introduced ourselves and explained our purpose. She finally looked up from her coupon clipping, assessing us over her glasses.

“I loved that gal like my flesh and blood, and it breaks my heart what happened to her…” I sensed a “but” coming. None did.

Zane asked for her permission to record her. She gave it.

“Can you tell us about your relationship with Aurora Eden?”

Portia explained that she and Aurora had become friends in the time Aurora rented the two-room apartment from her. They often hung out together, drinking wine and chatting, and went for walks two or three times a week. But according to Portia, Aurora wasn’t always the most reliable tenant. She was sometimes late with rent and didn’t seem able to hold down employment. She often entertained questionable guests at her apartment.

“Some of them were ‘Flower Children,’ I think,” said Portia. She made air quotes around the name. Zane asked her to explain. “A group of drifters that come through here. Cultish vibe. See themselves as throwbacks to the Sixties, but it’s not peace and love they’re all about, if you want my humble.”

“What, then?” Zane asked.

“Drugs. Aurora never admitted doing anything more than a little weed to me, but I wondered. She’d be ‘sick’ a lot and sometimes she’d lock herself in that apartment for days, wouldn’t answer the door for anyone but the skeevy Dans—like Dreddy Eddy. He’s harmless enough but there’s nothing that boy won’t smoke, shoot, or snort. She was so trusting. She’d roll out the welcome mat to anyone—trust-fund crackheads, vagrants, people I’d never seen in town. I knew if she kept doing that, she’d get herself in real trouble. And it seems she did.”

Zane and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

“You think Aurora was killed by one of these fringe people?” Zane asked, moving the mic closer to Portia Malloy.

“I’m not talking about her killing—if that even happened—I’m talking about something that happened to her before she vanished. And I think it ripped her apart, mentally and emotionally. And I think maybe it affected her relationship with the father of her child. And that might have led to her getting killed.”

“What was it that happened?”

“I think that girl was raped.”

Zane and I looked at one another, digesting the impact of this. Nothing about a rape had been mentioned at trial, and Zane appeared surprised by the revelation as well. We waited for Portia to say more.

“She never gave me all the details. I’m not sure she knew them herself. That’s what makes me think it mighta happened when she was under the influence. But she was very, very unsteady at the end. On a downhill tumble.”

“Did you tell the police?” I asked, forgetting it was Zane’s job to ask the questions. Zane signaled it was fine for me to chime in.

“Not right away,” Portia said.

“Why not?”

“Because she told me in confidence. And besides, nobody thought she was dead, not at first. We thought she’d just run off. So I had no business breaking that confidence. But then, after Joel Sanchez was arrested, I reported to the cops what I suspected.”

“And what came of that?”

“The police don’t exactly send progress reports to us folks here in Shanti Springs.”

She went back to clipping coupons.

“He’s a cold-blooded killer!” shouted Jonathan Jenkins, standing up in the gallery of the Unicoi County Courthouse. His two daughters moved in to “restrain” him but conveniently let him finish his tirade first. “My boy was a man of God, and he never harmed a fly! This scum-weasel from out of state put him down like he was nothing more than a broke-leg mule!”

The whole spectacle felt highly orchestrated to Charlie.

Judge Fulton Grimes brought his gavel down—but took his time about it—and ordered Jenkins to control himself. It was clear that the sympathies of the entire courtroom lay with the wealthy local family. The Jenkinses were an institution in Unicoi County, as revered as the courthouse they were standing in. Everyone knew that LeRoy Jenkins, the victim, had been the rogue member of the family, all but disowned, but that was forgotten now that he was dead.

Charlie’s hope at this probable-cause hearing was to get the case dismissed without a trial, but she was not optimistic. The point she made, in her briefs and her arguments, was simply that charges should never have been filed, and that the filing had occurred only because of who the victim was: the son of Jonathan Jenkins. Aden Anderson had every right to use deadly force against LeRoy Jenkins, who had stated an intention to be armed and confront anyone who got in his way. Tennessee was a “castle doctrine” state, meaning property owners had the right to shoot intruders. And even if Anderson wasn’t the actual property owner in this case, as the prosecution would no doubt argue, Tennessee was also a “stand your ground” state. That meant a citizen had no duty to retreat from an active aggressor—regardless of location—and had a right to protect himself and others by means of deadly force. She cited several recent cases, right in Unicoi County, where no charges had been brought in similar “castle doctrine” and stand-your-ground incidents. The police had simply questioned the participants and witnesses, done a brief investigation, and concluded no evidence existed to show the commission of a crime. In Anderson’s case, however, the accused had been arrested without questioning and charged. Had the “victim” not been a Jenkins, Charlie argued, charges would not have been brought.

The prosecution countered, saying it intended to show that LeRoy Jenkins was not an aggressor. Although armed with a handgun, he still had his weapon in his back pocket at the time of his death. He was much smaller than Anderson and had no record of violence. Therefore, murder was an appropriate charge.

At the end, the judge asked the defendant to rise. It was at this point in the proceedings that the elder Jenkins pulled his theatrics, standing up and yelling in the courtroom.

Judge Grimes ruled there was sufficient evidence to try Anderson for murder.

Charlie was disappointed with the ruling but hardly surprised; dismissals were rare. What did surprise her was what unfolded on the courthouse steps immediately after court. A crowd of reporters with cameras and mics—unusual for a mere preliminary hearing—rushed the steps, and Jonathan Jenkins stepped in front of them. He’d apparently summoned them.

“Aden Anderson’s attorney was hoping to avoid a trial,” Jenkins announced to the cluster of microphones, “so her client could quietly escape justice—her client who murdered my son in cold blood as he was entering the home of his child’s mother. But justice prevailed. There will be a trial. And mark my words: justice will prevail at trial too. This so-called attorney, this Charleston Story”—he practically spat her name out—“is a bottom-feeder who only takes cases no God-fearing lawyer would touch with a dirty swamp pole. A paycheck is all she cares about. Well, she won’t be able to pull the wool over the eyes of a Unicoi County jury. Because we all know what this case is really about, don’t we? It’s about outsiders invading our local community. It’s about a battle we’ve been fighting for years, all over East Tennessee. Out-of-staters coming in, buying up our property, taking over our towns, then trying to tell us good Christians how to live our lives. Well, we won’t have it. This interloper, Aden Anderson, he comes all the way from Cali-forn-I.A.—land of the Hollywood elite. He thinks he can waltz in here and take the life of a home-grown son without suffering any consequences. Well, he’s not in Hollywood anymore, and we won’t stand for it…” He turned his body, angling to exit. “Not here in Unicoi County.”

Jonathan Jenkins walked off with his family entourage in tow, flashing a cold smile at Charlie as he left. And Charlie knew he had accomplished his goal—he had successfully changed the venue of the trial from the Unicoi County Courthouse to the Court of Public Opinion.

14

Austin Sprague, sheriff of Unicoi County, gritted his teeth as he exited the crime scene at the Grab ‘N Go. The implications were becoming more ominous as the day wore on. It’s a pattern, he said to himself, unlocking the driver’s door of his cruiser. It’s a dadgum pattern, and there’s no way around it.

First, there had been that idiot in Erwin who had strolled into the Tractor Supply Co., fired up the Earthwise electric woodchipper, and plunged his arm into it, screaming, “Hands off!” and smiling like he felt no pain. Then there had been the situation in Banner Hill where LeRoy Jenkins, a guy with no violence in his record, reportedly exhibited bizarre behavior that led to his shooting—though the official party line was that he was an innocent victim. Just a couple days ago, another Erwin man had ripped several decent-sized young trees out of his yard with his bare hands and forced his neighbors to eat the leaves and branches. No one had gotten seriously hurt, though medical attention was needed. There were several other odd cases too. And now here was this new guy—harmless local nutjob who liked to listen to conspiracy podcasts about reptile-people impersonating humans—who’d decided, out of the blue, to accuse the Grab ‘N Go clerk of being a space alien and paint the ceiling with his own brains.

Weird behavior wasn’t unusual in Unicoi County, where backwoods meth kitchens and amateur bath-salts labs sometimes produced tainted batches. But Sheriff Sprague had never seen anything like this. Up until today, he hadn’t wanted to see a connection between the incidents. But now it seemed too obvious to ignore, and he knew others would see it.

It's a pattern, all right, but how am I going to tell John Q. Public and what the hell am I going to do about it?

“You’re going to Drum Circle?” I said to Zane as we departed Shanti Springs. “Seriously? You’re coming back here tonight?”

“What better place to interface with the locals? And it was the last place Aurora Eden was seen alive. Even if I don’t learn anything new, it’ll give me some great audio for the ’cast.”

“I don’t advise going alone,” I said. “Unless you want it to be the last place you’re seen alive.”

“So why don’t you ride shotgun?”

I shifted in the driver’s seat. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Zane, but our ‘contract’ has officially expired, along with your budget, has it not?”

“I guess I was hoping that maybe you’d—”

“What? Become so intrigued by the case, I’d work with you for free? I’ve told you ten times that’s not going to happen. You and I are in different places in our lives. You’re a single guy, no one to answer to, ready to do whatever it takes to make a name for yourself.” I navigated a twisty section of Serenity Rock Road, the main route out of Shanti Springs. “I’m married, and I have a family, a mountain of law-school loans, and a reputation to salvage. I can’t be running around in the middle of the night in a strange—whoa.”

I’d spotted a figure on the side of the road ahead. He was trying to hitch a ride from the car in front of us, but the car passed him by. It was the man’s appearance that grabbed my eye and made me slow the car. He was a gaunt Caucasian guy with a massive mane of sandy-colored dreadlocks. In a town like Shanti Springs, dreads were hardly a rare sighting, but still, something in my gut told me who he was.

“Dreddy Eddy?” I said. Zane grunted a could be. “Let’s give him a ride.”

As we neared the man, I waited for him to turn around and stick his thumb out, but he just kept walking, looking down at the ground, as if deliberately ignoring us.

I drove past him, but then, after a quarter of a mile, came to an intersection. Consulting my GPS map, I saw that we could take three easy right turns and loop around again to Serenity Rock Road. Maybe he would stick his thumb out the next time we passed him.

But a minute or two later, when I arrived at the same place on the main road, the man with the dreadlocks had vanished.

“My, people come and go so quickly here,” said Zane, doing a Wizard of Oz shtick. I shrugged in frustration and continued driving. “Anyway,” Zane went on, picking up our earlier conversation thread, “I wouldn’t be asking you to work for free.”

“What do you mean?

He hesitated. “Would you consider some kind of profit-sharing arrangement? A partnership type of thing?”

“A percentage of the profits your podcast makes?”

He nodded. I held back a laugh, not wanting to insult him. But I did say, “Forgive me if I’m not jumping out of my seat to avail myself of that financial opportunity.”

“Okay, okay, understood,” he said. But I saw that my remark had hurt him. That hadn’t been my intention. I felt terrible all the way back to Asheville.

Charlie and I finally talked to Abby together about the softball program. Tonight was the deadline for registering online. Abby bristled and protested. Softball did not appeal to her. She was much more interested in taking Krav Maga classes with me. It fit with the badass image she was trying to cultivate. But Charlie had put the kibosh on that idea, believing Abby didn’t need any further encouragement to break people’s noses.

In the end, we came to a family compromise. Abby agreed to try the softball training program for at least four sessions—assuming she was accepted after the tryouts. In exchange, we agreed that she could take Krav Maga classes with me. Charlie agreed to take the classes too. An experience earlier in the day had rendered her more open to the idea. Following Jonathan Jenkins’ televised attack on her, she had been verbally assaulted by a stranger at a gas station. It shook her. I think we all felt better knowing she could defend herself if push came to shove. And we were excited to have something new to do as a family.

As for my part of the agreement? After Abby went to bed, I told Charlie that—having wrapped up my short diversion with Zane—I was ready to pour myself back into the law practice. And the way I believed I could help the most, for now, was to work on the business side of things—amping up our marketing and PR efforts, improving our website, reorganizing our bookkeeping and client-scheduling systems, and, yes, maybe grabbing a paintbrush and sprucing up the interior and exterior of our office—among other things. No more defeatist attitude. If we could bring in more business, then eventually more of the actual lawyering work would start to fall my way, and we would get past this slump in my career. Painting walls and filing papers weren’t exactly thrilling activities, but the idea of spending more time with Charlie and building a more solid future together was thrilling.

“I know you’re feeling a little lost right now, Jack, but it’s not always on us to find our way. Sometimes we need to lift our oars out of the water and let the way find us. Your job right now is just to be open and on your game. Everything else will take care of itself. Trust me on that. The way will find you.”

“When you say that, I believe it.”

Charlie and I watched a mindless baking-contest show on Netflix, went to bed early, and made love. I fell asleep with my wife in my arms, more at peace than I had felt in ages.

Iawoke two hours later, feeling like I had coffee running in my veins. Returning to sleep was not even a remote possibility. Zane Nelson was weighing on my mind. I knew he must be at Drum Circle right now. My intuition told me he was in danger. But how was that my problem? He was a grown man, and he was making his own choices. It was none of my business. My professional relationship with him was over.

So why was I pacing the floor, eyeing my shoes and car keys? And why was I letting my rationalizations ramp up? This would be spec work for the firm. If Sanchez really is innocent, and if I can prove it, Dillard Law can file a motion for a retrial. And if there is a trial, we’ll get the business and the publicity. Maybe some major publicity.

I can’t sleep anyway. Is it more productive for me to sit up all night reading clickbait on my phone or do something that might lead to paying work for the firm?

But I couldn’t just leave the house without an explanation. And I didn’t want to wake Charlie.

I didn’t want to lie to her either, so I scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table in case she woke up and noticed I wasn’t in bed. “Couldn’t sleep. Had a bad feeling about Zane. Took a drive to Shanti Springs. Back in a bit. I have my phone with me. Don’t worry, not doing anything stupid.”

I hoped that last bit wasn’t a lie.

I grabbed my keys and stepped out into the cool night air.

15

It took me a little over an hour to get to Shanti Springs. My phone remained silent, which meant, I hoped, that Charlie was sleeping peacefully and not that I’d simply lost my signal in the higher elevation, a common occurrence. A couple of the road turns were hard to spot, with no streetlights and few visual markers. But the light of the full moon helped. Following the crude map on the blue photocopied flyer, I turned off Serenity Rock Road and proceeded down a dark, narrow dirt road dubbed Willow Man’s Lane.

I heard the sounds of Drum Circle long before I found the “parking lot,” a farmer’s field on a sloping hill. Over a hundred vehicles were parked in the grassy meadow—trucks, cars, motorcycles, campers. Not a bad turnout for a small-town event at one in the morning. On the far end of the field, fires burned at a couple of campsites where independent partying was going on. But Drum Circle itself was still a distance away. Blue papers with hand-drawn arrows marked a trailhead, leading uphill. I followed them.

As I drew closer, I could make out the sounds of two separate drumming events, as I’d been told to expect. One drumbeat was fast, steady, and insistent, the other was more fluid and expressive, but it kept time with the first group. The trail to Drum Circle was a steady upward climb, but the light of the full moon allowed me to see through the trees. I noticed small gatherings in some of the clearings. Drum Circle, apparently, was a large, spread-out event. Finding Zane—if he was even here—might not be as easy as I imagined.

I crested a hilltop where a circle of drummers stood and sat around a central fire. Most of them were women. Several had wraparound tattoos and wore exotic, ceremonial robes with lots of jewelry, but a surprising number were dressed rather conservatively. They were drumming fast on handheld skin drums, and most had their eyes closed. An outer circle of observers sat around, soaking up the rhythm. I stood in the outer circle, scanning for Zane. After only a minute or two, a hypnotic high began to overtake me. The drumbeat seemed to be bringing it on. A pretty, slinky young woman across the circle caught my eye a few times. She worked her way toward me, her wispy dress flowing behind her, and I had a feeling I was about to be hit on.

Standing a bit closer to me than socially customary, she looked up into my face and said, “Shamanic drumming should come with a warning label for the uninitiated.”

“Hmm?”

“It creates an altered state of consciousness, similar to hallucinogens.” Maybe she wasn’t hitting on me; maybe she was just a local ambassador who pegged me—rightly—as a newbie. “Do you know what the drummers are doing right now?”

“Um… drumming?”

“Journeying. Shamanic journeying. They’ve entered a sort of trance where they receive spiritual imagery that guides their lives. What brings you here—is your life in need of guidance?”

She looked up at me with a coy half smile, and I realized I’d been right the first time. She was hitting on me. I had to move on, to break the spell of both the drumming and this attractive young woman.

I awkwardly excused myself and made my way to the neighboring hilltop, where a much larger and more party-like drumming event was going on beneath the moonlit sky. Men and women of all ages were pounding ecstatically on drums of various sizes with hands, mallets, and sticks, while others sang and danced. Sifting my way through the animated crowd, I spotted a short man with dark, curly hair, jeans, and a tucked-in shirt talking to a tall woman at the edge of the clearing. Zane.

“Don’t believe a word this guy tells you,” I said, coming up behind him. He turned around and looked at me, affronted. Not Zane. Before I could apologize and explain, a hand clapped my shoulder. I turned and saw the real Zane’s face. It felt like a jump-scare in a movie.

“Am I going to have to bail you out of trouble all night?” he said with a laugh.

After expressing his surprise at seeing me, Zane filled me in on the details of his night. He didn’t feel endangered in the least. Rather, people had been surprisingly forthcoming, and he’d gathered some good material for the podcast. “I’ve talked to several people who remember seeing Aurora here the night she disappeared. A couple of them told me I should talk to someone named Bluegill—that’s a name we’ve heard before, right? One guy said he saw her with a group of Flower Children, heading away from Drum Circle.”

“That sounds significant,” I said.

“But he couldn’t remember what time it happened. So she might have come back afterward.”

“Did you ask anyone about Aurora being, you know, assaulted?”

“I had to be delicate about that, but no one seemed to know anything. The Flower Children were mentioned several times, though, as people she knew.”

He then told me he’d encountered several of the “Children” themselves and learned some disconcerting things about them from others. “More and more of them have been coming to Shanti Springs lately. They present themselves as harmless stoners, hippies, and drifters, but that’s not the whole picture. They exist completely off the grid—they don’t pay taxes or maintain legal identities. So they can get away with anything, and apparently, they sometimes do. This guy Dreddy Eddy we keep hearing about, he’s one of them, or was anyway, and he seemed to be Aurora’s main connection to the group. She might have been sleeping with him at one time.” Zane’s face went slack. “And… don’t turn around, but he’s about twelve feet behind you.”

Without being obvious, I maneuvered until I got him in my line of vision. There he was, the vanishing man with the long, complicated dreadlocks.

He seemed to be looking for someone, and when he failed to find his quarry, he struck off down one of the trails. We followed him.

“Eddy?” I called out.

He ignored me and picked up his pace. We waited till the brush thinned, then we dashed ahead of him on either side, stopping to confront him head-on. The full moon revealed a Caucasian face that was hard to read. It looked both angry and frightened, both world-weary and childlike. His overall cast was that of a man in his twenties, but the grooves in his skin and the dark bags under his eyes spoke of a man twenty years older.

“Can we talk for a sec? We understand you were a friend of Aurora Eden.”

“Who tell you dat?”

“Several people.”

His eyes darted from side to side. “Aurora Eden, she didn’t have no friends.” His “Jamaican” accent seemed affected.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Who you, anyway?”

We identified ourselves and stated our purpose, still blocking his path forward. Zane handed Eddy his card.

“So, you da ones in town earlier today, asking questions?”

We admitted we were, and Zane turned on his recorder. “What did you mean by Aurora Eden not having any friends?” he asked. “We’ve talked to a lot of people, and it seems like she was everybody’s friend.”

“Everybody’s friend, nobody’s friend, same ting. Most people, dey don’t know her so good.”

“But you did?”

“Dat’s not what I say.”

“We’ve heard that you might have been more than friends.”

“Ha! Out of my way, please. Places to be.”

“Please, just a couple more questions,” said Zane. “Otherwise, we’ll have to use rumors about you in the podcast. Wouldn’t you rather control your own narrative?”

Dreddy Eddy’s eyes darted about again. “Ask quick. And turn off dat ting.”

Zane shut the recorder off—or at least pretended to. “Can you tell us what you know about Aurora Eden and her disappearance? Or murder, whichever you think it was.”

“Aurora had secrets. Secrets on top of secrets. She not so sweet and innocent. Not like everybody tinks.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some people in dis world, dey act like givers, but dey secretly takers. Aurora take from people, and she push dem till she get what she wanted.”

“Like what? What was it she wanted?”

“Whatever. Tings. Stuff.”

“Drugs?”

Eddy looked around again. “Whatever. She push people. Push, push, push. Sometimes maybe she push da kind of people who don’t like to be pushed.”

“Like who?”

“Like… who you tink?”

“Joel Sanchez?”

“Maybe she push him too hard. Push his buttons. Maybe she tell him he’s not a man, make him feel small.”

“Did she share this with you?” asked Zane.

He shrugged.

“Can I ask you a blunt question? Do you know if she was sexually assaulted?”

Eddy’s eyes widened for half a second. “With Aurora, hard to know.” We waited for him to explain. “Like I say, she push everyting. Right to the edge. Maybe she like da drama. Maybe she push some man dat way. Maybe dat how she die.”

“Is that what you think happened?”

He threw his hands up as if to say, Who knows?

“Do you think Joel Sanchez killed Aurora Eden?”

“Dat’s what da judge and jury say, right? Dat’s why he in jail right now.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“I only know one ting for sure: it was not in the stars for dat girl to live a long life. And she knew dat more than anyone. She knew her days was on countdown.” He put his head down and wedged his way between us, heading downhill.

“Hey Eddy,” I called after him on instinct. “One more thing. Do you know Bluegill?”

He laughed, disappearing down the trail. “Panfish. Invasive species. Dey can swim backwards. Dey change colors when mating, tricky fellas.”

“A person. Do you know a person who goes by that name?”

He shrugged. “Name like dat, I tink I remember.”

Eddy strode away as fast as he could, trying to put the encounter behind him, but soon found his path blocked again—by a man and a woman with long hair, love beads, and tie-dyed T-shirts. They stood side by side, just as the would-be podcasters had.

“Eddy Spaghetti, the man with the dreddies,” said the man.

“What up, PJ? Dandelion?” he said.

“Bluegill wants to see you.”

“What does he want?”

“To see you.”

The hippie pair pointed and struck off down a small, well-worn trail, and Eddy followed, his mass of dreads accompanying him.

Ifound my car in the grassy field where I’d parked it. The sky was still dark, but the first hints of dawn were backlighting the peak of Paint Rock Mountain. When I tried my door, I was surprised to find it unlocked. I was sure I’d locked it. Sliding into the seat, I should have noticed the interior light did not come on. I should have reacted faster to the passenger door swinging open.

A strong hand grabbed my wrist as I reached for the start button.

I turned to see a sturdy-looking man in faint silhouette, settling into the passenger seat.

“Jack Dillard?”

He pulled my wrist toward him—this man who knew my name—and managed, somehow, to turn the arm grab into a forced handshake.

“Name’s Bob Black. Lieutenant Bob Black. Some people call me Bubba. Though I don’t necessarily encourage that.”

My tired brain took a couple seconds to make the connection: Bob “Bubba” Black was Robert Black, the lead detective in the Aurora Eden murder case.

16

Black must have used his police training to break into my car and disable my interior lights. Never having seen his photo, I didn’t know what he looked like. I still didn’t know, in the darkness of the unlit car.

“I hear you’re on a… fact-finding mission, Dillard, but there are some things you need to understand.”

“How do you know who I am?”

“I’m a detective; it’s my job to know things. And I like my job. And I want to keep it.” His breath smelled of beef and Tic Tacs.

“And you’re here on a mission of understanding,” I said, not attempting to hide my disdain. “Did I catch that correctly?”

“Yes, you did. And here is what you need to understand: Shanti Springs, North Carolina, is not like other small towns. It’s a place where facts go to die. Shanti Springs is full of people who tell stories and believe stories. UFOs? Everyone here’s seen one. Bigfoot? Everyone’s caught a glimpse. Psychics, palm readers, conspiracy theorists, they all thrive here. Everyone has a theory about the Kennedy assassination and the moon landing and vaccines. It’s never the version you read about in the papers; it’s always the ‘hidden truth.’”

Early dawn was creeping in, and I could make out my drop-in guest a little better. He was broadfaced and blunt-featured in a way that reminded me of Michael Shannon, the actor. I let him carry on.

“And so, when a murder happens in a place like this, well, you can imagine the stories that get started. But the thing you have to keep in mind is… like that Frood guy once said”—I assumed he meant Freud—“sometimes a cigar’s just a cigar. Sometimes the simple, obvious explanation is the truth. Sometimes, when a woman is in an abusive relationship with a guy, and she vanishes right after telling him she’s taking their kid, and the guy is seen that same day holding a shovel next to a dead body, and the victim’s blood turns up in his car, you don’t need to bring Bigfoot into the story.”

“Occam’s Razor still shaves best; I get it. And you broke into my car to tell me this why, Lieutenant Black?”

“Why are you so curious—you and this Zane Nelson—about the Eden case? Or should I say the Sydney Woods case, to use the victim’s real name?”

“How is that your business, Lieutenant, in a free country—which, last I checked, includes North Carolina?”

“It’s my business,” said the silhouetted Robert Black, “because I put Joel Sanchez behind bars, and I’d like him to stay there.”

“But you obviously don’t really believe he belongs there.”

Black stiffened. “Why would you say that?” He switched to a low, ominous tone. “I damn well do believe it. With every bone in my body.”

“Then why would you feel threatened by people asking questions? If the truth is as plain and clear as you say, then all roads must lead to it, right? What’s the harm in asking questions?”

“Like I said, Dillard, this is Shanti Springs. ‘Plain and clear’ don’t live here. It took years to get the locals to accept the truth about Aurora Eden’s death. And you asking questions just stirs up doubt. Puts people at risk. Puts reputations at risk. And there are reputations that I don’t want to see”—he paused to reach into his vocabulary vault—“besmirched for no reason. Mine being at the top of that list.”

“I think Joel Sanchez’s reputation has been a little more than besmirched, don’t you?” I could feel the pressure mounting in my temples. “He’s sitting in Craggy till he’s ready to apply for Medicare.”

“And that’s exactly where he belongs. Listen to me, Dillard. I don’t need outsiders coming in here and questioning my investigation, just for the sake of some stupid ‘podcast’ that Zane Nelson’s crowd can listen to on their new iPhones while they drink their microbrews. A real person died here, and that person’s memories need to be respected. The truth needs to be respected. Justice needs to be respected. Are you hearing me?”

“Nothing wrong with my ears, Detective.”

“Stay on your side of the state line!” He leaned toward me till his beefy breath bathed my face. “And before you ask me if I’m threatening you, the answer is yes. If I find out you’ve been pulling up weeds on my forty acres again, you and me are going to have issues. The kind of issues that get settled… outside of court.”

My desire to prove Joel Sanchez’s innocence was suddenly intensifying, not so much for logical reasons as for the fact that Bubba Black was really starting to piss me off.

“Since we’re on a mission of understanding here, Detective Black, let me help you understand something.” I took a deep breath to depressurize my skull. “I come from a line of people who don’t respond very well to threats. But I’ll do you a favor as a guest on your ‘forty acres’: I’ll pretend you didn’t just threaten me, and I’ll ask you nicely to step out of my car.”

Black reached for the door handle. “A guilty man is behind bars, Mr. Dillard,” he said, attempting a more conciliatory tone. “I’ll ask you nicely: Please don’t ruin lives and reputations for the sake of some bullshit smartphone entertainment.”

“You should have led with nice, Detective Black. I’ll send you the bill for the car damage. First name is Robert—right, Bubba?”

17

Charlie was sitting at the kitchen island, lingering over her second cup of coffee, when her phone chimed its ringtone. She grabbed it on its first go-round when she saw the caller ID: Susan Stoneman, PI. Susan was a private detective who had done a lot of work for Dillard Law over the years. But it had been months since she and Charlie had spoken.

“Stony? How’s life in the hinterlands?”

“Honest answer: not terrific. The sciatica’s been kicking up, and my sister’s dog is still living with me. But I didn’t call to dump my troubles on you. I thought, what with the case you recently took on, you might be interested in a bit of ‘chatter’ that came my way.”

Charlie’s ears perked up. Lately, the firm hadn’t been using Stony’s services as much because Jack was doing a lot of the investigative legwork. But Charlie still thought of her as part of the Dillard team.

“I have a contact at the Unicoi County Sheriff’s office,” Stony said, “and there’s talk that a high-powered batch of meth—or, more likely, bath salts or meth laced with bath salts—has been hitting the streets.” Bath salts, Charlie knew, was the common name for synthetic cathinone, a street drug originally designed to emulate the African khat plant, a stimulant. The drug was known to produce mood- and mind-altering effects like several other drugs. But it could also cause health problems such as strokes, seizures, respiratory distress, and death. Even more disturbing were the psychiatric and behavioral issues it often triggered, including paranoia and acts of violence.

“There’s been a rash of bizarre incidents in Unicoi County over the past couple of weeks,” Stony continued, “and your boy LeRoy Jenkins might have been part of it. People under the influence apparently behaving with fearlessness and lack of physical pain—like reaching into a woodchipper with a smile on their face. They also seem to exhibit superhuman strength, like the classic story of the mother lifting a car to save her child, minus the heroics.”

Charlie thought about Aden Anderson’s claim that LeRoy Jenkins tossed him like a rag doll. She privately thought her client was exaggerating to justify his actions, but might he have been telling the literal truth? This could be significant.

“Keep this to yourself for now,” said Stony. “Law enforcement is still scrambling to figure out how to warn the public without causing a panic. But I’ll be working to firm things up.”

“Understood. I owe you a big one, Stony.”

“Well, next time I need a big one, I’ll know who to call.” Stony laughed dryly and hung up, leaving Charlie buzzing with energy. If LeRoy Jenkins had been flying on some of these high-caliber drugs, then he certainly could have represented a credible threat on the day of his shooting—despite being much smaller than Anderson. Charlie wanted to share the news with Jack, but he was still sleeping.

Her phone rang again. This time the caller ID read, “Unknown Caller.” She almost ignored it, but instinct made her pick up.

“Hello, Charleston Story?” said the unfamiliar male voice on the other end. Something about its low, half-whispered tone gave Charlie the creeps.

“Who is this, please?” Charlie replied.

“Think of it as the voice of the righteous people of Unicoi County. And we have a message for you. We think you should stop playing the Devil’s advocate. Literally. Stop representing Satan and start siding with God.”

Charlie was a person of spiritual conviction, but she took issue with people who used their religion as a weapon of judgment and moral superiority. “What are you—?”

“Jonathan Jenkins,” the voice cut her off, “is a God-fearing pillar of our community, and his family has been torn asunder by the murderous deeds of a godless outsider. You are helping that outsider. We don’t approve of the Devil’s helpers here in East Tennessee.”

“I see. And you speak for all the ‘righteous’ people of Unicoi County? Who appointed you spokesman, and who the hell are you?”

The caller’s voice dropped to an even throatier register. “We are the way. We are the covenant. We are Jehovah Hashopet, The Lord, the Judge. We are Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord of Righteousness. We are Jehovah Makkeh, the Lord Who Strikes…”

Charlie covered the phone and yelled as loudly as she could, “Jack! Can you come here?”

“Listen to me,” she said to the phone. “I think you’re the lord of psycho nutjobs, and if you call me one more time, I will track you down and have you arrested.”

“Stop aiding and abetting the enemy. At once. Or suffer the consequences. And I use the word suffer with full intent.”

The line went dead.

Zane was surprised to be contacted so soon. He’d handed out dozens of his cards at Drum Circle and in the town of Shanti Springs yesterday, but he guessed most of them were lying in wastebaskets or recycling bins by now. The text on his phone read: There’s something I should have told you last night. If interested, meet me at table behind Nosh Café at 1pm.

It was from a number with an Asheville exchange, no name attached. Zane tried calling and texting the number but got no response. Googling the number produced no results either. So, he was heading back to Shanti Springs only hours after getting home and catching a few Zs. He thought of asking Jack Dillard to accompany him but decided that would be pushing his luck. Jack had already given his night to Zane’s cause.

He took a long pull on his second cup of cold-brew coffee and stepped on the gas.

The Nosh Café was a roadside eatery a couple of miles outside Shanti Springs. Zane pulled into the small dirt lot, parked his Prius, and stepped up to the take-out window to order a coffee for himself—his third of the day—and one for his mystery texter, whoever it was. According to his phone, it was 12:58. Two minutes early. Armed with dual coffee cups, he headed around the small building, where a handful of picnic tables sat in the grass.

He was not prepared for what he saw at the farthest table—a massive mane of sandy-brown dreadlocks. Of all the people he’d spoken to yesterday, the last person he expected to reach out to him was Dreddy Eddy. He’d hardly been an ardent participant in last night’s interview.

“Eddy,” said Zane as he sat across from the man. “Sorry, I never did get your last name.”

Eddy didn’t offer it.

“Is Eddy short for Edward?” Again, Eddy gave no reply. Zane held up a paper coffee cup, and Eddy grabbed it. “So… to what do I owe the honor?”

“Call it a sense of… duty, I guess. I still have one, believe it or not.”

Zane noticed that the fake-sounding Rasta accent was missing today. Zane placed his recorder on the table and turned it on. Eddy didn’t object.

“Duty?” Zane repeated, making sure the mic level was good.

“To the memory of Aurora. I spoke too harshly last night. Aurora was a friend of mine. At least some of the time. When the monkey wasn’t on her back. And I owe it to her to make sure the truth gets a fair shake.”

“And you don’t think the truth came out at Sanchez’s trial?”

“Not the whole-and-nothin’-but.”

“Tell me what you know, Eddy. Why’d you drag me out of bed?”

“That cop. The one who investigated the case and testified at the trial? Detective Black? Him and Aurora, they…” He interlocked the fingers of his hands in a suggestive way.

“They were sleeping together?”

“Not much sleepin’ goin’ on, from what I hear.”

“And where did you hear such a thing?”

“I told you, we were friends, Aurora and me.”

“Friends?” said Zane. “Or was it more than friends?” Zane’s instincts told him to keep this man on his toes. “Word in the Springs is that you were the one sleeping with Aurora Eden.”

“Da one? You tink Aurora Eden have only one man?” The fake accent and speech pattern were back. “She have as many men as she want. As many as she need, maybe I should say. Men was tools in her belt.”

“That sounds like the voice of personal experience.”

“I told you, we just friends.”

“That’s not what I’ve been hearing.”

The Jamaican accent disappeared again: “People like to tell stories. They saw me with her sometimes. I hung at her place. It’s easy to make assumptions. Meanwhile, you miss the real thing that’s going on right under your nose.”

“Detective Black, you mean?”

Eddy stared at him hard and straight.

Zane took a long sip of his coffee. “Convince me,” he said at last.

“Of what?” said Eddy. “That Aurora was sleeping with the cop who put her man in jail?”

“That she wasn’t sleeping with you.”

Eddy sneered. He reached into his pocket, whipped out a leather billfold, and opened it to show Zane a frayed photograph of Aurora Eden. Her blue eyes radiated inner light, and her golden hair shone like a crown. She looked like a saint. Zane could only imagine the effect she must have had on people when she was alive.

“She was out of my league,” Eddy said. “Way out. We were friends. Just friends!”

Eddy stood and stormed away from the table. Zane called after him, “Then why do you carry her picture in your pocket?”

“It’s Black you should be worried about.”

As the dreadlocks departed, Zane had the strong sense Eddy hadn’t come here strictly of his own free will.

18

“Finally,” said DeSoto, lowering his binoculars. “Showtime.”

DeSoto and Vape had been surveilling the house on the lake for about four hours. The child had left at seven thirty-five, the woman had departed in her car at about ten fifteen, and now the head dude had finally dragged his butt out the door, around eleven.

Vape and DeSoto were satisfied the house was empty but weren’t taking any chances. After approaching the property from the woods, DeSoto strode up the front steps and rang the bell. He held a clipboard and wore an orange “SunCity Solar” uniform, his long hair tied back in a ponytail. If anyone answered the door, he was prepared to do a short spiel about solar-panel leasing, but no one did.

He looked for signs of a doorbell camera, didn’t see anything obvious. He wasn’t too worried about being videoed; he lived off the grid, had no bank accounts or credit cards, and was virtually impossible to track down. And anyway, he knew the main alarm system had been hacked and disabled online; that had been confirmed by the boss. The high-tech stuff wasn’t DeSoto’s responsibility.

DeSoto and Vape’s mission was to conduct the physical break-in, inventory the contents of the kitchen and bathrooms, install at least two cameras—more if possible—and make sure the occupants didn’t know their house had been broken into. That part was essential.

The two partners always started with the safest and easiest entry route: the downstairs windows. There was always a good chance of finding one unlocked. But today, all the windows were locked up tighter than a djembe drumskin. They proceeded to the next easiest entry point: the garage. Vape slid a bent coat hanger through the crack at the top of the garage door and fished around. He hooked the emergency release cord for the electric door opener, gave the coat hanger a hard yank, and presto, the garage door was free to open manually. They were in the house within seconds.

It took Vape all of twelve minutes to install the three micro-cameras, each one embedded in an electric socket plate, the same ivory-white color as the plates he removed. The tiny wireless cameras were virtually invisible and used the house’s electricity as their power supply. DeSoto, meanwhile, went through the cupboards and refrigerator and took photos.

“Dude,” said Vape to DeSoto after they finished the job and reconnected the garage door opener. He held up a fat doobie, stuffed with Super Silver Haze, and grinned. It was time for the two Flower Children to reward themselves for a job well done.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I said to Zane as I slid into the booth at Starbucks. “I have a real job that needs my attention.” A wife and family that needed it too.

Zane smiled, his eyes twinkling in a way that said, You’re interested, I can tell. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have met me here. The annoying part was that he was right.

We hadn’t spoken since we went our separate ways after Drum Circle. I told him about my threatening encounter with Robert “Bubba” Black, and Zane told me about his surprise meeting with Dreddy Eddy.

“So, let’s review what we’ve learned,” said Zane. “The lead detective, who was also a central witness for the prosecution, tries to stop us from looking into the case. And then we find out, lo and behold, he may have been sleeping with the victim. But this didn’t come up at trial.”

“No wonder Bubba Black doesn’t want us asking questions.”

“Gets me to thinking that maybe he…”

“What? Railroaded our boy, Joel? To throw suspicion off himself? The ol’ Carolina Special?”

“Fits, doesn’t it?”

It did. But one thing I’d learned in my relatively short legal career was that just because a story fits the facts doesn’t make it true. The same set of facts can support multiple narratives. That’s how trial attorneys make their bones.

“It’s certainly an angle worth exploring,” I said to Zane, leaning back in the wooden bench. “So… good luck with that.”

“Come on, Jack, you’ve got to help me confront him.”

“Confront him?” I pulled my head back. “First of all, we don’t know he was sleeping with Aurora Eden. All we have is the word of Dreddy Eddy, hardly an unimpeachable source…”

“That’s why we need to speak to Black directly.”

“Second,” I went on, “we have no legal standing to be questioning a duly appointed officer of the law. How do you think Black’ll respond to us trying to grill him?” Zane was silent. “Third, if Black is dirty, as he seems to be, do we really want to poke him with sticks?”

“So we don’t follow up on this potentially huge tip?”

“Of course we follow up. But we do it artfully. We don’t tip our hand yet, especially not to the guy we’re looking to snare. We talk to other people first—people like Joel Sanchez, Aurora’s friends and neighbors, Joel’s old attorney. We weave our web—if there’s any web to weave—good and tight before we try to trap Black inside it.”

Zane folded his arms and nodded, a small smile creeping onto his face. But his eyes told me he wasn’t smiling because he agreed with me. He was smiling because he saw what I’d just done. I’d used the word “we”—repeatedly and unselfconsciously.

I was in. All the way.

Damn it.

PART II

19

Three years earlier

The Psychic Faire was a roaring success, but Aurora barely held herself together. An annual fall event at The Co-op, the “faire” featured fifteen or twenty local astrologers, tarot card readers, palmists, and assorted other diviners offering discounted readings. Merchandisers sold jewelry, T-shirts, crystals, fantasy figurines, and healing elixirs and oils. This year’s event was big enough to draw two food trucks—Dirty Deb’s Pulled Pork and a vegan-burger seller called Lettuce Prey. Live folk music rounded out the bill.

Four months earlier, Aurora had registered as a vendor and paid the sixty dollars to rent a table as a spiritual medium. She was thinking of trying to go professional, so she figured the Psychic Faire would be a great chance to test her skills—and the market. By the time the event rolled around, though, her life had taken a sharp downhill turn, and she regretted making the commitment.

Aurora’s table turned out to be one of the busiest. With her topaz-blue eyes, glowing blonde dreads, and low-cut medieval-style dress, she was a magnet to men and women alike. She gave more than two dozen five-minute readings but felt like she was phoning them in. She couldn’t tap into her spiritual intuition—her brain was too wired—but no one seemed to notice or care. Beauty made up for a lot of failings, Aurora knew well.

By the time the faire ended, her skull felt ready to crack. She needed something to sand off the sharp edges. She couldn’t call Eddy, her usual supply guy, because things were rough between them. She couldn’t call Bluegill either, not right now. And she probably ought to stay away from the Flower Children too. Fortunately for Aurora, when it came to scoring illegal substances, her “rolodex” was deep. Within fifteen minutes, she had found a connection willing to accept most of her faire earnings and set her up for the night.

She stopped at Juicy G’s, a local guy who resold booze from the ABC store at his trailer, and bought a pint of Johnnie Red, then headed home to her apartment over the bookstore.

Aurora’s preferred high was H, but she only snorted it, never shot it. Shooting heroin was for addicts, not part-time enthusiasts like Aurora. But tonight, even after two fat lines and a tumbler of scotch, her brain refused to mellow out. Her world was crashing down around her, and she feared she was going to get hurt. She didn’t feel safe, she didn’t feel sane, and she didn’t feel at home in her own skin. Aurora paced the floor like a shooting-gallery target.

Maybe tonight was the night to play a hand of cards she’d been assembling for a while. She picked up her phone, found the number, and dialed.

“Lieutenant Black?” she said in a shy, breathy voice. “I mean Bob. I’m sorry to call you on a weekend night, but you said it was okay to call anytime, and I just…”

“Of course, it’s okay,” his voice came back, strong, calm, reassuring. “What is it, Aurora?”

“I… no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. I’ll call you on Monday if I still feel—”

“No, no, please, tell me what’s wrong.”

“This is probably going to sound pathetic, but… I’m not feeling safe tonight. I know there’s nothing you can do, but I couldn’t think of anyone else to call. For some reason, I feel safe talking to you.”

“That’s why I’m here. Talk to me.”

Aurora had met Black when he came to her place to follow up on a domestic-disturbance call involving Joel. Shanti Springs had no police force of its own and contracted with nearby Hot Springs for law enforcement. Black was Hot Springs’ lieutenant of Special Investigations, and he covered a wide range of crimes, including both battery and homicide, for his small department. After their first encounter, Aurora and Black had met several times for coffee or walks, to “talk.” And though they’d kept their meetings within professional bounds—at least thus far—she knew the detective wanted more from her.

“Is it him?” Black prodded her. “Sanchez? Is he in town? Has he done something to make you feel unsafe? Did he hit you again?”

“No. I mean, not yet. But I’m afraid…”

“Afraid of what, Aurora? Has he threatened you?”

“Not exactly. It’s more what he isn’t saying. Or doing.”

“Tell me.”

“Well… I called him earlier today. And I dropped the bomb. Told him I was going for custody of Kaia. And he just went silent. For, like, two solid minutes. I was wishing he’d yell and scream and call me a whore; it would have been more… normal. He just said nothing, then hung up. And when I called back, he wouldn’t answer.” She paused. “He’s coming here tonight. I know it, Bob. I can feel it.”

“I’m coming over, then.”

“No, you don’t have to. I just wanted to—”

“Don’t worry, Ro. I’ll stay outside. I know what we talked about, and I know you don’t want to cross any lines with me. And I completely understand. I was wrong to try to suggest otherwise.”

“Well… I’ve been thinking about that, and…” She paused. “Maybe I changed my mind.”

“A-are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Aurora pushed End Call.

The present

“Thanks for seeing me again, Joel,” I said to the large, tattooed man at the metal table.

Joel replied with a shrug.

I wasn’t being paid for my work on the Sanchez case. Therefore, I couldn’t make it a priority. And I didn’t want Charlie to think I was taking my eye off the ball on the law practice. I wasn’t. So I’d waited till I had business in Banner Hill—interviewing three of Sage McBain’s neighbors—then jumped back on I-26 to Craggy Correctional.

Joel had agreed to hire me as his new attorney—his old one had blown town without warning or explanation—and his mother had paid me a one-dollar retainer. That way, Joel and I could have a confidential conversation in a private room rather than a contact-free visit through the glass.

“So, Zane Nelson and I have been talking to people,” I said, “and I wanted to run some questions by you.”

Joel opened his arms, though not with an excess of enthusiasm.

“How involved was Aurora with the drug scene in Shanti Springs?”

The blunt question pushed him back in his chair. I spent the next few minutes telling him what I’d heard about Aurora and her associations with Dreddy Eddy, Bluegill, the Flower Children, and other questionable characters. He started to dance away from my questioning, but then he caved.

“All right, all right, Dillard, you win. I might as well be honest with you. I’ve been clean for over two years, since I’ve been in here, and I’ve been going to meetings and facing some hard truths. But the fact is, I’m an addict. And so was Aurora. We did have a soul connection, that was no lie, but it was secondary to our love of getting high together.”

I didn’t respond. Sometimes silence was the best way to keep people talking.

“But we were different in some fundamental ways. Me, I was just a garden-variety dopehead. With her, it was more complicated, more… cyclical, more, um, metabolic.”

Joel’s intelligence continued to impress me. “Explain that.”

“She’d do great for a while, wouldn’t touch the stuff—like when she was pregnant with Kaia—but then, when she started wanting it, it became a craving. And she went at it ham—hard as a mother. It was like there was some pressure inside her that would build up, and when it became too much for her, whoa, watch out.”

“Was she bipolar, do you think?” He didn’t answer. “That’s a mood disorder where—”

“I know what it is, Dillard. I’m an inmate, not an idiot. I guess maybe she was. She would go through periods when she’d get her act together. She’d plan for the future and show up for work and budget her money. But then, almost overnight, she’d become a different person. Impulsive. Unpredictable. She’d stop showing up for things and start making bad decisions. She’d crave drugs like oxygen. I think, for her, they were a form of self-medication.”

I processed his insight. “Bad decisions, you said? What kind of bad decisions would she make?”

“You name it.”

“Was she—don’t rip my head off for asking this—sexually promiscuous?”

“It’s all right to ask. Like I told you before, I never thought I owned her in that way. So, yeah, she was with other hombres sometimes.”

“And you were okay with that?”

“It came with the package. I had to accept it.”

“But did you? I’ve learned—again, sorry to have to say this—that you two had some knock-down, drag-outs. Where the cops had to be called.” He folded his arms and glared at me. “And it’s my experience that when things get physical in a relationship, it’s often because a controlling male doesn’t like what he thinks ‘his woman’ is getting up to.”

He tensed up, and I felt a wave of coldness move into the small cinder-block room. “Our disagreements were private,” he said through clenched teeth. “If you’re going to push me on that topic, this conversation just ended.”

I opened my palms in peace. He relaxed a bit.

“I’ve heard a rumor that she was sleeping with Robert Black, the detective who put you behind bars.”

I braced myself for anger, or at least surprise. Joel surprised me by laughing. “He wishes. Aurora told me all about him hitting on her, but she said she wasn’t interested.”

“And you believed her?”

“She didn’t lie about that stuff. Sometimes I wished she would.”

But wait a minute, I thought. “Why didn’t you use this at your trial, this stuff about Black? It seems pretty significant.”

“It wasn’t.” Period at the end.

Again, I was struck by how uninterested Joel seemed in his own defense. Either he was guilty and didn’t want to fight back or… something else. As for Bob Black, his romantic interest in the victim of a murder he himself was investigating was certainly significant, whether he actually slept with her or not. A thought hit me from left field: the rumored rape. If Black had pursued Aurora sexually and she had rebuffed him, was it possible that he…?

“Do you know anything about Aurora being sexually assaulted?” I asked, watching Joel’s face. It remained impassive.

“Not in the time I knew her. As a teenager, she had some problems at a foster home.”

If he was denying knowledge of a rape, there was no point asking him if he thought Black might have done it. Or if he himself might have done it.

“One more thing,” I said. “This guy, Dreddy Eddy, was she involved with him?”

“In what way?”

“You tell me.”

He blew out a sigh. “She knew him for years. They met in Colorado when she was younger. Two drifters drifting. She hung with him, off and on, when their paths happened to cross. I guess they hooked up a few times, in the early days, but he wasn’t a ‘keeper’ in that way, if you know what I mean. But they were friends. He even babysat Kaia a few times. He was the one who talked her into moving to Shanti Springs. But, of course, the real reason she kept him in her life was because he was her connection.”

“Connection? To drugs? Who was the source?”

Joel shrugged, putting a warning look in his eyes. A chill ran through me. We’d tapped a dangerous vein.

The conversation was over.

20

Shortly after I got onto I-26, after leaving Craggy, I saw something in the side mirror that blew a cool breeze through my nerves. A yellow Dodge Challenger with a tinted windshield about four cars behind me. Muscle cars were not rare sightings in the Southeast, so this might not be the same one that followed me before. Still, my guard shot up.

I increased my speed by ten miles per hour and merged left into the passing lane. I proceeded at the increased pace for about five miles, then dropped back into the slower lane. On the next curve I could see the line of traffic behind me, and there it was again, a few cars back. The Challenger. It had sped up too.

Reminding myself not to do anything risky, I waited until the passing lane was clear, then pulled into it and lowered my speed until the right lane was passing me. I tried to get a look at the Challenger from the side, but it zigged out into the left lane behind me. As it did, I spotted a black pinstripe running along its side. Same as before. Factory option or custom addition?

The Challenger stayed behind me in the fast lane, a short distance back. Clearly, the driver knew I was on to him and didn’t care. Fine. Enough of this foolishness. I dropped back into the travel lane and resumed speed-limit travel. So did the Challenger. I tried to remain calm as several miles rolled by, the Challenger in the rearview, but my heart rate betrayed me.

Shortly after crossing the Tennessee border, the Challenger sped up and passed me, then dropped into the travel lane directly in front of me. I still couldn’t see the driver through the tinted glass. The car slowed deliberately, closing the gap between us. Then it braked hard, forcing me to jam on my brakes. I braced for impact as my muscles clenched.

The muscle car surged ahead with a chirp of tire rubber. I missed its bumper by a foot and then had to goose the gas to avoid being hit from behind. Adrenaline shot through me.

The Challenger accelerated to ninety or a hundred, leaving me in the dust.

Seconds later, it slowed to a crawl and let me pass it, falling in behind me again.

My blood was boiling. I decided to get off the interstate at the upcoming Jackson Love Highway exit, heading toward Erwin. If the Challenger followed me, I would pull over at the first safe, publicly visible location and step out of the vehicle. Bring it on.

I signaled a turn and took exit 40. The Challenger didn’t follow.

I parked on the shoulder and waited, tense as a bowstring, temples pounding.

Nothing. Game over. Fine. Time to recalibrate myself and move on with my day. I took a deep breath and released it. Let it go, Jack, let it go.

Taking the Jackson Love exit was a fortuitous move. I decided to return to Banner Hill in Unicoi County. I wanted to make some progress on the Anderson case—partly to assuage my guilt about spending so much time on Sanchez, partly because I wanted to give Charlie something to feel good about. She needed it. My earlier interviews with Sage McBain’s neighbors had gone nowhere—no one had anything to say to a lawyer about what went down on the day of Jenkins’ shooting. I’d knocked on Sage’s door too, but she hadn’t been home.

Now I figured I’d revisit Sage’s neighborhood but go incognito this time. I parked my car in the lot of a used-refrigerator warehouse that appeared to be closed for the day and put on a baggy old windbreaker and baseball cap I kept in my trunk as a thin disguise. Scanning for the yellow Challenger one last time, I headed toward McBain’s house on foot.

I was half a block away on the semi-rural street when I spotted a white Lincoln Aviator parked in front of Sage’s house, looking out of place in this bungalow-and-trailer neighborhood. I ducked into a driveway to avoid being seen. When I peeked again, I saw Sage’s two little girls run from the car to the house. The younger girl appeared to be in tears as the older one flung the door open.

A minute later, Sage exited the car and hurried inside. The white Lincoln drove off.

I waited a couple minutes, then walked to her front door and banged on it. No answer. I knocked again. Silence.

It was a tiny house; I knew she must have heard me. Still, I went to the back door and tried knocking there. No reply. Maybe she was in the bathroom.

I gave her a courtesy minute, then went to the front door again, opened the mail slot, and yelled in, “Sage, it’s Jack Dillard. Charlie’s husband. I’m working on your case.”

I waited another minute. At last, the door opened.

“It’s not my case,” said Sage McBain without greeting. Her eyes darted up and down the street. “It’s Aden’s case. All I did was put up the money. Which mighta been the stupidest thing I ever did.”

“May I come in?”

She looked left and right again, then grabbed my sleeve and pulled at me. “Get the hell off the street. I’ll give you two minutes.”

We stepped inside and stood near the door. She didn’t offer me a seat. I was perplexed by her behavior.

“Why are you here at my door unannounced?” she demanded.

“I’m the one who should be asking the questions, Ms. McBain. Why are you acting like I’m the enemy instead of a member of the legal team you sought out and hired?”

She tried to soften her edge a bit. “I’m in a hurry right now. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I’ve just got a few questions. I won’t take much of your time.”

“That’s correct. You got one minute left.”

I wanted to ask her about the Lincoln she and the girls had just climbed out of, but I cut to the chase. “Okay. We have reason to believe that a turbo-charged run of bath salts—maybe mixed with meth—has been circulating around these parts lately. We’re wondering if LeRoy Jenkins may have partaken of them.” She stared at me as if to say, that wasn’t a question. “What do you know about LeRoy Jenkins’ drug history?”

“My memory doesn’t seem to be working too well today. Must be seasonal allergies.”

“I don’t understand your attitude, Ms. McBain. I’m just trying to gather evidence that might help exonerate Aden Anderson. Isn’t that what you hired us to do?”

“I don’t know why I hired you. I swear to God, I don’t. All I know is your minute’s up.”

She pushed me toward the door. I stepped outside and half stumbled down the steps.

“Oh, and one other thing, Mr. Dillard. That money I paid your wife? You better make it last because there’s no more of it coming your way. Go!”

She slammed the door, and I found myself standing in the exact spot where LeRoy Jenkins had been gunned down, my head swimming in confusion.

21

Charlie pulled up in front of Reasonable Randy’s Used Tires and Tire Repair, “The Best Place in Town to Take a Leak,” and parked under the “No Drugs Allowed” sign painted ostentatiously on the storefront. A three-hundred-pound man sat, arms sprawled, in one of the van backseats that served as benches in front of the shop. A cigarette dangled from his lip, and a pale white belly spilled out from under his black, 8XL Kid Rock T-shirt. Charlie guessed this was the reasonable proprietor himself.

“Help you?” he said, trying absurdly to suck in his gut.

“Is Pigsy Greaves around?”

His Reasonableness jerked his thumb toward the shop interior. Charlie took this as an invitation and stepped inside. Posters of half-naked women hung on the walls, like in car repair shops of old; smells of grease and rubber hung in the air; and the sound mix was all banging metal, swearing voices, and shrieking air wrenches. Guys in blue jumpsuits stared openly at her.

Jack would be upset if he knew she was meeting a drug dealer, even a former one, alone in an unfamiliar place—one Krav Maga class notwithstanding. But she knew Pigsy wouldn’t talk to her if she brought company along. Jerome “Pigsy” Greaves was a client she’d gotten off on some serious drug charges a couple of years back.

She spotted her former client standing over a tire-mounting machine, beating a wheel rim senseless with a rubber mallet. Pigsy was tall, signpost thin, and sunken cheeked, his face smudged as black as a coal miner’s. He beamed when he saw her enter his work area and opened his arms in welcome. Dropping his mallet, he shouted to the air, “Taking my ten!” and marched toward a back door, signaling Charlie to follow.

They stepped out into an overgrown lot populated with bald tires, beer cans, and rusted-out car and trailer husks. He invited her to take a seat on one of two side-by-side tire stacks as he lit a cigarette.

“Ain’t you proud of this old outlaw?” he grinned. “Working a legit job?”

Looking around the property, situated on a run-down road a couple of miles outside Jonesborough, she was struck by what a fine front it would actually make for a drug retailer. Vehicles driving in and out all day, people doing business through car windows.

“I know I’m behind on payments,” said Pigsy, “but I didn’t forget you. No ma’am. Five hundred sixty-five dollars, that’s our current balance, and just as soon as I—”

“I’m not here to chase you for a payment, Pigsy. But there’s something you might be able to do for me that would wipe our balance clean. Can I ask you a question related to your, um, old line of work?”

He looked around and tamped the air with his palm, signaling her to lower her voice.

She told him about the rumors concerning a “custom” batch of cathinones that was making the rounds, causing bizarre behavior and a loss of inhibitions. Pigsy’s face went slack.

“Miz Story, I’m going to give you some advice, and I hope to God you heed it. Leave this thing alone. Please. Don’t go diggin’ in another dog’s yard. Especially a dog that’s plumb crazy.”

“Or what? I might dig up some bones?”

“I’m serious, Miz Story. Don’t stick your nose where it might get bit off. We ain’t talkin’ about normal folk here—people with a sense of—” he reached for the word, “—propriety. Humanity. There’s some truly… scary people working out there right now. You do not want to mess with them, and you surely do not want them to mess with you.”

“Unfortunately, Pigsy, I have a client who might be innocent—yes, that happens sometimes—and I need to know about this bath-salts situation to keep him out of prison.”

Pigsy’s face became a battlefield of warring impulses. “I get that, Miz Story, and I want to help you, but not at the cost of getting you—or me—hurt. I was fixin’ to say ‘killed,’ but these people have ways of dealing with enemies and chatterboxes that might be worse than dyin’. You catch my drift?” Charlie didn’t. “They mess with people’s minds. Chemically.”

Charlie took a moment to absorb his warning. “I don’t want to stir up trouble,” she said. “I just need to know if there’s a drug going around that’s capable of turning a normal man into a monster.”

Pigsy went silent, then heaved a deep sigh. “I’ll make you a deal, Miz Story. I’ll tell you a few things. It’ll be less than everything I know but more than I should be spillin’. And when I’m done talkin’, we’re done. You and me. My debt to you is paid, and we never speak again.”

Charlie took in his words and nodded. “Agreed.”

“But the thing I need from you most is to promise you’ll stay away from these people.”

“I promise, Pigsy.”

“All right, then.” He looked side to side, then dropped his voice again. “There’s a guy up in the mountains southeast of here, over into North Carolina, and he churns out most of the junk that gets sold around these parts nowadays. They call him The Chef. He ain’t just a one-trick pony. He cooks up crystal, acid, bath salts, moon rock, other stuff too. The guy’s a friggin’ mad scientist.” Pigsy chuckled humorlessly. “Word is, and I can’t say if it’s true, he used to work for one of them government alphabet outfits—CIA, NSA, DIA. Running some kind of brain-research program. Till his brand of crazy got to be too much even for them. He knows how to tweak his formulas—a little more of this, a pinch of that—to bring out ‘enhanced user experiences,’ as he likes to call ’em.”

Charlie wondered how Pigsy knew so much about The Chef but didn’t ask.

“He operates at a whole ’nother level than other cooks,” Pigsy went on. “He likes jiggering people’s heads with his products. Yee-haw, it’s all fun and games to him. He don’t care who dies or what happens to folks. The guy’s psycho. And he loves knowing he has his finger in the brain stem of every meth-head and apple-jaxxer in mountain country. Pigsy looked around again, as if being watched. “But the worst thing is what he does to people who cross him. You ever heard’a dosing?”

Charlie shrugged.

“Learn about it,” Pigsy’s said. His face looked drained of life. He slapped his thighs and stood. “Well, my break’s up, and I’m all talked out. Remember what we agreed on.”

Charlie nodded. She shook his hand and gave him a grateful smile. Pigsy turned away and started walking, but then he stopped and looked at her again.

“You’re a good person, Miz Story. You got a—don’t take this the wrong way—purity about you. Don’t get crossed up with The Chef ’cause he’ll take that away. He’ll change you. Forever.” Then he barked out a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a sob and shuffled into Reasonable Randy’s with his head down.

22

Wednesday, October 4th, was the day I started losing my mind. After another one of my sleepless nights, I’d gotten up at about 4 a.m. and headed for the home gym in the basement, my refuge. I did a weight workout and drank one of my protein shakes, ready to face an early day. But then, feeling suddenly tired, I went back to bed and fell asleep unexpectedly.

I woke up again about eight o’clock, but when I sat on the edge of the bed, my eyes relayed a bizarre image to my brain: my bedroom dresser was drooping like an unwatered plant. What the hell? Carryover from a dream? I shook my head, and the dresser straightened up. Jeez. But then I realized I didn’t know what day it was or even my own name. Sometimes, there’s that instant when you first awake where you don’t remember the details of your life, but it lasts only a fraction of a second. This blank state was continuing.

Fear began to rise, and when I stood up, fear gave way to panic: the walls seemed to pull away, and the furniture appeared to stretch.

As I stepped out into the hallway outside my bedroom, I felt dizzy and nauseated. The windows and wall paintings glowed with unnatural color, and their outlines became fluid and wobbly. What was happening to me? Panic was morphing into terror.

I shook my head again and slapped my cheeks. With a sort of inner whoosh, my memories and identity came rushing back. I was Jack Dillard, and I lived on Lake Meadow Drive in Johnson City. The hallway returned to normal.

Almost. A tinge of strangeness still clung to everything. Like I was in a foreign land.

Holy crap. Was I having a breakdown?

Had all the pressure I’d been dealing with of late finally led to a stress fracture in my mind? Had the shamanic drumming opened some new channel in me? Was this what “cracking up” looked and felt like?

When I reached the kitchen, I planted myself at the table, still feeling shaky and uncentered. A note from Charlie said she had gotten Abby off to school and left for an early appointment. Good. I needed to get my head straight before talking to her. I’d already finished my workout, so that fix was out. The thought of having a drink crossed my mind. That would calm my nerves. But no. Drinking liquor at eight in the morning was not a viable solution.

Get a grip, Jack. I took a shower, struggling to keep my mind clear as the tiled stall appeared to close in on me, and then I drank a mug of strong black coffee. Whatever was happening to my mind, I refused to give in to it. I attacked a crossword puzzle with gusto—not for fun but for mental clarity.

Around nine I got a text from Charlie: Autopsy report came in, not great. As Aden Anderson’s defense team, we were entitled to a copy of the victim’s death records. I considered asking Charlie to email it to me but decided to drive to our office and read it there. I wanted to talk to her about it in person. And I craved her calming presence.

As I drove the well-worn route to the office, my depth perception seemed off, and a creeping sense of paranoia sunk its claws into my mind. I felt certain I was being followed, either by the police or the yellow Challenger. The sensation was so strong, I pulled over twice to scan the traffic behind me. Nothing.

By the time I arrived in Jonesborough, my mind had begun to clear. Thankfully. I grabbed two coffees to go at my aunt Sarah’s café and headed to the office.

Seeing Charlie chased away the last of my inner goblins. She had a way of grounding me. We enjoyed our coffee together and went over LeRoy Jenkins’ autopsy report. I skipped the medical mumbo jumbo and went right to the summary. Cause of death: gunshot wound to the heart. No surprise there. On the plus side for us: the bullet wounds were all circular and the trajectories were perpendicular to the sternum, supporting Anderson’s claim that he’d shot Jenkins all three times while he was still walking toward him. On the minus side, the tox findings had turned up only a small amount of methamphetamines in Jenkins’ blood and no clear traces of other drugs. This didn’t help our working theory that Jenkins was as high as a New York hospital bill when he was shot. His levels of cortisol, the “stress” hormone, were off the charts though, which could indicate a violent state of mind but didn’t prove anything conclusively.

I told Charlie I would try to speak to the medical examiner personally. Her name was Janice Fong, M.D. My father had mentioned her a few times as someone he respected. This was one of those many moments where we missed my dad’s involvement in the practice. He knew people, and he could always jump on the phone and open doors for us. After a bit of hesitation, I called Dr. Fong’s office. To my surprise, she picked up herself. l introduced myself as Joe Dillard’s son, and she said she’d be happy to see me today. Good. Something to focus on.

As I was about to leave the office, an impulse struck me. I asked Charlie if we could switch cars. If she’d asked why, I would have told her, but she didn’t ask, so I didn’t volunteer the information.

Itold Dr. Fong about our bath-salts theory regarding LeRoy Jenkins, and she explained to me that forensic detection of synthetic cathinones was tricky science, due to the speed at which new formulas were being developed. I glazed over when she explained the molecular structure of the drug, but I perked up again when she said that over 250 new formulations had hit the streets in the last two years alone. She offered to send out a sample of Jenkins’ blood for further testing by a lab that used hi-res mass spectrometry. It was in everyone’s interest, she said, for all the facts to come to light, no matter which side of the courtroom aisle you sat on.

A remarkably wise philosophy for a government official, one I wished everyone in the law enforcement and judicial communities shared. For example, Lieutenant Robert Black, the man I was hoping to track down next.

I’d chosen Charlie’s car for my trip to Hot Springs because the last couple times I visited North Carolina, my Toyota seemed to attract a following. Maybe Charlie’s Ford wouldn’t be recognized. Following the GPS map, I headed for Hot Springs’ small downtown area, where the city hall and police station were located.

I wasn’t necessarily planning to talk to Black directly, and I certainly wasn’t planning to confront him. I just wanted to put eyes on him, see if I could learn more about him.

Hot Springs’ city hall and police department were housed in an old 1920s-era storefront-style building on a corner of the town’s lone commercial street. The offices were flanked on both sides by entrances to Iron Horse Station—an inn, tavern, and retail complex. The town’s population, I learned, was less than a thousand, which might explain how a guy like Black was able to rise to a high rank as a detective. He was no doubt the only criminal investigator for Hot Springs, which also serviced nearby Shanti Springs.

There was no place to park on the street, so I drove around the block. Behind the commercial buildings and up against Spring Creek, I spotted a small dirt parking lot and pulled in.

In a spot marked “Reserved for Lt. Black” sat a yellow Dodge Challenger with a black racing stripe.

23

Zane was learning a truth all professional investigators knew: second interviews could be gold. You’ve already built rapport, so your subject is a little less guarded. Introduce a new fact or two, ask questions from a slightly different angle, and new revelations could tumble out.

He had arranged to reinterview Aurora Eden’s friends, Mariama and Portia, at the small café inside The Co-op. After buying them a kombucha and a chai tea, respectively, he asked them about Dreddy Eddy’s relationship with Aurora.

“They were pretty tight,” said Mariama, “considering the fact that she was suing his ass.”

This was a new wrinkle.

Mariama explained that shortly after Aurora moved to Shanti Springs, Dreddy Eddy borrowed her car and deliberately crashed it because he was “mad at her.” Aurora didn’t have collision insurance, so she sued Eddy for damages. The case had stalled, for various reasons—foremost being Aurora’s inability to pay her attorney fees—and, according to Mariama, it was still unresolved at the time of her death.

A fact Eddy had conveniently omitted when giving “truth a fair shake” at the Nosh.

Next, Zane brought up Bluegill, a name Portia had mentioned as one of the unsavory characters Aurora knew. Again, this opened a new vein of conversation. Portia told him she’d heard Bluegill had been in Aurora’s apartment a day or two after she disappeared. Odd, because he was known to be a hermit who rarely ventured into town. There were rumors that Aurora’s phone had been removed from her apartment—perhaps by Bluegill—before the police became involved. When Zane asked Portia whether she reported this to the police, she replied, “If I told ’em every story I heard floating around this place, they’d be hauling me in on a 122C.” Local slang for psychiatric commitment.

Mariama knew things about Bluegill too. “He’s a burnout,” she told Zane. “A total head case.” She went on to explain that his real name was Albert Spencer and that supposedly he’d come from money, but his family had long ago written him off. According to the grapevine, he was a bona fide brainiac, a self-employed techie of some kind, but an injury several years earlier had damaged his brain and changed his personality. His voracious drug usage didn’t help.

Neither of the women knew Bluegill’s address, but Mariama said he lived in “some weird place out in the backwoods.”

Zane was able to get directions by telling a UPS driver he was a courier trying to deliver a package to an Albert Spencer. The driver described a small mountain road a few miles away and said if he found the road, he couldn’t miss the house. Zane asked for clarification, and the woman just laughed and said, “You’ll know it when you see it.”

Zane did. After following a series of dirt roads for three or four miles, he turned onto an even tinier road and encountered a structure that had clearly been built as a “novelty” house decades earlier. It was roughly cylindrical and made to look like a tree trunk by the bark-like pattern of the shingles and the curved extensions flaring out to the ground, like roots. The rounded door and slanted oval windows suggested knotholes. The place had long ago gone to seed though, losing whatever storybook charm it may have once possessed.

Zane parked on the road and approached the structure apprehensively. He knocked on the rounded door with the peeling red paint, wishing Jack were with him. No one answered. No vehicles were in evidence either, but he could see and smell smoke from a wood fire wafting from a stovepipe on the roof. Zane knocked again.

The door cracked open at last, revealing a thin, bleary-eyed man in his thirties or early forties with blotchy, pimple-ravaged skin and most of his curly hair pushed to one side of his head in an awkward comb.

“You are who?” the man said. “Or should I say URL? Or USA? Or IOU?”

Zane replied, “I’m looking for someone called Bluegill.”

“Looking, looking, looking, but not finding. The American way, José.”

“Are you Bluegill?” Based on the description he’d gotten from Mariama, Zane was almost certain the answer was yes.

“In what capacity are you inquiring? Diminished capacity?” He cackled in a way that suggested chemical enhancement.

Zane introduced himself and explained that he was making a podcast. “So are you Bluegill?” Zane repeated.

“Not by blood and baptism but by babble and blather.”

“Do you prefer Albert Spencer?”

“To what?”

Zane was already growing weary of the man’s dodginess. “I’d like to talk to you about Aurora Eden.”

The man’s eyes suddenly turned piercing. “This poses a predicament for us, my journalistic journeyman. I assume you would want my total transparency; otherwise, what would be the point of such proceedings and processions? But if I were to be honest about the nature of my dealings with Ms. Eden, I would expose myself to a… plenitude of potential pickles.” He emitted his high-pitched cackle.

“If you’re referring to your use of illegal drugs, I promise I have no interest in getting you in trouble for that. I can keep all that stuff off the record and out of the podcast.”

“So you say, sahib. But where is my money-back guarantee? In indelible ink and links to legalese? And speaking of money, what would be my compensation for contributing creative content to your cause?”

“I can’t pay anyone for their participation.”

“Ah, I see, I see. So you plan to peddle this production for profitable purposes but not to pay the people who provide the product?” Bluegill cackled again, adding a “Woo!” in admiration of his masterful alliteration. “Sounds like it’s all gain for you, all loss for moi.”

Zane had to admit, the man had a point.

“So that’ll be a big nyet from me,” said Bluegill, closing his door. “Over and out.”

Zane had one final gambit—the same one he used on Dreddy Eddy. “Okay then, I’ll have to rely on what others say about you for my podcast.”

He turned and started back toward his car, then heard Bluegill say, “I’ll give you ten minutes, Mr. Man of Mystery.”

Zane stopped in his tracks.

“But no drug questions.”

I’d been staking Black out for about ninety minutes when I saw his yellow Dodge Challenger pull out onto Bridge Street, the main drag of Hot Springs. It was my turn to play cat instead of mouse. I waited until the car crossed over Spring Creek, then began to follow.

Bubba Black headed out along Route 25, which quickly turned into a rural mountain pass with nothing but trees and sky on either side. Consulting my GPS and seeing there weren’t any turns he could take for a while, I hung back half a mile behind him and watched the scenery roll by. I figured Black must be on his way to Walnut or Marshall or maybe Asheville, but he surprised me by turning left onto a narrow, ill-kept road that led higher up into the hills.

I hesitated to follow but made the turn, staying well behind Black’s car. The road wound higher and higher, through a series of twisting S curves. The only traffic I encountered was a pair of Appalachian Trail backpackers on foot. After a few miles, I began to regret taking this rutted road to nowhere, but there were no places to turn around. Where could Black possibly be going?

I should have anticipated what happened next. I came around a hairpin turn onto a straightaway to find the road blocked by the yellow Challenger, parked diagonally across it. I instinctively shifted Charlie’s Ford into reverse. As I turned to look out the rear window, Black stepped out onto the roadway behind me. He stood with his arms folded. He’d boxed me in.

I stepped out of my vehicle. “Lieutenant Black, why am I not surprised to discover you drive a yellow Dodge Challenger? I’ve been seeing a lot of them lately.”

“And I could have sworn you drove a Toyota 4Runner, one of those Sunday-woodsman cars. But then, I get confused sometimes. Like, I could have sworn I told you to stay on your own side of the Tennessee border. But maybe I’ve had too many punches to the head.”

With a weird grin, he mimed the act of punching himself.

“At first I wondered who could be tailing me in a muscle car with a racing stripe,” I said, continuing the juvenile sparring. “After all, I don’t know anyone going through a midlife crisis. But then I realized it must be someone with eyes and ears inside local government. Because it seems every time I leave a courthouse or a jail in this fine state, my rearview mirror fills with yellow.”

Black looked both ways on the isolated road to ensure we were alone. “Dillard, I’m going to make one last attempt to appeal to your sense of decency and reason. Good people worked hard to put Joel Sanchez behind bars. He was convicted by a jury of his peers. Stirring up doubt in that verdict for the amusement of a podcast audience is an offense I take personally.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t mix your personal and professional life.” I knew I was heading into dangerous turf with Black. I’d told Zane we shouldn’t confront him till we had all our ducks in a row, yet here I was, about to do exactly that.

“You got something to say, Dillard, spit it out.”

I took stock of where we were standing—a few feet from the edge of a drop—and how easy it would be for me to have a “tragic accident,” witnessed only by the trees. I was confident about my physical strength compared to Black’s, and I was trained in self-defense, but he almost certainly had a gun. And I had no idea what he was capable of. “You’re pretty righteous about truth, justice, and the American way, Lieutenant, and yet you didn’t feel the judge and jury needed to have all the facts?”

“Facts about what?”

“About your personal relationship with the victim.”

Guilt and wrath skittered across his face. He tried to cover it. “My relationship with Aurora Eden was strictly professional.”

I almost made a crack about guys who pay for professional female companionship but thought better of it. “That’s not what we’ve been hearing.”

“From who?”

“A reliable source,” I said. Not exactly true. Dreddy Eddy hardly fit that bill. But since cops are allowed to lie to suspects during questioning, I figured it was fair game.

He buckled. “Maybe my relationship with the victim did have a personal… dimension. But it never crossed professional boundaries, and it had nothing to do with her death.”

“You don’t know whether or not it contributed to her death. Or if she even is dead. Unless, of course, you do.”

Rage streamed from his eyes again. “Here’s what I know, Dillard. It’s a damn good thing I did have a personal relationship with Aurora Eden. Otherwise, we’d never have gotten a conviction. She trusted me—personally—and because of that trust, she confided in me. She told me about the things Joel Sanchez did to her. The way he threatened her and controlled her and hurt her without leaving marks. The lies he spread about her drug usage when in fact he was the addict.” Black was winding himself up. “He told her if she ever made a move to get custody of their child, he would wring the life out of her, and that’s exactly what he did!”

“Sounds like you have some pretty strong feelings on the subject, Lieutenant.”

“What are you saying?”

“You seem to know how it feels to want to hurt a woman… or worse.”

“Careful, Dillard.”

“There was something else that didn’t come out at trial—in addition to your ‘personal relationship’ with the victim.”

Black looked around again as if scanning for witnesses in the wild.

“Shortly before her disappearance,” I said, “Aurora Eden was sexually assaulted.”

Surprise flashed in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell if it was surprise at the news of the rape or surprise that someone had found out about it.

“Did you know that, Black? Did you suppress that information? I can’t think of a good reason why. Unless…”

“I would never do that to her!” The words shot from his mouth like bullets. He took a deep breath and said, “Your type makes me sick. You and your little Yankee pal. You pick up a few scraps of information that didn’t come out at trial and you think you know everything. And you can’t wait to tell the world how smart you are and how dumb us hillbilly cops are.”

“It’s your type that’s sickening, Black. Cops who think they have a moral license to omit whatever evidence they find inconvenient. Like—oh, just for instance—their own involvement with the victim.” Our standoff continued for several seconds, and then I said, “Now, why don’t you get back in your car so I can be on my way? You can even follow me, as usual, until I’m on the other side of the state line.”

“You won’t see my car behind you anymore, Dillard. But don’t let your guard down. Your troubles with Bubba Black have just begun.”

24

Zane stayed away from the drug topic as agreed, but still, Bluegill was tough to pin down. He repeatedly went off on rambling verbal tangents such as “Merrily we chase the truth down gopher holes of grandiloquence” and “Into what quantum quagmire shall we stumble next?” But then he excused himself to the bathroom—presumably for a chemical readjustment—and when he returned, he was much calmer and more lucid. A different person.

Bluegill denied ever having been to Aurora’s apartment. He admitted, however, that he and Aurora “had sporadic encounters” but were not friends.

“Why not?” inquired Zane.

Because, Bluegill said, he was wise enough to keep her at arm’s length. He characterized Aurora as a psychiatrically unbalanced person with a deep vein of self-loathing—someone who invented lies about everyone who got close to her, partly to paint herself in a better light, partly to punish people for being stupid enough to trust her.

He offered examples: She lied about Dreddy Eddy in her lawsuit, claiming he'd confessed to deliberately crashing her car. In fact, it had been a simple accident. She once lied about being raped by a boss—a man she liked—to squeeze a financial settlement from an employer. And here was one of interest to Zane: Bluegill claimed that in every “domestic disturbance” call involving her and Joel, it had been Aurora who was the physical aggressor. Whenever the police came, they simply assumed, based on Joel’s looks and size, that he was the initiator. Aurora did nothing to disabuse them of this idea—though she never took her accusations far enough to get Joel charged with assault—and Joel remained silent out of loyalty to her.

Zane wondered how Bluegill knew all this stuff. Pretty solid intelligence-gathering for a head case who lived in a tree-shaped house and ranted about “quantum quagmires.” But was any of it trustworthy, considering the source?

The discussion about the domestic disturbances led to the topic of Robert Black, the police investigator who, according to Bluegill, fell hard for Aurora’s victim drama. She played Black like a Stratocaster, he said, allowing the detective to develop feelings for her. The reason? An obvious one. So she would have an ally on the police force in case her drug use ever threatened to get her in trouble or she needed someone to “misplace evidence” on her.

“Of course, that little Hallmark Channel romance didn’t end at a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont, now did it?”

“What do you mean?” Zane asked.

Bluegill smiled and shrugged as if the answer was plain to see. When Zane pressed him, he dodged the question and said it was time to wrap up. “Places to feed, dogs to go.” He stood up and paced the floor like he suddenly needed a new fix.

But Zane refused to let the question go unanswered. After another round of verbal dodgeball, he asked Bluegill directly, “Do you think Black was responsible for Aurora’s death?”

“Have you met Bubba Black?”

Zane owned he hadn’t.

“He is a man of… how do I put it? Ungoverned impulses. A fist jockey. How do you suppose a man like him would have reacted if he found out he was being played for a fool by Miss Aurora Eden, the girl of his dreams?”

“How would he have ‘found out’ such a thing… unless someone told him?”

“He is a detective. His job is to detect.”

“Who would have told him, Bluegill?”

Bluegill burst out laughing—an unhinged sound. “Who, who, who?” Then he began swaying and singing, in a parody of Stevie Nicks, “Just like a white-winged dove, sings a song, sounds like she’s singing, who, who, who? Just like a white-winged dove, sings a song, sounds like she’s singing, who, who, who…”

And just like that, Albert “Bluegill” Spencer was back in la-la land.

As Zane made his exit, he saw a pair of Flower Children approaching the house from a distance. When they spotted him, they ducked into the woods.

Charlie was planning to head home early and meet Abby after school. She locked up the Dillard Law office and walked down the short hallway toward the rear parking lot. As she was passing the restrooms, she heard the men’s room door open but didn’t turn to look at who was exiting.

A meaty hand clamped her mouth from behind.

Charlie tried to scream, but her voice found no outlet. Her mind and body went into red alert. Though she’d only just begun taking self-defense classes, her new training kicked in. She stomped down with her right foot, aiming for the assailant’s instep—direct hit—then spun sideways, driving her elbow up and back into his face, Abby-style. The unseen man let out a grunt of shock and pain, releasing his hold on her. She ran.

Footsteps stampeded up behind her. Her assailant wasn’t alone.

“Get her!” cried the man. “She broke my nose.”

Before Charlie could gain five steps, a threesome of men gang-tackled her from behind. They slammed her, chest-down, onto the polished wood floor. She writhed and kicked with all her might. One of the men yanked a band of stretchy fabric over her eyes. Another one grabbed her wrists, holding them together with a powerful grip. A third wrapped her legs in his muscled arms, restraining her kicks.

Charlie wished she had started those self-defense classes a long time ago.

The unseen men carried her pitching body into the bathroom. One of them kicked open a metal stall door, and they forced her to kneel on the cold stone tiles.

“Oh darn, we can’t use this stall,” said one of the men in mock disgust. “Someone already used it, and they forgot to flush.”

“Aw, shucks,” said another male voice. “What a revolting development.”

Again, Charlie tried to scream, but her mouth was sealed by palm flesh. The men pushed her head down, overcoming her resistance, until her neck was resting on the porcelain rim of a toilet bowl, in the front gap of the toilet seat. She couldn’t see or speak, but she could smell. She nearly vomited.

“If you could use your little harlot voice right now,” said the first man, “you’d probably be asking who we are.”

“The answer,” said another of the men, “is that we are the righteous soldiery of Unicoi County who believe that the murderer of the son of one of our most beloved and Godly citizens should be brought to justice, not set free by an agent of Satan.”

“You were given one warning already, but you ignored it, so now you must be converted from your sinful ways.”

“And all conversions begin with baptism.”

Charlie knew what was being threatened. She kicked and thrashed and writhed, but the men retained control over her. They pushed her head two inches farther into the bowl and held it there, just above the fouled water. Thirty seconds passed as she fought and twisted. Finally, she stilled her body but remained as taut as a coiled spring.

The toilet flushed, draining away the direct source of the stench. Charlie felt a rush of relief. It was temporary. Her head was plunged into the “clean” water. Strong hands held it under.

Charlie panicked. Her muscles fought with every foot-pound of torque they could muster, but the men pressed their heavy weight down upon her body. She was totally overpowered. Her brain calculated the odds of survival and concluded death was imminent. But she still resisted, bucking and squirming, refusing to submit to the inevitable.

An hour seemed to pass. Then another. Her lungs ached to breathe. She was half a second from inhaling water when the hands yanked her head out. A loud sucking sound rang out as her face broke the surface. She gulped the rank air in hungry lungfuls.

A streamer of water running down her face flew up into her windpipe, triggering a coughing fit. It echoed in the porcelain bowl then petered to silence.

“Next time,” said one of the men, “the ‘cleansing’ will last long as it takes for the Lord to summon your cancerous soul to judgment.” The man holding her head released his grip. Then he slapped her, hard, on the side of the face. Tears of pain rushed to her eyes. The men pulled her away from the bowl, shoved her body down flat on the tiled floor, then stomped out of the room.

By the time she recovered her wits enough to jump to her feet, rip the blindfold off, and look out the window, the car had left the parking lot in a plume of dust. Had she reached the window a few seconds sooner, she’d have seen a white Lincoln Aviator speeding away.

25

When I learned what happened to Charlie, I was enraged, mostly at myself. My wife had been assaulted, and once again, I’d been off chasing leads in a case I had literally no business meddling with—and getting myself threatened in the process.

Enough. Charlie needed my full-time presence and protection. The time had come to put an end to my involvement in the Sanchez case. No more splitting of attention. I took Charlie to the police station, and we filed a report. But, since Charlie had never seen the faces of the assailants or the vehicle they departed in, hopes for catching them were slim. And that’s if the police were even motivated to catch them—which, given their attitude toward defense attorneys in general and us Dillards in particular, was unlikely.

After we got home, she and I sat down at the kitchen table. She had recovered remarkably well from her encounter, but I hadn’t. I told her I was finished helping Zane Nelson and would no longer allow myself to be distracted by a pet project. “Obviously, I need to stay closer to home from now on.”

Charlie surprised me, as usual.

“I’ve been thinking about that, Jack, and a couple of things have become clear to me. The first is that I refuse to be intimidated. I was about to drop the Anderson case after I found out Sage’s funds had run dry, but now I’m more determined than ever to see it through. To hell with these people who want to threaten us and scare us off. You and I need to do what we think is right. Walk our own path. That goes for you too.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Sanchez case is calling to you, and you need to trust your instincts. I need to trust them too. I’ve been giving you lip service about listening to the best parts of yourself, but I haven’t been supporting you in that. Well, that changes today. We’re at war now. If you believe Joel Sanchez is innocent, then go prove it, Jack. I’m with you, all the way.”

I felt a rush of gratitude for being married to such a woman, even as I feared for her safety. “What was the second thing you realized?” I asked her.

“That Dillard Law, LLC could use a little good publicity. Maybe this podcast you’re working on can help us turn things around. Maybe you’ll find evidence that will get the verdict overturned or force a retrial. And maybe we’ll be the attorneys who get Joel Sanchez exonerated. And then maybe people will start taking our phone calls again. Or even start calling us. I’m tired of feeling like victims. I want to be victors for a change.”

“I like it.”

“I like you.”

She leaned across the table and kissed me.

“But even if things don’t fall our way,” she said, settling back in her chair, “we’ll both know we followed our guts. And didn’t back down. And I, for one, can sleep knowing that.”

And I need to make sure you can sleep safely.

We locked eyes across the table, appreciating each other.

“Now,” Charlie said, slapping the table with open palms, “why don’t you call Zane Nelson and see if he’s free to join us for dinner. I need to get caught up on this Sanchez case.”

Zane showed up with a nice bottle of old-vine Zinfandel, which lubricated the gears of conversation, and we spent the dinner hour getting to know one another a little better. I kept a close eye on Charlie, but she seemed to be doing fine. No outward signs of trauma. Zane’s sense of humor was in high gear, and I could see both Charlie and Abby liked him. After dinner, he helped with kitchen cleanup, which further endeared him to Charlie. Abby then excused herself to go do homework, while Zane and I paid a visit to my weapons collection. He and I geeked out for a while over swords and scabbards, to the total befuddlement of Charlie. We then settled down to after-dinner coffee in the living room and a more serious conversation.

Zane and I filled each other in on the most recent developments with Bluegill and Black, then gave Charlie a blow-by-blow of the whole case. Charlie leaned back in the sofa with her arms folded for a minute. Then her lawyer gears began turning. I think she welcomed the chance to engage her mind with a new challenge. Move past the events of earlier.

“So,” she said, “let’s review everything. Assuming Joel Sanchez is innocent—which he may not be—let’s see how the pieces fit. We’ll start with the victim. Aurora Eden. Sydney Woods. She may or may not have been raped, and she may or may not have been murdered. All we know for sure is that she disappeared. But this was something she’d done before. She’d lied about being raped before too, at least according to this Bluegill guy—major grain of salt there. If she’s still alive, though, she’s doing a great job of staying hidden. No one has seen or heard from her in three years. Why would she want to vanish from the face of the Earth?”

“Because she needs to hide,” I offered, “from someone dangerous.”

“She wouldn’t leave Kaia,” said Zane. “Aurora wasn’t Mother of the Year, but she loved Kaia too much to disappear from her life completely.”

“If she was murdered,” Charlie went on, “why? She was a fringe character—no money, no power, no real influence. But she was a beautiful woman who had a powerful effect on men.”

“So, maybe a crime of passion or jealousy,” I said.

“But she was also a regular drug user,” added Zane, “possibly an addict. So, a drug deal might have gone bad, or she crossed the wrong person, or owed the wrong person money.”

“Or…” said Charlie, “maybe she had something on someone. Information. She was a slippery person, with a possible personality or mood disorder—reportedly the type who used intimacy to pull secrets from people and then used those secrets against them. Could be she tried that on someone who decided she needed to be silenced.”

“Let’s not forget about the rape,” I said. “If it really happened. Portia Malloy, her landlady and friend, said Aurora was really disturbed about it in her final days. But it didn’t come up at the trial.”

Charlie steepled her fingers and set her jaw. “Any way you slice it, there’s one person who emerges as a major… person of interest.”

“The guy who put Joel Sanchez behind bars,” said Zane, “and kept important facts hidden.”

“And who really doesn’t want anyone looking into the case,” I said. “Bubba Black. He and Aurora were in some kind of wannabe-romantic relationship, and it seems he wanted more from it than she did. What if he tried to press the issue and she refused him? He could have raped or killed her. Or both. Or what if he found out she was just using him? That could have been enough to set him off, guy like him.”

Zane added, “Those witnesses who—conveniently—testified to seeing Joel with the body? Black might have used his leverage as a cop to get them to invent that story. Maybe he threatened to trump up charges against them. Or promised to make their cases go away.”

“We need to talk to those witnesses,” Charlie said.

Zane turned his thumb up. “Already on my list.”

“The blood in Joel’s car?” I said. “The gum with Joel’s DNA on it? Bubba could have planted that stuff. Easily. He was the lead investigator.”

We all nodded, then Charlie said, “But Black isn’t the only potential suspect here. There’s also this Dreddy Eddy guy. Zane, you think he had a thing for the vic too. And they had a complicated relationship, with drugs involved. Also, there’s the lawsuit angle. She was suing him.”

“Money’s always a good motive to get rid of someone.”

“I’ll put that on my to-do list,” Charlie said. “Find out more about that lawsuit.”

“And what about this Bluegill guy?” I said. “He’s this whack-job hermit, right? But then—rumor has it—he shows up at Aurora’s apartment shortly after she disappears? What motivates him to do that? And maybe he finds her phone and takes it?”

Or maybe we were all falling victim to the Shanti Springs Effect—rumor, conjecture, and innuendo. We needed some verifiable facts that we could trust.

We sat in thought for a moment, then Zane leaned forward in his seat. “We can’t forget about the Flower Children. Two people at Drum Circle told me they saw Aurora with a group of them the night she disappeared. They may have been the last people to see her alive.”

“And this didn’t come out at trial either,” said Charlie. “Why? Because it was a dead end? Or because Bubba Black was hell-bent on keeping the focus on Joel Sanchez?”

“Which brings us back to Joel,” said Zane. He tightened his brow. “Assuming he’s innocent, why does he act like a guilty man? Why hasn’t he fought harder against murder charges? Why is he content to warm a cot at Craggy?”

“Because he feels guilty,” I replied. “He thinks he should have done more to protect her.”

“Maybe that’s just a front he’s putting up,” offered Charlie.

“Meaning what?”

She looked us each in the eye. “Maybe he’s protecting someone right now.”

26

Icouldn’t sleep after Zane left and Charlie and Abby went to bed. It wasn’t the usual ruminations keeping me awake. I was excited for the first time in ages. Questions about the Sanchez case swirled in my mind. I finally felt like Charlie and I shared a goal and vision. We were going to work together on both cases, with the hope that success in the Sanchez case would right a wrong, not only for an innocent man but also for us as a law firm. I knew things might not go the way we envisioned, but still, it felt great to have something to aim for. I couldn’t wait till morning. When was the last time I’d felt that way?

I decided to do a workout and see if that would tire me out. I went through the Krav Maga routines that Charlie, Abby, and I had practiced in our last class, then did some weights and twenty minutes on the treadmill. I capped it off with a protein shake and then went to the living room and collapsed in front of the TV, waiting for sleep to come calling.

Slumber eluded me. I watched a stand-up comedy special for a while, but then something strange happened. My eyes began playing tricks. Every time the comic moved his body, trace images of the previous frames followed him, so that he appeared to be trailing ghostly replicas of himself. I rubbed my eyes, but the effect remained. I looked at the digital clock on the DVR, and the blue numbers danced liquidly from side to side. Oh no, was I having another mental “episode”? I switched to a David Letterman interview show. Letterman suddenly morphed into a 1930s-style cartoon of a lecherous, bearded old man.

I shut the TV off, heart pounding.

I stood up and paced the carpet. The walls of the room did that strange expanding-and-contracting thing they’d done earlier. I was losing it again.

I made my way directly to bed, skipping the tooth-brushing, and buried myself under my blankets, willing this episode to be over. Charlie reached over, in her sleep, and placed her hand on my heart; she always knew, instinctually, when I was in a bad way. Sleep eventually came, but hallucinogenic imagery bombarded my dreams, clawing at my sanity like a savage animal.

Abby lay awake, feeling tense. She knew, somehow, Jack was sleepless too. They had a bond in that way, and she could always sense when he was struggling.

Her own thoughts gravitated, once again, to the death of Godfrey Edelberg, and she felt the familiar stab of self-condemnation.

Abby had the thought again—that strangely grown-up thought—about the chef’s knife in the kitchen. And how if she took her sorry self out of the picture, Jack and Charlie would be freed from the burden of caring for her.

But wait, her mind protested in a brand-new, slightly older-seeming voice. Jack and Charlie changed their whole lives for me. Why would they do that?

Because they love you, the answer came back. Because they believe in you.

Maybe it was time she started believing too.

Then she had another thought, one that felt even more grown up than the knife idea. Maybe, instead of always taking from Jack and Charlie like a helpless child, she should give something back to them. Maybe they needed help from her or would soon. She didn’t know what kind of help that would be, but she felt ready to give it. In a grown-up way.

The thought brought her a sense of peace. A minute later, she was fast asleep.

Morning came at last. I was glad to be on solid mental ground again but terrified about what was happening to me. Was I suffering a breakdown from the stress of the last two years? Had I developed a neurological condition? Did I need a brain scan? I’d never been a drug user, so this wasn’t some kind of flashback situation or perceptual disorder brought on by drugs. I tried to think of what might have triggered it. The only connection I could make between the two mental episodes was that they had both occurred after a workout. Was I doing something physical that was harming my brain? Doubtful. All I knew was if this happened again, I would need to tell Charlie about it and see a neurologist.

I ate breakfast with my family, trying to keep things light. After Abby left for school, Charlie and I hopped on a three-way call with Zane, and we discussed the tasks we’d each handle that day. Things were on hold for the moment with the Anderson case. Charlie had filed a motion for discovery but hadn’t received anything from the DA’s office yet, except the autopsy report. So she planned to research the lawsuit Aurora Eden—Sydney Woods—had allegedly filed against Dreddy Eddy, real name unknown. Zane and I agreed to meet in Shanti Springs. We wanted to talk to some of the Flower Children and try to track down those two witnesses who’d testified to seeing Joel Sanchez with a presumed dead body.

I stepped outside into a warm fall morning. The sun shone brightly in a crisp blue sky, mirroring the brightness I was striving to maintain. But then, out of nowhere, a dark cloud passed in front of the sun. Please, I thought, please let my mind be okay.

27

“Iunderstand, sir,” said Sheriff Austin Sprague to his phone. “But if this continues, we’re going to have to say something.” Sprague listened to the other party, his jaw tensed. “I realize we don’t know anything definite yet, but this has become a public safety issue.” He listened again, then replied, “To give people a chance to prepare and defend.” Another pause. “I suppose that’s true. All right, then. I understand, sir.”

Sprague hung up and heaved a long sigh, dropping his shoulders. He stood up from his desk and marched into the conference room where five people sat around the rickety dining-room table—two of his deputies, the police chief of the town of Unicoi, the assistant chief of Erwin’s PD, and a TV reporter from one of the Tri-Cities stations. They all looked at him expectantly as he sat at the head of the table.

“Gentlemen and women,” said Sprague, “I’m sorry to have pulled you away from pressing tasks and responsibilities, but after a further review of the facts, I’ve decided not to go public with any speculative theories. Not at this point. I believe the cons of alarming the public outweigh the pros I’ve discussed with each of you individually.”

“Sir?” said Deputy Alice Keith. “You told me just this morning that we have a full-blown drug crisis on our hands, and we need to go into ‘code red.’”

“I know what I said, Deputy, and I do not appreciate having my words thrown in my face in a group forum.”

Somber looks were exchanged. “But sir, doesn’t the public have a right to—”

“MEETING ADJOURNED!”

Iwas halfway down the driveway when a thought hit me like a fastball between the eyes. My protein powder! I jammed on the brake and put the car in park.

I’d been trying to think of what had preceded, and perhaps connected, my two losses of mental stability. The only thing I could think of was that I’d done a workout about forty-five minutes before each episode. It finally dawned on me to consider the protein drink I’d consumed after each workout. The product, a powder called Turbo Isolate 5000, was one I’d been using for over six months now. Had it become “compromised”?

If so, how? Had I stored it improperly? No, I always kept it in the cupboard, out of direct sunlight. Had the batch degraded with age? Doubtful. I was getting near the bottom of the jar, but I had been using it consistently, without any time gaps, so it couldn’t be too old. Still, maybe I should check the expiration date.

I shut off the car and texted Zane that I might be a little late for our rendezvous, then marched back into the house.

I pulled the plastic jar of protein powder from the shelf. Turning it in all directions, I found the expiration date near the bottom. Ten months into the future. Still fresh.

Maybe some chemical impurity had made its way into the batch and sunk to the bottom of the jar. Unscrewing the lid, I saw nothing amiss with the remaining inch of cream-colored powder. But then, what would I expect to see? I fetched a magnifying glass my dad had kept on hand and shook some of the powder onto a piece of mail. Examining it with the glass, I did notice something, whether significant or not. Tiny, crystalline granules, bluish in color, were mixed in with the finer grains of powder. Without a “control” sample to study, side by side, I had no way of knowing whether this was normal.

But wait. I did have a control sample. The protein shake mix was delivered on a subscription plan, and my new batch had arrived a few days ago. I located the unopened jar on the back of the shelf, unscrewed the plastic lid, and tore off the factory seal. After pouring some of the new powder onto the white envelope beside the old batch, I grabbed the magnifying glass again. The new powder didn’t contain the clear blue granules.

Something pinged the back of my brain. A conversation from a couple of days earlier. Charlie asked me if I had ever heard the term dosing. I replied that I had: it was the practice of secretly drugging a person, usually over a period of time, to tamper with their mind. I told her about a news story I’d read where a man was found to have been dosing his wife so he could have her psychiatrically committed.

Was that what was happening here? Had someone spiked my protein product—laced it with a drug, a hallucinogen? The forty-five-minute reaction time was consistent with a drug explanation. And the mental experience certainly seemed drug-like. I’d never used “recreational” drugs, but I had taken some hefty painkillers after a couple sports injuries.

Who would have and could have done such a thing though? Certainly not Charlie. Abby? As an act of rebellion or a misguided “prank” of some kind? Kids her age have legendarily bad judgment. But no, Abby was smarter, and kinder, than that.

The two new cases Charlie and I were involved in shared two features in common: one, drugs were an integral element, and two, influential people wanted us off the case. Was it possible that an unhappy individual related to one of our investigations was trying to impede my progress or issue me a warning?

Or… was I was just being paranoid? Or denying mental health issues I didn’t want to face? Was this the nervous breakdown I’d sometimes feared?

No, I was being drugged. I felt sure of it. Those mental shifts were sharp and sudden and seemed to come out of nowhere. Drugs were the likeliest explanation.

So… how did it happen? Did someone get to my protein powder before it got to me? If the package had been left on the porch by UPS or FedEx, someone could have tampered with it. But no, according to the records I pulled up on my phone, I’d signed for the package personally. Besides, I’d been using the product for months without any problems.

That could mean only one thing. Someone had broken into the house to tamper with it. Recently.

Spiking the protein powder, if indeed that had happened, was a clever choice. It was a product I consumed regularly and in substantial quantity—two full scoops per serving. But what about our other foods? Had our whole food supply become tainted? I gathered up our flour, sugar, and other dry products and put them aside in a paper sack. As I was working at this, I had a strong sense of being watched. I looked out all the windows on the first floor. All clear. But I couldn’t shake the “surveilled” feeling.

A camera?

If someone had broken into our house, they could have planted cameras. Today’s webcams were tiny enough to be hidden almost anywhere—in smoke detectors, keyholes, lamps. I began combing the kitchen visually. Again, was this just paranoia?

The answer came fast: no. Studying the electric outlet over the kitchen counter, I noticed a tiny black hole on its white faceplate. Barely visible. Not something you’d notice unless you were looking for it. I grabbed a screwdriver from the gadget drawer and removed the outlet plate. Sure enough, there was a small, black rectangular device attached to the back of it, wired into the electric system. A camera, no doubt. How long had it been here? My father wouldn’t have installed it, would he? I doubted it, but I’d ask him next chance I got.

I found two additional cameras in other outlets in the kitchen, then searched the rest of the house. All the other outlets seemed clean.

Whoever had planted the cameras was seemingly interested only in our kitchen behavior. What were we consuming? In other words, how could they best drug us?

Or drug just me.

Anger flared up—that all-too-familiar pounding in the head, tensing of the jaw, and racing of the heart. But it was followed by an odd flood of relief. I wasn’t losing my mind. Someone was trying to lose it for me.

I thought about who might be responsible for this. Jonathan Jenkins was on the warpath against Dillard Law, and he certainly had the money to hire people who could burgle a house and plant drugs and cameras. But his outrage seemed focused primarily on Charlie, and the protein product was my thing. Could it have been The Chef—this drug maker Charlie’s old client, Pigsy, had told her about? We suspected he was behind the supercharged bath salts making the rounds in Unicoi County. Reputedly, he dealt with his enemies in creative ways. Had he gotten wind of the fact that I was sniffing around his enterprise? I recalled the spooked way Sage McBain was acting when I went to her house. Had she been warned off by someone dangerous?

Much food for thought. But it was time to meet Zane.

I had a detour to make first though. Drop the protein powder at the lab of Phil Cyr, an old associate of my father’s, and ask him to do a quick drug analysis.

28

Zane and I rendezvoused in Shanti Springs and had coffee at the Nosh. I kept my drugging suspicions to myself—I didn’t want to alarm him until I was certain—and we planned our day. Flower Children and court witnesses were on our radar.

The names of the two witnesses who’d testified at Joel Sanchez’s trial were Carol Davies and Melanie Swan. According to the trial transcripts, they both counted Aurora Eden as a friend. Davies had been employed by The Co-op at the time Aurora disappeared; Swan was a freelance masseuse who’d had an apartment in town. Maybe she still did.

By asking around at The Co-op, we learned that Davies and Swan were rumored to have worked as a tag team giving massages that weren’t strictly legal, and they no longer lived in Shanti Springs. They had left town together, shortly after the trial. Did they disappear so they wouldn’t have to answer any follow-up questions?

Zane left his car parked in front of The Co-op, and we took my car to go dig up some Flower Children.

In our earlier questioning of the locals, we’d learned that the Flower Children had an encampment outside town in the same field where I’d parked the night of Drum Circle.

The camp consisted of five RVs and trailers, along with several tents, arrayed around a central fire pit and sitting area. Three or four hippie-types sitting in lawn chairs by the fire looked up as my car approached. We parked in the grass a respectful distance away, and a young man strode out to intercept us. He had a wispy beard and wore a red bandana around his head. He offered us a gap-toothed smile.

“Greetings and felicitations,” he said in a slightly hoarse, stoner voice. “How may we help you this glorious morn?”

We introduced ourselves and told him about our “amateur investigation,” then asked if we could enter the camp and ask people a few questions.

“Alas, my friends, we cannot allow you in unless you’ve been personally vetted by one of the flock. Trust is a bit of an issue here.”

“Absolutely, I totally get that, man,” said Zane in his best Woodstock-era voice. When in Rome.

“But I’m chill to talk with you,” the young hippie said, “if you want to grab a sit-down o’er yonder.” He pointed to an arrangement of hay bales covered with horse blankets about twenty yards to the left of the camp.

As we followed the young man, he turned to say, “I answer to ‘Malachite,’ by the by, though that’s not the name hung on me by my original captors.” He laughed.

I had the distinct impression we were being “handled” by a spokesperson for the group. We sat on the hay bales, and I asked him to tell us about the Flower Children.

Malachite frowned and said, “Not a moniker we embrace, brother. We’re just a gathering of wayfarers, weary of the grind and wary of the grid.”

Right, buddy. “What brings you to Shanti Springs?”

“A safe landing spot among kindred spirits.”

“A safe landing spot with easy access to drugs?” I wasn’t in the mood for beating around the bush.

“Drugs!” He laughed out his nose. “A pejorative term, coined by the conqueror race. Plant medicine is older than humanity itself, bro. Our plant brothers and sisters—cannabis, khat, poppy, peyote—give us gifts that should be embraced with gratitude.”

“How about the stuff made in a lab?” I asked.

“To each his own,” Malachite replied. “Me, I prefer herbally sourced material. But we don’t tell each other what to do here. That’s for y’all in the rodent regatta.” He grinned.

“You look a little young to have been here three years ago, but do you know if anyone in your group was here when Aurora Eden disappeared?”

“PJ and Dandelion have been here the longest, and that’s only, like, eight Drum Circles. We have a lot of ‘churn’ in our community, man. Three years is ancient history.”

Zane jumped to a new topic. “Do you know a man name of Bluegill?”

Malachite laughed again. “Dude’s had one too many samples of every ‘ware’ making its way around the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

“Do you know if he’s involved in the local drug economy?”

“He contributes, all right.” He mimed the act of shoveling pills into his mouth.

We asked him a few more questions, then tried to persuade him to invite us into the camp itself. He politely declined. We said our goodbyes and started back to the car.

As I was reaching for my door handle, I saw a flash of red just inside the tree line. A young woman with short, dark hair, dark eyes, and long, red feather earrings was standing in the shadows, arms folded, staring at us intently. Goosebumps bloomed on my neck and arms.

Amotorcycle surged out of the woods and raced up behind my car as we drove. A few seconds later, it pulled alongside my window. The helmeted driver signaled to us, pointing to the right. I spotted a wooded dirt road, running parallel to the main road, and veered onto it. I pulled over in a bushy area, and the bike parked behind us. The rider stepped off, engaged the kickstand, and took off her helmet. She had short, dark hair, dark eyes, and long, red feather earrings.

She jerked her head toward an old log pile in the woods and strode off in that direction. We followed her and sat beside her on a log, waiting for her to speak.

“Seen you guys around town. Heard you been asking a lot of questions.”

“Speech is free,” said Zane. “Last I checked.”

“Is it?” said our red-feathered host. “Not in my experience.”

“How can we help you?” I asked her.

“You can’t. But maybe I can help you. Saw you talking to Malachite just now. Bet he gave you the PR version of life among the Flower Children. Freedom from The Man and life off the grid, and all that happy hype. Well, I’ve been living at the camp for four months, and I’m leaving town. So if you want the real story, fire away. Elsewise, nice to know ya.”

I fired away. “What’s the non-PR story?”

“The not-safe-for-work version,” Zane added.

“Lost souls, that’s all we are. Lost souls seeking other lost souls. As such, we bond tight, but we’re easy to lead. ‘Freedom from The Man,’ ha. Try bondage. To the New Man. Cult is the right word for us. That’s why I’m getting out.”

She went on to explain that the Flower Children recruited its “members” on the promise of a life free from chasing the American Illusion. Communal living without the trappings of the bourgeoisie. But of course, money was still needed for things like food, gas, and recreational substances. And so, the local Flower Children sold drugs to earn cash. At first, they’d be asked to do a few low-level drug runs, to prove themselves. Then they became full-time foot soldiers, distributing illegal substances throughout the mountains of western North Carolina and East Tennessee and committing whatever other crimes were necessary to protect the business.

This was good information, though not necessarily news to either of us; we’d suspected as much. But then she hit us with a gobsmacker. “The high priest of the operation, the local distributor and vendor, is a dude called Bluegill.”

Bluegill? The idea of Bluegill as an organized businessman, legal or otherwise, was hard to wrap our heads around.

“But he’s not the top dog. Nah. The ‘god’—the master Bluegill serves—is someone most of us have never even laid eyes on. He’s the maker of the elixirs, the mad genius, the lab maestro. The ‘Children’ call him Papaji, but he has other names too.”

Papaji, she explained, was a quasi-spiritual “agent of chaos” who purportedly had a plan for changing human consciousness and bringing world government to its knees. He told his followers their work was critical to his cause and inspired them via daily messages handed out on slips of paper, saying cryptic things like “Do to undo” and “Unfold the mind.”

“As for me,” said the red-feathered biker, “I think he’s just a plain-old drug lord who’s brainwashed a bunch of wannabe anarchists into working for him on the cheap. And a bunch of women into letting themselves be blacked out and used like sex toys by him and his boys.”

Her eyes filled with tears even as her teeth clenched in anger.

“I’m sorry to ask this,” I said, “but is that the voice of personal experience?”

“Let’s put it this way. There’s a damn good reason I’m getting out of town. And a damn good reason I won’t dignify his ass by using that phony religious name he loves.”

“What do you prefer to call him?” I asked.

“One of his more bread-and-butter names. The Chef.”

When we got back to town, we found all four tires on Zane’s car sliced by a blade. The side window was smashed, the hood was open, and all his engine wires had been cut. Right in the middle of the town square.

29

After Zane and I arranged for a tow truck to pick up his car and I gave him a ride back to his short-term apartment in Johnson City, I headed home. My thoughts were filled with the two huge bombs that had been dropped on me today—that I’d likely been involuntarily drugged and that “The Chef” might be casting his shadow over both of our cases. And he was probably the person who drugged me—either directly or through a flunky.

I didn’t want to jump to conclusions though, so I decided to call my father from the car. It had been a while since we’d spoken. For some reason, I was reluctant to call him these days. Maybe I was trying to prove to him that I didn’t need his help to run things. Still, I missed him. He was my best friend.

Today I had a specific reason for calling him besides just to hear his voice. I told my car to dial him up.

“Dad?”

“Jack? Great to hear from you, son.”

“I’ve got a weird question for you.”

“No weirder than the one a kid on the beach just asked me. ‘Hey, mister, how do jellyfish poop?”

“Can’t top that one, but… did you or Mom ever install nanny cams in the house? Maybe for when Joseph was visiting?”

“’Course not. You and I put one in the bathroom that one time, to catch that sleazebag nurse who was stealing Mom’s meds. But I ripped it out right after. Can’t stand the things. Why do you ask?”

I fought off the urge to tell him about my discovery of three cameras in the electric outlets. I knew he’d start asking questions, and that would lead to me spilling the beans about the hallucinations and my theory about the drugged protein powder. And before I knew it, he’d be jumping on the next flight out of Grand Cayman. So I made up a story about finding a web camera in a junk drawer and not knowing if it was his or mine.

“Jack…?”

“Yeah?”

“Is that all? Sorry, son. Not that it isn’t great to hear your voice, but it’s hard to believe you’re calling me for the first time in months just because you wanted to ask me about some gadget you found in a drawer.”

I knew I had to feed him something more credible. And I did, in fact, have something else to ask him about. Taking care to focus on my driving, I said, “There’s a guy whose name has come up, bizarrely enough, in two unrelated cases we’re working on. Big wheel in the Appalachian drug trade. They call him The Chef.”

Dad was silent for a few seconds. With a drag of resistance in his voice, he said, “Leon might have mentioned something once or twice. Why?”

Leon Bates was a longtime colleague of my father and a family friend. He had served as sheriff of Washington County for several years, until a highly personal video of him and Erlene Barlowe, the local strip-joint proprietor, was leaked on the Internet, ending his career as an elected official. But Leon, the private citizen, still had his finger on the pulse of all criminal activity in East Tennessee and beyond.

When I didn’t answer, he said, “Listen, son, I hope you’re not thinking about tangling with dangerous people on the far side of the state line—and the law.”

“I’m not,” I lied.

“Because, take it from me, there’s a price to be paid for that. And it’s much higher than what you expect going in.”

“I know that.” And I did. I had nearly paid the ultimate price for some of my father’s line-crossing with dangerous people.

“Talk to Leon,” Dad said. “And promise me something. If you get the impulse to do something stupid like I might have done, you’ll pick up the phone and call me.”

“I promise.”

“And I’ll be on the first plane out of here. You hear me? Now… go ahead and give Leon Bates a call.”

“I will.”

I intended to keep at least that part of my promise.

“I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Vape and DeSoto had never seen Bluegill so wired. And they’d witnessed him testing new strains of synthetic cocaine and amphetamines for the boss. He paced around his weird, circular room, raking his hair with his fingers, eyes darting out the oval windows as if expecting an alien invasion any minute.

“Don’t mean to be coy, Roy,” Bluegill said to the pair of Flower Children, “but we need a new plan, Stan. Our lord and master is in a… high state of perturbation. He isn’t questioning your workmanship. If he were, you would be suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous outrage. But we do have a problem on our hands and solve it we must. Or else we will all have to pay the fiddler. And he will fiddle a brutal tune, I am assured.”

Vape and DeSoto knew Bluegill as The Chef’s second-in-command and his chief target of experimentation. His brain had obviously been chemically assailed, over many years, and his faithfulness to his master was absolute and dog-like.

“What does he want us to do?” asked Vape.

“That is why we’re here, lads and lackeys, configuring and confabulating.” Bluegill sat and pressed his palms on his thighs as if trying to stop himself from pacing. “We must find a new way to gain entry to the bloodstream of our inquisitive and clever attorney comrade.”

The Chef, as the three men knew, preferred to deal with troublesome individuals by dosing them. Ideally, the mind-altering chemicals were slipped into the recipient’s consumables—beverages were best—without the person knowing they’d been dosed. When the brain was attacked unawares in this way, it often became permanently altered after just one dose. However, The Chef preferred a series of dosings to ensure maximum effect. He enjoyed watching a victim’s slow descent into madness—knowing he himself was the architect. The mental suffering and terror were exquisite to behold, truly a fate worse than death.

But dosing was not just a punishment for the troublesome and disobedient. It potentially had practical applications as well. The Chef did not hide his fascination—obsession, really—with the idea of mind control. And the possibility of using drugs to accomplish it. His running theory was that drugs could be used, not just for punishing but for controlling one’s enemies. And he had once been paid a high salary, off the books, to prove that theory. He hadn’t succeeded, but the idea captivated him to this day. It was his passion and purpose.

Dosing was not easy to pull off, Vape and DeSoto well knew. Every target presented unique challenges. Take that drifter from Portland a few weeks back. The one with the ukulele. Thought he could steal product and get away with it. They’d had to track him for days and drug his wine pouch while he was sleeping. A guy like Dillard, a mainstream type with a house in the ’burbs, presented even trickier problems. Dosing his protein powder had been an inspired idea, but he’d caught on. And now they were back to square one.

If only they could just kneecap the guy or cut off his finger. But such methods weren’t approved by The Chef. Chemistry was his M.O.

“Our leader wishes the lawyer on the lake to receive at least three additional doses,” said Bluegill, “so that optimal effectiveness will be achieved. He asks me to remind you of the world-changing nature of our mission. He gave me this to encourage and inspire us.”

Bluegill pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. It contained one word, printed in Sharpie: “Believe.”

“I believe,” said Bluegill. “Do you believe?”

“We believe,” said DeSoto and Vape, dutifully.

What they really believed was that if they didn’t deal with the lawyer effectively, they would be the next ones dosed.

30

Voices stirred Evergreen from sleep. At least she thought she’d been sleeping. She was no longer sure. Here, in the constant darkness, sleep and wakefulness were hard to divide. She stretched her arms and sat up on the floor pad, wrapping her blanket around her. As she moved her foot, the clink of the chain around her ankle rang out in the dark.

The chain. That damn chain.

No, that blessed chain. The chain that had opened her mind to new worlds.

At first, she didn’t understand why she was taken here. Why she was placed in this dark, cell-like chamber and chained to the floor like a medieval prisoner. She had been terrified, confused, defiant. What had she done to deserve such punishment? After all, she’d been a faithful servant to the cause. She’d performed every job assigned. Delivering product, collecting payment, promoting sales, donating her body as requested.

So why, among all the Children, had she been singled out for discipline?

It was only after she’d been chained in the dark for six meal deliveries that she realized she wasn’t being punished; she was being prepared. For transformation. She was a chosen one. The imprisonment of the body and deprivation of the senses were catalysts for the liberation of the mind and soul, she came to see, in the dark.

More insights had begun to flow, aided by the guided meditations pumped in on speaker. She realized that everything she had ever known about the world, literally everything—the greenness of grass, the wetness of water, the taste of curry—was a mental event. The mental events were all she’d ever experienced, not the world itself. There was no such thing as reality without a mind to perceive it—her mind. The entire world was a 3D model created by her mind. And she could change the rules if she wanted. The words of a spiritual guru she had followed years ago finally made sense to her: “You are not in the world; the world is in you.”

Here in the dark, all wisdom had come to her. Her gratitude for her captivity was boundless. Thank you, Papaji.

“Evergreen,” said a voice in the darkness.

A hand pulled the blindfold from her head, and then, in the still-dark room, she saw a pair of angelic figures, their features bottom-lit: a male and a female, wearing garlands of flowers around their heads and white, flowing tunics on their bodies. It was the couple called PJ and Dandelion, but in their purest, most essential form. The Dandelion-figure reached out a hand and said, “Come, it’s time for your Flowering. Papaji says you are ready.”

Evergreen dropped her blanket and felt the cool, damp air envelop her. The spirit couple, seeming to float on air, led her through a crumbling basement area, lighting the way with flashlights. They arrived at a metal door at the far end of the large, dank-smelling space.

The PJ spirit-figure pushed the door open and shone his flashlight within. Evergreen entered a small room with huge flat-screen monitors covering three walls. A reclining chair occupied the center. Dandelion ushered her into the chair, and she sat willingly. She was long past judging things as good or bad; her time in the dark had taught her radical acceptance. The PJ-spirit strapped her wrists and ankles, and finally her waist, to the chair. The two Flower Children spirits smiled and wafted out of the room, shutting the door and leaving Evergreen in inky blackness once again.

A single point of light appeared on the monitor in front of her. It seemed to jitter slightly. A voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once. It sounded distorted, processed in some way, but still remarkably beautiful.

“Evergreen,” said the electronically altered voice, “this is Papaji.” He was speaking directly to her! “You have struggled with your faith, but your struggles are over. We have been administering the sacred medicine to you, and your Flowering awaits. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You will soon be breaking new ground for the cause. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to look into the light and relax. Relax and surrender. Can you do that, Evergreen? Can you relax and surrender?”

“Yes.” She focused on the small, shimmering speck of light.

“Excellent. Look at the light, relax, and surrender. Relax and surrender.”

Evergreen let the small light fill her consciousness.

“I will tell you three more times to relax and surrender. Each time I say it, you will feel your resistance diminishing. On the third time, you will feel a switch flip inside you, and you will surrender all control to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” She wanted to surrender.

“Relax and surrender,” said the oddly distorted voice. She stared at the dot-sized light. “Relax and surrender.” Evergreen’s will was dissolving. She felt warmer and more receptive than ever before.

And then, on the third “Relax and surrender,” something clicked inside her, like a TV switching channels. She was suddenly on a whole new frequency.

“Evergreen, you are my spiritual pioneer, you are my new Abraham,” said Papaji. “Do you recall what I asked of Abraham, the original? I asked him to kill his firstborn son for me. Did Abraham resist or refuse?”

“No.”

“He did not. So great was his faith that he took up the knife and prepared himself to obey, even though he did not understand why. In the same way, I will ask you to do something your mind will not understand. But you will do it without question. The medicine you have been taking will give you new strength. Look at the light, Evergreen.”

Evergreen obeyed.

“Now you will see it multiplying.” She did. Specks of flickering light began to fill the screen and then spread out to the screens on either side of her. Within seconds, she was surrounded by billions of flashing, wiggling dots, like static on an old TV screen. “You are looking at the field of all possibility. Every scene in all creation—past, present, and future—is depicted here. You must simply learn to focus on the correct pixels. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to call forth from the chaos an image. The image you will see is a sign. The Johnson City, Tennessee, sign.” She had visited Johnson City numerous times, and she knew the sign he meant. She stared into the jumbling pixels, and an image began to emerge of the sixty-foot-tall “Johnson City, Tennessee” sign that towered over King Commons Park in the nearby city. Soon the image was as clear as a photograph—and just by looking at the right pixels!

The voice of Papaji advised her that soon she would visit Johnson City, bringing along her climbing gear—rock climbing was an old passion of hers—and a backpack containing a jug of gasoline, a lighter, a megaphone, and a cheerleading costume. When she saw the Johnson City sign, the voice told her, she would feel compelled to follow the instructions he would provide, even if they seemed senseless and suicidal.

“You will be protected, Evergreen. This is a test of your faith. No harm will come to you—if you obey me and act with unquestioning faith. Like Abraham. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“This is your Flowering, your transformation. You will emerge from this chrysalis a new being. Are you prepared to Flower?”

“Thy will be done, Papaji.”

“Amen, Evergreen, amen. Now go forth and meet your destiny.”

31

As Zane stepped outside for his morning run, he wasn’t surprised to see Rosa Sanchez’s name pop up on his phone, but he was surprised by what she had to say.

“I visit my son yesterday,” she said in a funereal tone. “And he tell me some things.”

“What kind of things, Mrs. Sanchez?”

“Bad things. Very bad. Things I don’t repeat to no one. But now I think, Mr. Zane, that my son maybe not so innocent. Maybe this thing you do, this pod-case—”

“Podcast.”

“Podcast… is not such a good idea. Maybe you stop now.”

“Mrs. Sanchez, I’ve been working hard on this investigation. Other people have too. We’re fighting to prove your son’s innocence. We want to help your family.”

“You don’t know everything.”

“Then tell me what I don’t know.”

“I don’t speak these things. No way, Mr. Zane. Joel still my son, and I still love him. But I think maybe I go back to Richmond now. Me and Kaia. And maybe you stop what you do.”

She ended the call.

Leon Bates smiled beneath his wide-brimmed hat as I approached the woodshed where he was staked out. His eyes were so bright with welcome, it took me a few seconds to notice that his left foot and calf were encased in plaster. He used a crutch to lift himself to standing.

“I come bearing caffeinated gifts,” I said, then looked down at his injured foot. “What’s that all about?”

“Hairline fracture of the first phalange,” he said by rote. “I could tell you how it happened, but then I’d have to kill you.” He flashed a grin, blushing slightly.

Changing the subject, Bates pointed at a phone mounted on a tripod behind a telephoto lens. He limped toward it. “Was it H. L. Mencken or P. T. Barnum who said, ‘Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people’? Look at this genius.” On the five-inch phone screen, a man in a yellow shirt was crouching to adjust a lawn sprinkler. “Collecting worker’s comp for a job injury and suing his employer for five hundred large, but he prances around his yard in neon-yellow Spandex and goes for a bike ride every morning.”

I knew from my earlier phone conversation with Leon that he was now working—temporarily, he assured me—as an investigator for a private agency. Mostly insurance fraud cases. Today, he’d installed himself in this old woodshed on a hillside near Greenville to surveil a house about a quarter mile away. Though he was no longer a law officer, he still looked and played the part, even down to the sheriff’s-style cowboy hat he continued to wear.

“Haven’t seen much of you,” he said, appraising me up and down, “since you were a guest in my house.” He was referring, of course, to my brief stint in the Washington County jail. As sheriff at the time, the jail had been his fiefdom. “How the hell are you, Jack?”

“Not bad, Mr. Bates. You?”

“It’s Leon, please. And I’m pretty good, employment situation and orthopedic status notwithstanding.”

He nodded toward a pair of wooden crates. He hobbled toward one and lowered himself onto it, using the crutch for support. I sat on the other and handed him one of the coffees I’d brought. He nodded his thanks.

Leon went on to explain that although his new job was a far cry from his former high-profile elected position, it suited him for the moment. He was able to work independently and was still, in a sense, catching bad guys. “Keeps me out of trouble. But I don’t mind telling you, I’m itching to get behind a badge again before my working days are over.”

“You will, Leon,” I assured him. “There’s no such thing as a career-ending mistake anymore.”

“Easy for you to say. You weren’t dumb enough to be caught on video in nothing but your cowboy boots and a bad attitude. But I hope you’re right. And I hope I can help you today, young Mr. Dillard.”

“There’s no way this conversation can continue until you tell me what happened there,” I said, motioning to Leon’s injured limb. “I’m willing to accept the risk of death.”

He sighed and shook his head, but a glint of humor shone in his eyes. “Perils of the trade, you might say. Couple weeks ago, I was doing a ‘trap and snap’ for a lady up in Kingston. You know: follow the husband and get shots of him and the mistress wearin’ out the warranty on a Sealy Posturepedic.” He took a sip of coffee, cooling it through pursed lips. “Well, I tailed the lovestruck duo from the Whiskey Business saloon out on Longs Bend Pike to her private abode in Church Hill. But it wasn’t church this pair was interested in. Nope, clothing quickly became optional, and soon they were bunny-hoppin’ their way to the boudoir.” He studied the steam from his coffee, as if letting the scene form in his mind. “Now… it happened that the windows on that side of the house were a tad high, even for a man of my stature, so I was faced with a choice: fetch my stepladder, in which case I might miss the magic moment, or avail myself of the shoulders of the garden gnome standing guard nearby…”

He sipped coffee again, milking the moment.

“And…” I drank from my own cup, awaiting the finale.

“Let’s just say, it was not a load-bearing gnome.”

I burst into laughter, spraying coffee on my pants and shoes.

“Tell another living soul that story and you are a marked man.” The smile then fell away from his face and his eyes homed in on mine. It was time for business.

“So, I understand you’ve been peeking under some rocks over in Madison County.”

“Maybe a pebble or two,” I owned, wiping my shoe with a napkin.

“Well, I need you to know, Jack, you’re poking around in a grizzly’s den. I still keep my antennas up, and I still talk to my contacts in the local counties, even over in the Tar Heel state.”

“And?”

“Over the last few years, the local drug scene has changed in a huge way. A wave of new product has been flowing out of the mountains. I’m not talking about some backcountry meth chef with a Bunsen burner and a sack of Sudafed from the local CVS. I’m talking a multimillion-dollar operation.”

Multimillion? I had no idea we were dealing with an operation of that scale.

“They don’t supply just the hill country—though there’s no shortage of customers there—but also some of the major cities. Knoxville, Charlotte, Nashville. Word is, they’re primed to go regional, even national. The source is someone they call—”

“The Chef?”

“You’ve heard of him? Well, here’s something you may not have heard. Friend of mine up in Washington thinks he might be ex-CIA. Black-ops type.”

“What kind of black ops?”

“What kind indeed. Rumor has it he led some kind of off-the-books operation that did human research on psychoactive drugs. Potential weaponization and whatnot. Things got out of hand, had to be shut down. And now it seems he may have resurfaced as a freelancer. Doing ‘creative R&D’ in the recreational drug world. He has a small team that moves the stuff locally, but he’s also got a powerful distribution partner who gets it out into the cities. They don’t always see eye to eye, these ‘pardners,’ but they’ve got two things in common: they’re both utterly soulless and they don’t play by the old rules.”

“So I’m learning.” I nodded somberly. “Do you know anything about a batch of ‘new and improved’ synthetic cathinones that’s been making the rounds?”

“What about ’em?”

“Are they his? The Chef’s? Do you know if they’re connected to the rash of bizarre incidents around Unicoi County that have been keeping the police hopping?”

“That’s what my sources think. He likes to experiment with new formulas, using his customers as his lab rats.” He paused to sip his coffee thoughtfully. “I can only imagine, Lord help us, what’ll happen if that jumped-up stuff gets loose on the streets of Charlotte or Nashville.”

I could only imagine too.

No one answered when Charlie knocked on the front door of the coral-pink bungalow in Banner Hill.

“Sage? It’s Charlie,” she called out. No reply.

That was when Charlie noticed the absence of the plastic sandbox that previously sat beside the house. No brightly colored toys lay scattered about.

She went to the back door and knocked again. “Sage? I need to talk to you.”

Empty silence.

Charlie shielded her eyes against the sun and peered in the kitchen window. The furniture was gone. The house was empty. All that remained was a scraggly broom, leaning on the wall near a pile of sweepings. An old lottery scratch ticket topped the pile.

Charlie had barely begun to drive away when a text came in from Aden Anderson—inmates at Unicoi County Jail were allowed to rent “chirper” devices by which they could exchange text messages with approved contacts in the outside world.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Story, but I need to terminate our relationship. I’m going with a new lawyer. He’s not as pretty as you but he makes things easier for me in here, if you know what I mean. Thanks and don’t forget me.”

It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. Someone had gotten to Anderson too. Pressured him into switching to an “approved” attorney. The question was, approved by whom? Who had gotten to him? Jonathan Jenkins? He made no secret of his animosity toward Charlie and his desire to see his dead son portrayed as an innocent victim. No doubt, he had the power and influence to infiltrate a county jail and get a message—or payoff—to Aden Anderson: lose the crusading lawyer. Or was it the drug operation that had gotten to Aden? To stop Dillard Law from snooping around?

And what about the final line of Anderson’s text: Thanks and don’t forget me. Was that mere sentimentality, or was it a hidden plea?

Whatever the answers to these questions, Charlie felt doubly motivated to track down her cousin Sage and talk to her.

32

When Lieutenant Robert Black saw Dreddy Eddy walking away from Bluegill’s “tree house,” he pulled off the road and parked in the shade of a hickory tree.

Weird little freak, he thought as he watched Eddy bobbing up the road, talking to himself in angry bursts.

He waited till Eddy was gone, then drove past the rundown novelty house to an empty barn about seventy yards down the road. He parked inside it, as always. No sense advertising his presence to the whole world. Then he walked toward Bluegill’s house. How do you live and work in a place that looks like it was built for Keebler elves? he thought for the hundredth time.

He stepped up to the oval-shaped door with the peeling red paint, knocked once and announced, “Gill, it’s Thursday.”

Zane, Charlie, and I did a three-way call after our various morning excursions. We had an avalanche of new developments to discuss since we’d last met as a team. Zane’s car had been vandalized. I had been drugged, as Phil Cyr’s lab had confirmed this morning on quick turnaround. Joel Sanchez was suddenly claiming guilt, outright, and telling his mother to cancel her crusade to save him. The Chef was emerging as a more powerful figure than we’d realized. And we’d learned Bluegill served as his right-hand man, or at least his local distributor. Not to mention the new developments in the Anderson case. It was a lot to process.

I decided it was time I met this Bluegill guy. So that’s where Zane and I were headed.

“Have you thought about what you’re getting yourself into?” I asked Zane as a hanging branch on the overgrown road brushed my car.

“Thinking is overrated.”

“I’m serious.”

“Of course I have, Jack.”

“No. I mean, really thought about it. How far are you willing to go with this? How much danger are you willing to put yourself in? It’s one thing to ruffle a few feathers with a student newspaper, it’s another thing to provoke a major drug dealer who seems to have a low tolerance for snooping and an obsession with altering the brains of those who cross him. If we continue to ignore the warnings, things will escalate. Trust me, the Dillard family has seen more than our share of this kind of thing. What’s this worth to you? Are you willing to get hurt? Or worse?”

He pulled in a long, shaky breath. “Are you?”

Was I indeed? I had a family now. There was still time to pull the plug on both of these potentially lethal, financial-dead-end cases and come up with a safer way of salvaging Dillard Law. Ads on bus stops, say.

“Let’s just see where this next conversation takes us,” I answered.

I pulled up where Zane pointed. Bluegill’s house looked like something out of an abandoned Middle Earth-themed amusement park. Maybe I should have brought my Anduril sword along.

Bluegill was surprisingly welcoming. Not only did he invite us in to chat by the fire, but he also offered us tea, which we politely declined. From him? No, thanks. Bluegill presented himself just as Zane had described—flighty, nervous, and off-kilter. He was pale and thin with bad skin, his hair raked to one side of his head. His endless stream of babble showed flashes of genius but also of some kind of brain impairment—maybe from drugs or maybe from the head injury he’d reportedly had years ago. Or both.

He freely acknowledged being a recreational drug user but denied any involvement in the drug trade beyond occasionally “matchmaking members of the local citizenry with compatible chemical partners, as a public service.”

When I told him that the red-feathered Flower Child had identified him as a major player, he laughed. “Those of conspiratorial constitution see manitou where mere mice have tread. I am but a humble rodent, not a colossal cryptid, alas.”

I mentally translated what he said. He was claiming to be small potatoes.

Round and round we went—with him denying serious involvement and waxing on about “the marvelous mythmaking masses” and “storytellers stymied by the stubbornness of fact”—until I began to feel I was being played by someone cagier than he was letting on. My head was already pulsing with pressure. I finally stood up and glared down at him, letting my six-foot-two-inch frame do its job.

“Here’s what I think,” I said. “I think you’re playing a shell game with us. You’re great at ducking and dodging behind the word salad, playing crazy, but I think underneath it you’re a dutiful employee. Or should I say devotee. I know more about your boss than you think I do.”

“Perhaps you only think you know more. I believe it was Marcus of Twain who said, ‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.’”

“I know that people call him by various names—Papaji, for those who regard him as some kind of guru; the Man of the Mountains; or my personal favorite, The Chef.”

At this, Bluegill sprang out of his chair and began pacing back and forth like a bobcat in a cage.

“If you’re wise, both of you, and you value your tiny lives and pebble-sized brains, you won’t go tossing that name around.” No clever wordplay this time. Back and forth he paced. “I’ll tell you something, if you promise not to use it in your podcast or tell anyone where you heard it.”

I glanced at Zane, and we nodded our agreement at Bluegill.

“It’s true,” he said at last. “I made the mistake of… aligning myself with this individual, before I knew who, or what, he was. And now, it seems, I am powerless to escape him. I just do as I’m ordered.” Back and forth, back and forth. “This is a man without a center, gentlemen. If you met him on the street—and perhaps you already have—you might not guess his true nature. But when you see him without the mask, his… emptiness will steal the breath from your lungs. Believe me when I tell you this: it will be a… cataclysmic mistake for all of us, myself included, if he begins to suspect you are making real trouble for him. Please, please believe me.”

I actually did. And so, it came as a surprise, even to myself, when I stepped in front of him, impeding his pacing, and said, “Someone has been sending us messages. Threats. I believe it’s your ‘master,’ and I need you to get a message to him.”

“I’m not his messenger boy. In fact, he doesn’t even let me—”

“Tell him if he sends anyone to my house again, or threatens or harms me or my family or my friends…” The words were pouring out of me, and I was powerless to stop them. Once again, I knew how my father must have felt a hundred times in his life, when his anger and righteousness hijacked his reason. “… that I will demolish his entire enterprise. And I will track him down personally and rewire his brain with my bare hands.”

Zane jumped to his feet, looking pale, and eye-signaled me toward the exit. He wanted to get me out the door before I dug us in any deeper.

Probably a wise idea, all things considered. I followed Zane out, slamming the door behind me for emphasis.

“What the hell was that?” Zane whispered as we marched toward my car. “I thought we were just going to ‘see where this conversation leads us.’”

“Well…”

“Well, what?”

“That’s where it led us.”

Bubba Black waited until Dillard’s car had been gone for a full two minutes, then drove his Challenger out of the barn.

33

Charlie had a pretty good idea where to look for her cousin Sage. Wytheville, Virginia.

Charlie’s mother, born Ruth Ann Wheeler, hailed from a town in West Virginia called Mount Hope. An ironic name, since Charlie had never mounted much hope regarding her absentee mother. It was only when Sage McBain walked into her office that she discovered she had cousins. Mom, it turned out, had a sister, who still lived in Mount Hope. The two sisters had been estranged most of their lives. But that sister had a pair of daughters, Sage and Dahlia.

After having found Sage’s home vacated, Charlie had called the newly discovered aunt, and the two had a brief, but unexpectedly warm, conversation. Charlie learned that Sage was likely staying with her sister. Dahlia lived in Wytheville, Virginia, about a ninety-minute drive north of Johnson City.

As Charlie headed up I-81, she felt a mix of nerves and excitement about possibly meeting another cousin. Along with Sage, this Dahlia gal was her closest living relative besides her mother, whom she hadn’t seen since her dad’s death. Although Charlie had told herself a thousand times that she didn’t care about her birth family, meeting Sage had changed that. She realized there was something within her—some dormant piece of her soul—that did crave family connection like a seed craves sunlight. She was worried about Sage in a deeper way than she’d realized, and she felt there were stakes at play she didn’t fully understand.

After following the interstate into Virginia for about an hour, she found herself on a narrow road that wound through hills and pastureland, around ponds and old trees. When she parked at her destination, a well-kept red farmhouse and barn with a sign that read “Reed Creek Goat Dairy and Farm Store,” she was surprised to see a blonde woman in overalls march out of the house wielding a shotgun.

Charlie stepped out of the car and raised her hands as if to say, “I come in peace.” When the two women got a closer look at each other, their heads pulled back in surprise. The family resemblance was so strong, they could have been twins.

“Charleston?”

“You must be Dahlia.”

“It’s good to finally meet you, cousin, but if you’re looking for Sage—which I’m guessing you are—she’s not ‘taking visitors’ just now.”

“I’m not here to make trouble for her or to talk her into doing anything. I’m just here because… well, she’s family. I’m concerned about her.”

Dahlia lowered the shotgun. “Well, I guess that’s an acceptable reason.”

As Charlie followed her cousin through the nicely appointed farmhouse that looked like something out of Magnolia magazine, she marveled at how siblings raised the same way could wind up in such different life circumstances.

Charlie found Sage in the barn, feeding the goats. “You’re looking at the stupidest human being God ever planted on this Earth,” Sage said without a greeting. She then sat on a goat-milking stand, her shoulders slumped. “The girls are napping—guess you and me can talk.” Charlie sat beside her.

Charlie expected to work harder to get the truth out of Sage, but her cousin seemed primed for a soul-baring. “I shouldn’t be talking about this, but you’re family, and now that you’re off Aden’s case, I guess we have less to fear.”

A goat bleated in a way that sounded like laughter. Doubt crossed Sage’s face.

“Whatever you tell me, Sage, stays between us.”

Sage glanced at the goats, then hung her head and looked down at the hay-strewn floorboards. “After LeRoy got shot, his pa come to see me.”

“Jonathan Jenkins? The almighty one himself?”

“He was all, ‘Bless you, child,’ and ‘I’m sorry for the loss of your little girl’s daddy. She’s my sweet granddaughter and she deserves better.’ He put his hand on my shoulder and said I should leave Banner Hill and start a new life and that he would help me. He gave me fifteen grand, and he said more would be coming, once I resettled somewhere else with the girls. He was all fired up about this idea that I should leave Unicoi County and start a ‘better life.’ I didn’t understand it was an order, not a suggestion. I didn’t know the money he gave me had conditions. I thought it was just a gift.”

“Wait, are you telling me… you took Jonathan Jenkins’ money and used it to hire a lawyer to defend the man who shot his son?”

“I told you: stupidest person on Earth.”

Charlie didn’t comment. “What happened when he found out?”

“He come to see me again, a’course. And he was none too tickled.”

“I can imagine.”

“He told me I misunderstood the nature of the gift. But he was willing to give me one more chance. He would pay for my move and for a deposit on an apartment in some faraway state. And then he would send me more. Provided I agreed not to hire any more lawyers and that I ‘told the truth’ if I was asked to testify—that Aden murdered LeRoy in cold blood. And, cousin, that made my butt want to grind corn. I told him to go straight to hell in his stupid, sanctimonious, Colonel Sanders costume.”

“And what did he do?”

“He smiled that oily smile of his and turned tail. I ain’t heard a word from him since. But a couple days ago, the girls were playing in our little three-foot backyard, and I went to check on them.” Horror washed over her face, and her voice stuck in her throat. “They were gone. And a man was standing there, in a white suit, just like the one Jenkins always wears. Looked like Death’s hitman. He said, ‘Follow me.’ He led me out to the street, and he pointed to a big white car. I got in. There were two other men, dressed in white, in the car, and my two girls was sitting in the back seat, bawling their eyes out.”

The rest of the story poured out quickly. The man eventually released the girls from the car, handed Sage some cash, and told her she had better cooperate with “God’s plan” or else. The next morning, Sage pulled up stakes in Banner Hill.

As Charlie thought about the details of Sage’s story, she couldn’t get past the idea of how brave—or perhaps reckless—her cousin had been to take a Jenkins’ money and use it to defend a Jenkins’ killer.

“I’ll ask again, Sage. Why did you really hire me with that money? I’m guessing it’s not too often fifteen grand finds its way into your hands. Why would you spend most of it defending a man you don’t even like very much and putting yourself at risk?”

“Aden is Sadie’s father. And I was there when he shot LeRoy. He was defending me and the girls when he pulled that trigger. It just ain’t right that he goes to prison for that.”

“And so, when you hired me, you really were just ‘doing the right thing’?”

“People still do that every now and again.”

Charlie’s head spun with questions as she drove home from Wytheville. She knew there were connections between all the events happening to her and Jack, but the connective tissue was hidden beneath the surface. She couldn’t quite see it.

Her nerves were still raw from the encounter in the bathroom a couple of days earlier, though she downplayed her worry for Jack. She didn’t want him playing the overprotective male and reining her in. But ever since the incident, her reflexes had been on a hair trigger.

She surveyed her car’s entertainment center. She was too keyed up to listen to an audiobook, so she turned on the car radio and sampled her way through the stations. When she hit on a national weather station, she paused on it for no conscious reason. The announcer was talking about a tropical storm, Caroline, mounting to hurricane status as it tracked its way through the Caribbean toward the Gulf of Mexico, around the western tip of Cuba.

A tremor of anxiety moved through her, as if she herself were somehow in the storm’s track.

“It’s expected to reach Category 1 status shortly,” said the announcer, “and by the time it reaches landfall in Florida’s Panhandle, the storm could be a Category 4.”

Feels like a metaphor for my life.

Charlie grasped the wheel more tightly.

It didn’t occur to her, in that moment, that the approaching storm not only shared a name with her late mother-in-law but was also on a near-collision course with the Cayman Islands.

34

Ifelt the “ping” the second I stepped into Granny’s diner.

It was a term I’d picked up from Susan Stoneman. Stony claimed a good investigator often gets a powerful intuition, almost a sixth-sense thing, when working a case. The “ping” was the best tool a detective had, she said.

I kept that in mind as I approached the take-out counter, eyeing the two ponytailed guys in the orange SunCity Solar uniforms.

My aunt Sarah had remodeled her restaurant a year ago. It still had its large room full of tables where servers hustled eggs and grits, but she had turned the other end into a Starbucks-like operation where you could order mixed coffee drinks to go or sit at a small table and work your laptop while sipping a macchiato.

Sticking to my usual Granny’s routine, I ordered two takeout coffees—I liked the standard drip stuff, but Charlie enjoyed a cinnamon spice latte—and went and sat at a table. While the coffees were being made, I looked at emails on my phone.

It was a pre-office ritual I usually found comforting. Not this morning.

For the last few days, I’d been getting a feeling of being followed. And then, when I entered Granny’s and saw the two SunCity workers sitting at a table, the ping hit me like a cattle prod.

I kept one eye on the long-haired pair and one eye on my phone.

When Molly, the young barista, called out “Jack,” instinct took over. Instead of rushing to grab my order, I stayed put. One of the two SunCity guys—the redhaired one—jumped up and went to the pick-up counter. He grabbed my coffees and whisked them to the cream-and-sugar station. A few seconds later, he turned around and said, “Whoops, wrong order,” and returned my drinks to the counter.

As I went to claim my order, SunCity ginger flashed me an apologetic smile. I probed his eyes and saw something lizard-like behind the facade.

“Thanks, Molls,” I said, dropping a bill into the tip jar and taking my drinks.

I returned to my car, drove half a block away, did a U-turn, and parked.

The two SunCity guys were already exiting Granny’s. I had a pretty good guess where they were heading next. I waited till they got into their blue Ford Transit and followed them at a distance. Sure enough, they drove straight to our office area. They parked in a dirt lot behind a florist shop kitty-corner from our building. A perfect spot to stake me out.

I decided to complicate their plans. I pulled quickly into the dirt lot and parked behind their vehicle like crossing a T.

It would be two of them against one of me. But having sized them up, I liked my odds.

I exited my car and approached the driver’s side of their van, holding the take-out coffee tray. I knocked on the window of the Transit, even though I knew they’d seen me approach. The redhaired guy at the wheel feigned surprise and rolled the window down.

“I think you guys forgot your order,” I said, with a big, fake smile.

They studied my face, trying to figure out if I was screwing with them or actually doing a good deed, like some misguided Boy Scout.

“Dude, that’s not our order,” said Red Ponytail, playing innocent.

“Sure it is,” I replied, still giving them my phony smile. “You fixed it up just the way you like it. I saw you.”

Their eyes said they knew I was on to them.

“And I think…” I reached the cup of regular coffee toward him, “…that you should drink it. Right now.”

Red Ponytail looked at me with ice in his glare.

“Come on, drink it,” I said. “And then tell me if it’s good to the last drop.”

He reached for the window button but then shot his fist out the window, lightning fast. The cup of coffee exploded from the blow, coating my neck and chest in scalding liquid. The pain stunned me for a second. Long enough for him to grab something from the seat.

A pop-crack sound fired off inside the vehicle, and I felt the sting of twin electric darts embedding in my chest and a simultaneous explosion of pain.

A grunt flew from my mouth, and my brain had time for one thought only—“Taser”—before I hit the ground. The coffee tray landed in front of my eyes, and I went out cold.

35

Jack, time and date uncertain

The rock-hard floor and the smell of moldy concrete told me I was in trouble before I glimpsed a thing. The weight of a chain around my ankle confirmed it. My eyelids were sealed shut with rheum, but I managed to wrench them open. For a moment I thought I’d lost my eyesight, but then I realized I was in a pitch-dark room. Damp, cool. A cellar of some kind.

I tried to rub my eyes, but my hands were tied behind my back. As I attempted to sit up, my head throbbed and my hip ached. I felt weak, dizzy, disoriented. But I finally made it to a sitting position on my third try. Thirst hit me like a desert wind.

“Awareness dawns!” said a voice from an unseen amplifier. The voice was electronically altered to make it sound echoey and otherworldly. I couldn’t even tell if it was male or female. “That precious moment when we first awaken, and all seems possible. Before the ego takes us hostage for the day.” A small laugh and a pause. “Welcome to the Institute for the Advancement of Human Consciousness. Or so I like to call it. Unofficially, of course.”

I wanted to ask the obvious—Who are you? Where am I? What am I doing here?—but I sensed the futility of hurling questions. I doubted my vocal cords would even function.

“You and I are going to learn so much from each other,” the electronically processed voice said in the darkness. “I’m beyond excited. Are you?”

I unfurled my lengthiest finger behind me.

“I can see and hear you perfectly clearly, Mr. Dillard, thanks to the miracle of infrared technology. So, let’s have an understanding. If you treat me with respect, I will return the favor. If not, well…” The echoey voice tapered off. “Now, I suggest you make yourself comfortable—as comfortable as possible, given the circumstances—while I explain a few details.”

I remained immobile on the dank floor. Every cell in my body screamed with thirst. As if sensing my plight, the voice said, “We’ll discuss food and beverage options in a moment, but first the basics: Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your spiritual perspective—you will be our guest for a while. It was not my intention to put you in this position. Believe it or not, I find strong-arm tactics a bit primitive. But you forced my hand, now here we are. How long do we plan to keep you? The heart of our mutual dilemma. You see, we cannot release you now, at least in your current state of mind, because you would surely switch from a nuisance to an actual problem. And so…” Long, reverb-enhanced sigh. “We’ll be holding you until such time as we’re certain you’re no longer a threat.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, my throat sticky with dehydration.

“Patience. All will unfold in time. You might notice yourself feeling a bit weak and lightheaded. I imagine thirst is kicking in.” He gave me a moment to respond. I said nothing. “That’s because we… borrowed a bit of your blood. A liter or so, about fifteen percent of your total supply. Not enough to cause long-term damage but enough to put you in a state of rather intense craving. For hydration and nourishment. And now, here’s the fantastic news. Fresh water and food await, in ample supply. Today’s special is hot chicken soup, perfect for restoring sodium balance after blood loss. The less-fantastic news, for you, is that the entire food and water supply has been… chemically enhanced.”

Laced with drugs.

“We have the makings of a classic psychological experiment here,” the altered voice continued in the dark. “Your body will crave the food and drink—with a survival imperative—and yet your mind will fear and loathe the psychoactive substance. How will you behave? Sort of like rats in a Skinner box who get an electric shock with each food pellet.”

Rage made my skin flush hot as I processed the scenario my captor was laying out.

“And yet, as fascinating as that part of the experiment will no doubt be, there is an even more intriguing question to be answered…”

I made a futile attempt to wriggle from my bindings.

“How malleable will your mind become once you begin consuming the drugs with regularity—as you inevitably will? You see, counselor…” The voice paused dramatically. This guy’s theatrics were already wearing thin. He sounded like he’d watched too many movies with “monologuing” villains. “You present a unique opportunity for me. Unlike the drug-addled Flower Children and desperate street users who are my usual subjects, you’re an alpha male with powerful ego strength. What will it take to break a mind like yours, and can I then make it responsive to ‘suggestion’? I’m more than a little eager to find out.”

“What’s your endgame?” I inquired, aiming my cracked voice into the empty space.

“Truthfully? I don’t know. That’s what makes it exciting. If you’re asking what my purpose is, I already told you. Mutual learning. I hope to gain invaluable data from you. And on your end… Oh, Mr. Jackson Dillard, I’m almost jealous when I think of the worlds of enlightenment that await you.”

“What are you talking about?” My eyes had adjusted to the dark a bit by now. I could see the outline of the chain around my ankle, secured with a bolt. It was wrapped around a floor-to-ceiling support beam. Metal and concrete rubble lay everywhere, and I could smell rotten wood, which told me the building above this old basement was long abandoned. I could only imagine what sort of “enlightenment” could occur in a place like this.

“Do you know what the most destructive force on Earth is?” said the electronically enhanced voice. I surmised, by now, it was that of The Chef. “Hint: it’s not hurricanes or earthquakes.” The voice paused, as if for my response. “It’s humanity’s ego—hypnotized by the illusion of its own knowledge, permanence, and power. We humans have glimpsed point-zero-zero-zero-zero-one percent of the universe’s secrets. And yet we arrogantly proclaim our certainties. Entire nations go to war because of the certainties of one man’s mind and the strength of one man’s ego. What we call sanity is the set of illusions harbored by the average twenty-year-old, while those who pierce the veil of illusion are labeled dangerous and insane.

“Now… do you know what the greatest discovery in history has been, Mr. Dillard? Hint: it’s not electricity or the wheel.” Another pause. “It’s the realization, by a handful of spiritual masters and visionary physicists, that beyond the ‘veil of Maya’—the human mind’s illusions—lies a field of consciousness that is actually all-knowing, that is actually permanent, that is actually infinitely powerful. And we mortals can access that field by annihilating the ego. That is my life’s purpose, Mr. Dillard. I’m in the business of annihilating the human ego. Through chemistry. Are you excited yet?”

PART III

36

Three years earlier

Aurora awoke with the mother, grandmother, and godmother of all hangovers. Her limbs were spread indelicately across the threadbare sofa, and she still wore the wraparound skirt and tank top she’d had on last night. The inside of her mouth felt like it had been dried with a dirty rag. Pulses of pain pounded her skull. When she tried to move her left leg, pins and needles shot through numb muscle-meat. The whole leg had fallen asleep.

She sat up on the sofa and massaged her calf and thigh. What had gone down last night? Her brain felt injected with corn syrup.

Images bombarded her mind like old flashbulb shots—Dreddy Eddy laughing, Dreddy Eddy grimacing in rage, three Flower Children—all men—standing in her doorway with furtive, hungry expressions on their faces.

What stupid thing did you do last night, Aurora?

She placed her bare feet down on the old orange shag rug and rubbed her thigh some more with both hands, trying to reawaken the nerves.

Uh-oh. Why wasn’t she wearing underpants?

Think. A clammy soreness in her groin and a telltale scent in the air told her sex had taken place. But with whom? And under what circumstances?

What stupid, regrettable thing did you do last night because you were too wasted to make good decisions? Think, Aurora, think.

She remembered getting a text from Bluegill early in the evening. Where was her phone now? Ah, there it was—half under the armchair. The text, received at 6:05 p.m., read: The Man has “rare edition” batch ready to sample. Wants it beta tested. U up 4 it?

And her own texted reply: Y not?

Because what smart, mature, self-caring woman doesn’t volunteer to test a new batch of home-cooked drugs?

The story Aurora had been telling herself and others since she moved to Shanti Springs—that she was just an occasional recreational user—was running on fumes. And she knew it. Soon she would have to face the truth. Very soon.

Bluegill’s final text from the night before: Sending the Dredd-man to your place with the product. Enjoy. (Boss will want detailed reports!)

She was getting sloppy too. Being seen with questionable characters more and more often. Leaving a record of her communications. What if Joel decided to go after her as an unfit mother? What if she got into serious trouble with the law? Her relationship with Lieutenant Black—her ace in the hole—would only protect her so much. She needed to rein in her behavior, start being more careful.

No, she needed to straighten out. Period. Get clean and sober.

And starting next week, she planned to do just that.

So what had happened last night? She remembered Eddy coming by around eight or nine, armed with the sample product. They did some drinking and popped the liquid-filled capsules. Bluish in color. Had she even asked Eddy what they were?

The rest of the evening was a blur. She remembered feeling blissful and expansive. Talking too much. She remembered, later on, having trouble using her hands. Dropping things. Slurring her words. She remembered sliding off the sofa onto the floor.

She remembered being held down and someone kneeling on her shoulders.

She remembered trying to scream. And someone shoving a pillow into her face.

And then trying to scream again. And trying. And trying.

Present day

Where was Jack? Charlie had seen his 4Runner parked in the back lot, but he wasn’t in his office or anywhere else in the building. He’d left the house early and told her he would meet her here after he’d ensured the office building was safe from intruders.

She wasn’t concerned about his absence, not at first. She figured he must have gone out on a walking errand. Maybe he went down to Granny’s for coffee. She wished he had left a note though. The Dillards didn’t need any more reasons to worry these days.

Abby had accompanied her to the office today—she’d woken up with painful cramps and asked to stay out of school. Charlie acquiesced but didn’t feel safe leaving her home alone right now, so here she was.

“You can use the conference room to do your schoolwork.”

Half an hour after mother and daughter settled in, there was still no sign of Jack. Did he have an appointment this morning? Maybe Zane had picked him up and they’d gone to Shanti Springs together? But why wouldn’t he have left a note or sent a text?

She texted him. The message turned green instead of the usual blue. She called him. Straight to voicemail.

“Still no word from Jack?” Abby asked, poking her head out of the undersized conference room.

“No, but I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon.”

Charlie didn’t start to fret for real until she looked out at the back lot again. That was when it struck her: his car was angled sloppily within its parking space, overlapping the painted line. Jack habitually parked in the center of a parking space so that cars on either side could open their doors. It was a small thing but telling.

Either he’d been in a distracted state of mind when he parked…

Or he wasn’t the one who parked the car.

Charlie’s heart played a drum triplet.

She dug her key to Jack’s Toyota out of her purse and went out and opened the car. No sign of anything unusual. A balled-up paper lay in the console cupholder. She un-balled it. A receipt for a regular coffee and a cinnamon latte from Granny’s.

Bought less than ninety minutes earlier.

If Jack had gone somewhere with a client or Zane, he would have left Charlie’s latte on her desk. This was more than odd. This was starting to scare her.

She tried reaching her husband by phone again. No luck.

“Everything okay?” Abby asked, leaning out of the conference room again.

“Fine, sweetie. Just wishing Jack—um, Dad—had texted me his whereabouts.”

Charlie phoned Zane. No, he hadn’t heard from Jack today.

Fear began to mount. But Charlie reminded herself to play it cool for Abby. There was no reason for anyone to worry. Yet.

Jack—time and date uncertain

Icouldn’t keep track of time, even in a general way. Not surprising, I supposed, considering I was chained in the dark, alone, with nothing to do and no one to talk to. What really worried me, though, was that I couldn’t hold a simple train of thought. To keep my mind sharp, I’d been playing memory games, such as mentally reciting all fifty states and their capitals, but now I was inventing whole new cities. My brain was playing tricks, and I hadn’t consumed an ounce of dosed food or drink yet.

Dehydration. As an athlete who’d played summer sports for years, I knew dehydration could cause confusion and muddled thinking.

It seemed I was doomed to lose my mind one way or the other, either through dehydration or by consuming my captor’s drugged water. The latter option, of course, was the inevitable choice I would need to make. If I wanted to live, I would need to drink.

My only real choice, therefore, was whether to ask for water sooner or later. If I waited, my mental and physical condition would continue to worsen. If I asked for water now, the drugs would steal my ability to think straight at all.

The devil or the deep blue sea.

But as I thought about it, the choice became clearer. The longer I remained dehydrated, the more compromised my brain would become. And then, when drugged at last, the drugs would be striking an already weakened brain.

Conclusion: ask for water sooner, rather than later. Get it over with.

And then what? What was my plan for dealing with a dose of powerful hallucinogenic drugs in my system? Was there any way to combat the effect of the brain chemicals?

Had I learned anything from my previous two dosings? A little, maybe. I had discovered there was a core of consciousness that remained untouched by the drugs. Several times during my previous episodes, I had been able to step back and observe my thought process from a clearer place. It wasn’t easy, but with effort it was possible.

I recalled a coach in college, a part-time theology professor, who taught me that the heart had its own center of awareness, steadier and more reliable than that of the head. He gave me a technique whereby before a big game, I would visualize shifting my “center” from my head to my chest and anchoring it there. It helped me stay confident and focused when I was at the plate in critical situations.

Maybe that technique could work now. Stay with the heart, not the head.

And maybe, if I could hang on to my center, despite whatever the drugs were trying to do to me, I could outwit my captor in some way. It was a tall ask, but it was a goal to aim for.

“Water,” I spoke into the darkness. “Please.”

37

“Idon’t care how busy you are,” the man at the desk spoke into his phone through clenched teeth. “I want you to look at the video right now. It’s going viral before my eyes. Two hundred forty-nine thousand views!”

The man hit Play and watched the video for the twentieth time. The footage was shot from a phone camera. A young woman, dressed in a knockoff Dallas Cowboys cheerleader costume, stood atop the apex of the Johnson City, Tennessee, sign in downtown JC. “Up here!” she shouted through a megaphone. “Up here, everyone! On top of the sign!” When the crowd’s attention had settled on her, she doused herself with liquid—gasoline, presumably—from a plastic detergent bottle. She then lit herself on fire, and dove, headfirst, from the towering sign. The camera followed the sixty-foot descent of the human fireball. The view of the impact was blocked by onlookers running for safety. But the shockingly loud smack of a body hitting pavement, followed by shrieks of horror, told the story more vividly than any image.

“This has gone too far, way too damn far,” said the man at the desk. “It stops here. Now. Today. Indicate that you hear me and understand.”

“It stops when our goal has been accomplished,” replied the unemotional voice on the phone—that of the man some called The Chef. “And that will be my decision. Not yours.”

“Our goal is to sell products to as many pathetic junkies as possible,” the man at the desk replied, fighting to keep his voice low. “Without going to prison.”

“Then do your job,” The Chef said. He sounded as if he was chewing food, slowly and methodically. “Make this go away.”

“Make it go away? I’m your distribution partner, not a magician. There are limits to what I can do. First of all, this incident happened in Johnson City. Washington County. Not Unicoi, where I have my strongest… sphere of influence. What did I tell you when we discussed this?”

“I may not have been listening. That sometimes happens when you speak.”

“Then let me spell it out for you. I agreed to let you use Unicoi County as a testing ground for some of your new ‘formulations’ because I understand the need for R&D. Also, because weird drug behavior doesn’t cause too much of a ripple here. And if and when it does, I can pull a few levers and keep mouths shut. Within reason. But now you’re stepping outside county lines, and the ‘incidents’ are getting out of control. Way out.”

A low, almost inaudible chuckle came across the phone line.

“Excuse me, did I say something funny?”

“Yes,” said the low, unruffled voice. “You did. You used the term ‘out of control.’ And you couldn’t be more wrong. Things are coming under control. For the first time.”

“Explain. I am running out of patience.”

“That cheerleader’s swan dive? It was orchestrated. Fully. By me. I ‘programmed’ her to do it, and she complied.”

“Tell me how this should make me feel better instead of wanting to squeeze the life out of you with my bare hands.”

“This event was a breakthrough. Of major proportions. The ability to implant a specific command in a subject’s brain and have them obey it—even when it goes against their own basic survival instincts. Tell me you’re not too blind to see the significance of this.”

The man at the desk did not reply.

“Up until now, the ‘unusual’ behavior we’ve seen from subjects has been self-generated. A bizarre idea enters the head of a drugged individual, and he acts on it, regardless of personal risk.” The quiet sound of chewing came through the line again. “That’s because of how the drug works. It interferes with the functioning of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. In crude terms, it affects the way users process fear, risk, and self-preservation. They’ll stick their hand in a woodchipper, purely on impulse, no fear at all.” A low chuckle ensued. “Imagine, though, if one could control the actions of the drug taker. Imagine if, by implanting mental commands in a brain already altered by the chemical agent, you could get the subject to do exactly what you wanted—with the same disregard for their own safety?”

“You belong in a psych ward, amigo.”

“This isn’t idle speculation. It is reality. That woman dove from the sign because I gave her the command after feeding her the drug. Do you have any idea of the applications—and implications—of such a thing? We’re talking about the power to control human behavior.”

“Listen to me, son, and listen carefully. You may have forgotten that you’re not working for the CIA anymore—or whoever it was that paid you to try to turn human beings into meat puppets. You and I are in the recreational drug business. And our customers want products that make them feel good, not products that make them blow their heads off with shotguns and light themselves on fire. Now, I get that people have always consumed mind-altering substances they know can kill them. Always have and always will. But nobody wants a product that sends their brain into Nightmare on Elm Street times ten. We’re running a profit-making business, you and me. And we’re partners. Joined at the hip.”

“No.” The Chef’s voice went ice cold. “We’re not. You are my contract employee. My retailer. And I can replace you, whenever I want, if you don’t share my vision for the future.”

“If you think I’m nothing but a retailer, you are more delusional than I imagined, Sunny Jim. You have no idea the kinds of levers I pull, every day, to ensure we have an ‘unencumbered marketplace’ for our products. You think anyone can make that happen? Without me, you’re just a hillbilly with a backyard still full of high-end moonshine.”

“Well, let this hillbilly spell things out for you. If you do anything to impede my work, I will unleash a chemical freak show that will scare the entire Southeast straight for a year. And you will never sell so much as a loose joint in these counties again. And that’s only the start.”

“Meaning what?”

“I will take things from you that you literally cannot imagine.”

“You have already taken unimaginable things from me. Or have you forgotten? So, hear this.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I. Will. Take. Your. Life. If you ever speak that way to me again.”

The man at the desk ended the call, resisting the urge to throw his private phone through the wall. Instead, he placed it carefully in the bottom drawer of his desk and locked it.

A moment later, line 1 on his office phone lit up, and he pushed the button.

“Your one o’clock is here. It’s Judge Matthews and his wife.”

“Send them in, Margaret.”

“Yes, Mr. Jenkins.”

Joe Dillard was the first person Charlie called when she knew Jack was missing. She didn’t want to worry her father-in-law unnecessarily, but she knew he would want to be informed. And she needed his counsel. She closed her office door so Abby wouldn’t hear.

“Who have you reported this to?” Joe asked her, a forced calm in his voice.

She explained that she hadn’t reported Jack’s disappearance to the police because she figured they wouldn’t view the situation as actionable yet. She didn’t tell Joe about the drugged protein powder or her incident in the toilet stall because she knew that would turn him into a werewolf.

“Are you sure he’s not just…?” Joe didn’t need to finish. Charlie knew what he was implying. Multiple times over the past few years, Jack had slipped away from home to drink in private. But Charlie believed he was past this behavior and told his father so.

Joe was silent for a moment. “I need to be there.”

“I had a feeling you would say that.”

“There’s just one little problem.”

“Oh?”

“Caroline.”

Charlie felt a flutter of unease—was Joe delusional? Thinking his wife was still alive? Then she remembered the tropical storm, now a hurricane, heading for the Gulf. She’d been so preoccupied it hadn’t even dawned on her to consider the effect it might have on Joe.

“Right. I’ve heard some reports. Are you safe where you are, Joe?”

“I’m fine, but it’s been nuts here. Drenching rain, winds strong enough to flip picnic tables. The airport’s closed, probably for the next forty-eight hours,” Joe said. “And there may be repair work to be done before it reopens. I might not be able to get out of here for three or four days, Charlie. But I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile, you and I need to stay in contact, day and night. Keep your phone charged and pick up whenever you see it’s me.”

“I will, Joe.”

“Try not to worry too much. Jack can handle himself. He’s got his mother’s strength and her iron will. He’ll fight. Believe me, he’ll fight.”

“I know he will, and I hope you’re right.”

“Gotta believe Caroline is doing this for a reason.”

“Gotta believe she is. Talk soon.”

“Count on it.”

She hung up and heard the office’s main door open. Zane Nelson burst in, out of breath.

“I’m all yours, twenty-four-seven, until we find Jack.”

Jack—time and date uncertain

It was the best-tasting water I’d ever put in my mouth. Cold, crisp, and pure, though with a slight chemical tang. I drank from the bottle hungrily, even though I knew I was filling my belly with drugs that would soon attack my brain. So be it; it was time to get this battle rolling.

And now I sat in the darkness, waiting for the drugs to kick in and holding a single-pointed intention in my chest: hang on to my center and get back to Charlie and Abby.

I remembered my dad telling me about the time he’d been trapped in a windowless room in Arizona and how he’d discovered a quiet, still part of himself unaffected by the fear and anger he was experiencing.

I am the rock, not the waves, I am the rock, not the waves, I repeated in my mind like a mantra. I am the rock, not the waves.

I didn’t have to wait long to test that theory.

The first sign of the drugs hitting my system was a ball of soothing warmth moving up my spine and bursting into a tingling sensation in my head—an explosion of pure pleasure. This hadn’t occurred the previous two times I’d been dosed.

A rush of euphoria came over me, telling me all was well and fear was pointless. I let the feeling soak in. I even laughed aloud at the timid version of myself that had been so worried about the drug’s possible effects. There’s nothing to worry about, a soft voice seemed to whisper inside my head. There has never been anything to worry about.

A realization struck the clear part of my mind. This was a new formula—or at least a highly upgraded version of the drug I had been given before. The previous drug had felt like an attack on my mind—scary, invasive, dangerous. This drug, on the other hand, felt warm and inviting, like a salve of well-being, and I immediately wanted to surrender to it. A second realization came: fighting a drug as seductive as the Sirens’ song was going to be infinitely harder than fighting a hostile invader.

As if to illustrate this dilemma, a wave of musical energy seemed to roll across the basement floor, causing the building debris to hum and glow with soft blue inner light. Everything is made of light, came a thought that felt like a vital insight.

No, shouted another voice inside me. This is just a hallucination. Don’t be seduced. Stay sharp, stay focused. But I could already feel that resisting this drug was going to be all but impossible.

Footsteps approached in the dark. A pair of long-haired figures, one male and one female, appeared before me, bottom-lighting themselves with flashlights. They wore strings of beads and loose garments. They radiated an ethereal beauty that reminded me of Tolkien’s elves.

“I’m PJ, and this is Dandelion. Come, we’re taking you to see Papaji.”

38

Abby lay in the darkness of the car trunk, feeling every bump in the road and wondering what her next move would be. The decision to hide in Charlie’s car had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, one she hoped she wouldn’t regret more than she already did.

The opportunity had simply presented itself, and she had grabbed it.

Back at the office, she had figured out pretty quickly that Jack was missing, for real, and that Charlie was worried sick about it—though pretending not to be. After Zane arrived, she overheard the two adults whispering about plans to go to a place called “Shanty Springs” together to see what they could find out.

Abby had asked to go with them, and Charlie had said no.

Charlie then called Aunt Sarah and asked her if Abby could hang at the diner for the day and do her schoolwork. Sarah, of course, said yes and even offered to come pick Abby up.

That was when opportunity knocked.

Charlie and Zane both went to the restrooms before heading out on the road.

Abby seized the moment. She fished Charlie’s keys from her purse and used the remote to unlock her car trunk through the window. Then she called out, “Aunt Sarah’s here. See you guys later!” She ran outside, climbed into the trunk, closed it, and called Sarah on her phone.

“Hey, Aunt Sarah, change of plans. I don’t need to come to the diner after all. But Charlie says thanks for offering, and we’ll see you soon!”

And now here she found herself, curled up in the trunk of a car, on the way to “Shanty Springs.” The conditions were claustrophobic but bearable—after all, she’d spent three days in the cargo hold of a truck during her kidnapping a year earlier. That experience had taught her some tricks for staying calm. Plus, she knew she’d be able to free herself when the time came. She could see the plastic pull-tab for the emergency trunk release glowing in the dark.

She didn’t know what she would do when the car stopped, or how she would deal with Charlie and Zane. All she knew was that Jack was missing, and that she needed to help find him—like the whole Dillard family had helped find her when she had been taken.

She pressed her ear to the partition separating the trunk from the cabin of the car, trying to make out what Charlie and Zane were saying.

“Dreddy Eddy just responded to my text,” said Zane, pointing to his phone. “Said he’ll meet us at The Nosh if we buy him breakfast. Told us to park in the church lot down the street and then look for him behind the restaurant.”

Behind the wheel, Charlie kept her eyes on the road. “Did you tell him—or ask him—about Jack being missing?”

“No, just said I had a couple follow-up questions from our last talk. But we’ll press him when we see him.”

“Okay, so we start with Eddy. Then I say we try to track down Black.”

“Bubba? You don’t think he did something to Jack, do you?”

Charlie considered the possibility. “I hope not. But he did threaten him. If it wasn’t him, maybe he’ll know something. And maybe he’ll be willing to share it with us. He is a police officer, after all.”

The car stopped and shut off. Abby waited a minute after she heard Charlie and Zane shut their doors. Then she grabbed the trunk-release tab and tugged it. The lock opened with a chunk. She waited to see if the sound triggered a response.

All quiet. She lifted the trunk lid a few inches.

The car was parked in a dirt lot bordered by trees. The only other vehicle in sight was a rusty pickup with four flat tires and “St. Bonaventure” painted on the door. She took a chance and lifted the trunk lid fully. All clear. She climbed out. Through the trees, she could see Charlie and Zane walking briskly down a country road. She climbed out of the trunk and shut it gently.

Charlie and Zane seemed to be headed toward a roadside eatery called The Nosh. Abby followed them from fifty yards back, staying off the road, screened by greenery. Behind the restaurant was a clearing with a handful of picnic tables, all empty. At the back of the picnic area, a bone-thin man with long, sandy-brown dreadlocks paced back and forth in the shade of a tree. His lips were moving as if he was talking to himself.

Abby watched as Charlie stepped up to the order window, while Zane went around back. When the dreadlocked man spotted Zane, he gave a tentative hand signal and sat at the rearmost table, looking around nervously. The two men began speaking across the table.

After a minute, Charlie joined them with a trayful of coffees and a bag of breakfast pastries. The dreadlock guy grabbed a roll and bit off a third of it in one mouthful. He chewed twice, swallowed, and bit again.

The more Charlie and Zane talked to dreadlocks, the more agitated he became, grabbing at his hair and waving his hands around. After a minute, he stormed off with a we’re finished gesture. He headed toward a trail in the woods.

Charlie and Zane took their breakfast items and started walking back toward the car at a brisk pace. Abby would need to get ahead of them somehow and climb back into the trunk without being seen.

Or…

She could follow the man with the dreads. See what he did next. But then she’d be cut off from Charlie and Zane, totally on her own. And they’d be gone in the car.

She did have her phone though. Decision time.

Come on, Abby, you’re a Dillard now. It’s time you start acting like one.

She struck off after the man with the sandy dreads.

39

Moving through the forest growth and stepping onto the trail only as needed, Abby managed to keep the dreadlocked man in her sights for the next few minutes. At one point he stopped, opened a glass vial, and dug around in it with a little thingamajig her birth mother, Verna, called her “puny spoon.” Abby knew what he was doing when he stuck it in his nose. Half a mile farther along, the trail grew wilder. She stepped on a dried branch that snapped loudly.

The man turned and looked around, his eyes moving right over Abby. She was sure he’d spotted her, but no; his vision seemed to focus on something twenty degrees to her left. In the middle of the trail. But nothing was there except empty space. The man’s face cracked into a broad smile. Tears of joy glistened in his eyes. He opened his arms in welcome and seemed to watch someone approach him on the trail, someone he was very happy to see.

But no one was there.

The imaginary person seemed to draw nearer, as reflected in the man’s face and body language, and then he turned to watch as it moved past him on the trail. The man stumbled after it, away from Abby. Abby took up pursuit, staying a distance behind.

The dreadlocked man—following the “ghost”—led Abby down a winding series of small connecting paths strewn with forest debris. He covered more than two miles, occasionally shouting “Hang on” or “Slow down” and scurrying to catch up with his faster, invisible companion.

At last, his pace slowed when he came into an area dominated by a large rock formation. He suddenly looked guarded, spooked almost.

Hesitantly, he circled around to the back of the formation. Abby crept closer. On the rear side of the rocky mound, the ground dipped into a hollow, and the man stepped carefully down the curving slope. At last, he sat on a rock near a dark opening in the ground.

And he began to speak.

“Aurora, why did you bring me here?” said Dreddy Eddy. “To this terrible place?”

“You know why, Edmund,” said Aurora, her eyes gleaming like blue gems and her hair as radiant as spun starlight. She smiled in that way that had always melted his soul.

It was nothing new for Eddy to see Aurora. But the way he was seeing her today, that was new. This wasn’t the usual ghostly image, ready to fade at any moment; this was the real thing. Aurora was here, in front of him, occupying three-dimensional space, just like the trees and rocks. How? Was she just another trick of his drugged-out brain, which was getting mushier by the week? No, she was realer than reality itself. No hallucination could be this vivid.

“My dear,” Aurora said, touching his hand, “I saw you speaking to that man. The journalist. And I want to ask you something.” Her flesh felt soft and warm. Real, not imaginary. Desire rose in him like sap in a spring pine.

“Anything, Aurora, anything.”

“Do you see the way I am now? So real? Do you feel my hand touching yours? Can you feel my warmth?”

“Oh, I feel it,” he said. “I feel you. I see you.” He wanted to call her “darling” but didn’t know if he was entitled to use such terms. He had never openly declared his love for her.

She leaned toward him, offering him a full view of her cleavage, and her perfumed heat wafted toward him. The sap rose in him again, as if awakening from a long winter’s sleep. She took his hand and placed it on her thigh, gazing into his eyes. Blood rushed through him. “I can be this way forever,” she said. “And we can be together. Do you want that?”

“Oh, I do. I want you, Aurora. So much.”

“I don’t mean like before—hooking up when we were both blitzed.” She chuckled. “I mean together, as man and woman. What I’m saying, Edmund, is I can be yours.”

“I want that, Aurora. I’d do anything to be with you.”

She leaned in toward him and looked in his eyes. “Anything?”

Abby’s skin flushed as she watched the dreadlocked man mime the act of grabbing someone and kissing them. Abby wanted to shrink into her shoes, to disappear. The scene before her was too intimate to be witnessing, but she had no choice but to remain rooted.

The man finally broke off the one-way kiss and said, as if answering a question, “Anything, Aurora. Just tell me and I’ll do it.”

The man seemed to listen for a few seconds, then let out a wail of dread, a raw animal sound.

Abby turned and ran through the forest as if trying to beat a throw to home plate.

40

Jack—time and date uncertain

Ifollowed PJ and Dandelion as they lit the way through the basement area, weaving around concrete chunks and rusted metal parts. The two seemed to glow with inner light and float above the ground, but that was no doubt an effect of my drugged mind. They ushered me into a room with a metal door and told me to sit in the reclining chair in the center. I obliged, and they strapped down my wrists, ankles, and torso. Huge television monitors hung on each of the three facing walls. My hosts departed and closed the door, plunging the room into blackness.

I stared into the abyss for what might have been a minute or an hour.

“Namaste, Mr. Dillard,” said the electronically processed voice of The Chef. The Man of the Mountains. Papaji. “We’re about to embark on an enlightening journey. For both of us. Shall we start?”

I didn’t reply. I reminded myself to stay centered. Be the rock, Jack, not the waves. And then an insight arrived: instead of fighting the drugs, maybe I could let them work for me, not against me. Let them enhance my mind and senses in useful ways. Why not?

“How much do you know about quantum physics?” the altered voice inquired. “Did you know, for example, that the so-called physical world is actually a cloud of probabilities, and that the way it manifests for each of us depends on our expectations? Each of us is capable—radically capable—of attracting different outcomes from the probability field. Simply by altering our beliefs and expectations. But sadly, most of us are conditioned to accept only the tired old beliefs the world hands us. Imagine if that could change. By chemical means.”

This guy’s out of his freaking mind, thought my rational self.

Or is he? wondered the dosed part of my brain.

“I imagine it all the time,” the distorted voice continued. “In fact, I think of little else. But even my most ardent followers have trouble making the leap with me, despite my dedicated efforts to unshackle their sheep-like brains.”

I thought about Bluegill and Dreddy Eddy—both of them obvious drug burnouts—and wondered how many other brains he had chemically toyed with. Besides mine.

“Recently I’ve begun to theorize that chemicals alone are not enough. A ‘directive technique’ must be added to the mix to effectively override the ego’s self-protective instincts. Call it hypnosis if you like. The chemistry opens the mind’s door; the hypnosis sneaks in through that open door, like a thief in the night, and implants… new possibilities. One, two.”

What the hell was he planning for me?

“Look at the screen in front of you, Mr. Dillard. Don’t try closing your eyes, or we’ll tape them open.”

I looked at the screen; I had no real choice. A dot of light appeared.

“Look at the light,” he said, then paused for several seconds. “Look deep into the light.” He paused again. “Keep looking at the light, Mr. Dillard. Nothing but the light.”

I knew what he was doing. Hypnosis 101. But knowing it didn’t necessarily make me immune. I’d once watched a stage hypnotist plant a posthypnotic suggestion in an audience member who jumped up and shouted, “Quack!” when the word “duck” was spoken later in the act. The guy knew he was being hypnotized, and yet the command worked anyway.

“Relax, Mr. Dillard,” the altered voice said. “Relax and surrender.”

I told myself to stay centered. Use the drugs, don’t fight them.

“I will tell you three more times to relax and surrender. Each time I say it, you will feel your resistance diminishing. On the third time, you will feel a switch flip inside you, and you will surrender all control to me. Do you understand?”

I didn’t answer. He repeated his command three times, while I tried, unsuccessfully, to block my mind from hearing it.

The Chef, in his disguised voice, then said, “The light will now begin to multiply.”

More dots appeared, until the giant screens beside and in front of me were filled with millions of tiny flashing dots, like static on an old TV screen. “What you are seeing now, think of it as the quantum field. Every scene imaginable—past, present, and future—is depicted here. To see any one of them, you must simply focus on the correct pixels. Do you understand?”

I grunted assent.

“I want you to focus on only the pixels that represent…” he paused for effect, “your lovely wife and daughter.”

What? Not what I’d been expecting to hear. I tried to resist, but damned if a giant image of Charlie and Abby didn’t gel into focus in front of me. Their faces were as clear and brilliant as a hi-def movie.

“Notice the detail. The pores in their skin. The moisture on their lips.”

The 3D image was indeed astoundingly detailed. Almost more real than reality.

“Notice the love in their eyes.”

My heart swelled with the love I saw streaming from my wife’s and daughter’s oversized faces. Love for me.

“Now envision them all around you, looking strong and beautiful.”

Multiple images of Charlie and Abby appeared—wearing their baseball caps, their nightclothes, their hiking gear. Radiant and full of life in each version. The images spread out onto all three screens, creating an IMAX-like, surround effect. Was he creating the images or was my drugged mind indeed calling them forth from the field of static?

“Now here’s a little secret, just between us: their outer appearance is a pretense, a lie. It hides the real truth. Behind their false exteriors, they are scheming succubi. They are feeding on you, and everyone else, to nourish their vile existence.” The smiles on Charlie’s and Abby’s faces turned impossibly wide, and their eyes went cold and dead. “The next time you see them in person, an alarm will sound in you. Their false forms will melt away and you will see their true nature: filthy, pestilent demons, bent on devouring your world.”

The images of Charlie and Abby crowded in on me. Their skin began to move as if something was wriggling beneath it. Then it broke out into bubbling pustules and boils, angry and red. The skin sloughed off in big, wet sheets, revealing blackish muscles the color of dirty motor oil. The faces on their skinless skulls were those of hideous, grinning demons—more realistic than any I’d ever seen in a movie or television show. They filled up all three screens. My heart hammered like it wanted to rip itself from my chest.

I knew the images weren’t real, but that didn’t change the terror I felt. I hated this man, whatever name he went by, for crawling into my head like this.

“The hero in you will awaken, and you will know it is your duty to slay the demons.”

On the connected “IMAX” screens, I saw, from a first-person perspective, my hand wielding the Anduril sword from my weapons collection. It swept from side to side, slaughtering the demons my wife and daughter had become. I could feel my pliant brain soaking up the 3D imagery like a sponge even as my rational mind knew exactly what The Chef was doing: implanting a posthypnotic suggestion in me. A hidden command.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I replied. I had no real choice but to go along with him. But in some deep fold within my brain, I was also vowing revenge.

“Will you slay the demons when the time comes?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, we will repeat the steps over and over and over until they are embedded in you.” The screens dissolved into a chaotic pixel storm again. “Focus only on the pixels that represent your wife and daughter.”

Giant images of Charlie and Abby again gelled into place and took over the room.

I reminded myself to hold on to my center, even though my brain was experiencing sensory overload. I tried my old coach’s technique. I shifted my seat of awareness from my head to my heart and held it there. I immediately felt more centered and stable. Be the rock, I reminded myself. Use the drugs, don’t let them use you.

Yes, but how?

I listened to the electronically processed voice of The Chef as he repeated his instructions about slaying the demons when they appeared. And then I noticed something I hadn’t before—the distinct, nasally way the voice pronounced the “n” sound. I recognized that pronunciation!

I ordered my drug-supercharged brain to strip away the processing from the voice. I willed myself to hear my captor’s voice in its natural state.

As if by magic, my brain complied. Like a sound engineer running a control deck, it removed the processed effects from the voice, and suddenly I could hear it the way it sounded “normally.”

I instantly recognized the voice. It was unmistakable.

“I know who you are,” I announced. “I can hear your real voice, thanks to chemistry.” I started laughing. It suddenly struck me as hilarious that the very drug he was using to try to “unshackle” my mind had given me the clarity to unmask his identity.

“Well, well…” said my captor, speaking in his now unprocessed voice. “I should have been prepared for this development. Strong, perceptive mind like yours. You would have been wise to keep that realization to yourself.”

He was right. I would have. Unfortunately, my brain’s impulse control wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

“Alas,” he said, “this changes our power dynamic—and my options for dealing with you.” He sighed. “We’ll need to take a break so I can… reassess.”

The speaker shut off with a soft click, and the screen went black.

After a minute or two, I heard the door open and footsteps softly approach. A flashlight beam skittered across the floor. A pair of hands unbuckled the straps from my wrists, ankles, and midsection. The flashlight beam then moved upward, illuminating a face.

“Lieutenant Black!”

“Hello, Dillard.”

41

“I’ve exhausted all my options,” said Joe Dillard from Charlie’s phone. “Hurricane Caroline means business. She won’t let me get near a plane.” He sounded like he was outdoors and half shouting to drown out the wind. “I even went to a private pilot I know—this guy’ll fly in anything—and he told me to pound sand.” He stepped indoors and his voice suddenly became clearer. “I’ll keep trying, but meanwhile, give me a progress report.”

“Progress? I wish.” She explained her and Zane’s trip to North Carolina and their failure to pick up any leads on Jack.

“What about the Jonesborough or JC cops? Have they done anything yet? Or are they still running tests on glazed crullers?” He didn’t sound like he was joking.

“They entered Jack’s info in the system, put out a BOLO on him, but they’re not breaking a sweat. Course there’s not much they can do, unless there’s evidence of a crime.”

“How’s Abby holding up?”

Charlie recounted Abby’s tailing of Dreddy Eddy and her subsequent need for “rescue.” “I’m grounding her, but the poor kid is chomping at the bit to help. She doesn’t seem to realize she’s only twelve.”

“Twelve going on twenty-seven. The things that girl has seen… But yeah, she’s still a kid, and it’s your job to protect her, especially from herself.”

“Like I don’t know that, Joe.”

“What’s your plan though? You and this Zane kid, fresh out of college, gonna go stir up the nest of some psycho drug lord?”

“What choice do we have? It might be our only hope of finding Jack.”

“And Abby will sit on the sidelines, playing with her Barbie dolls? Right. You’re not filling me with confidence, Charlie.”

“This is not an ideal-world scenario, Joe. Got a better idea?”

He blew out a long breath, and Charlie could tell he’d already thought through his response. “Yes. I do. I’m hiring Leon Bates as your helper and… bodyguard. He already works for a security agency; he’ll just be switching roles. He’s licensed, bonded, armed, and ready to go.”

“Joe, I don’t think we need to—”

“It’s not a discussion, Charlie. Leon’s hired. Done deal.”

Jack—time and date uncertain

Black’s face wasn’t what I’d been expecting to see. He wasn’t the person I’d identified as The Chef. So what was he doing here?

A realization struck my oddly clear mind.

“I should have guessed which side you were playing for,” I said to him. “How long’ve you been on his payroll?”

“Whose payroll?”

“You know whose. The Man of the Mountains. Papaji. The Chef.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Black said in a harsh whisper. “I’m trying to save your ass. Don’t make me regret it.”

What?

“Come on.” He gestured with the flashlight. “Hurry. Walk now, talk later.”

Either Black was lying to me or he wasn’t. Regardless, I had no real choice but to follow him. I rolled out of the reclining chair and jumped to my feet.

The rush of adrenaline I was feeling seemed to have purged my mind of the drug’s effects. At least temporarily.

Black shone his flashlight out the door of the small room, sweeping it left and right. The coast apparently clear, he beckoned me with a hiss. I came up right behind him.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked in a low voice.

“I’m a cop,” he whispered back. “Your BOLO report went out to all the local counties. In both states. I put out some feelers, and a little birdie told me where you might be.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Explanations later. Come on.”

I followed his lead as he hurried through the large basement chamber.

“This place was built as a church around 1890,” he whispered. “Then it was a dance hall and tavern, and then an indoor flea market.” I wasn’t sure why he was giving me a history lesson. “Now all that’s left is this basement. The Chef uses it for some of his ‘extracurricular activities.’ There’s a bulkhead up ahead. That’s our best chance of getting out of here.”

He aimed his light at a recess in the foundation wall twenty feet before us. We headed toward it. I could feel the drugs trying to pull me back under their spell.

“His lab—his center of operations—is about a quarter of a mile through the woods that way,” said Black, flashing his light to the right. “But this whole side of the mountain is his. It’s one big property. Fronts as an apple business. And it’s crawling with his people. If we can make it to the fire road, my car is parked about a hundred yards down.”

Black’s dreaded yellow Dodge Challenger was going to be a sight for sore eyes.

We turned into the recessed opening. A set of concrete steps, littered with old leaves, led up to a pair of sagging wooden doors built at a forty-five-degree angle. Sunlight poured through holes in the rotting wood, creating weird prismatic effects and reminding me I was still drugged. The air felt cool and smelled of wet dirt and rotten leaves.

Black pushed one of the old wood doors open. Light flooded the stairwell, and loose dirt spilled down onto his face. He spit it away, then leaned out the angled doorway and looked around. Stepping outside, he held the door for me. I climbed out behind him, shielding my eyes against the glaring sun. After my time in the dark, it felt like an inquisitor’s lamp.

I was so sun-blinded, in fact, that I didn’t even see who uttered the words, “Stop right there, both of you.” But I heard the pump of a shotgun.

42

Vape and DeSoto had standing orders to dose the young journalist. He’d been talking to the locals too much, including Dreddy Eddy, and becoming a problem.

It had been easy to find out where Zane Nelson lived. They’d simply followed him from Shanti Springs to his short-term rental in Johnson City. Then they’d staked out his place until Nelson exited his apartment in a running suit. After ringing the doorbell to make sure no one else was home, they let themselves in a back window. It took them all of thirty seconds.

To their dismay, on that first visit they’d found his fridge and cupboards nearly empty. No food or beverages to dose. This Nelson guy was young and single. An eat-on-the-go type who subsisted on take-out coffee and pizza. They put a GPS tracker on his car, hoping to find a way to dose him on the fly but had yet to succeed.

Finally, today, on their third trip back to his apartment, they struck gold. The guy had done some grocery shopping at last, stocking up on single-guy fare.

Boozers and caffeine addicts were the easiest targets; a quick survey of Nelson’s purchases revealed him to be the latter. They found a one-gallon “coffee on tap” box of Java House cold-brew coffee in his fridge. They also found three two-liter bottles of diet cola in the fridge’s door rack. They pried open a seam of the cardboard cold-brew box, designed like boxes of cheap wine, and injected 200cc of the drug into the plastic bladder. For each soda bottle, they peeled back the label, jabbed their syringe through the thin plastic, and injected 100cc. They sealed the puncture hole with a bit of tape, then re-stuck the label with its own adhesive backing.

They were out of Zane’s unit ten minutes before he returned from his morning run.

Jack—time and date uncertain

My eyes wrenched open and tried to adjust to the dim light. What am I seeing? I was facing a wall of electric fans—eight of them—and they were blowing right at me. Circulating hot air from a whooshing heater of some kind. The temperature had to be well over a hundred degrees.

I was sitting on the floor with my hands tied behind me—again—and my knees and ankles bound. What was this place? How did I get here? All I remembered was seeing four guys with long hair and love beads, holding guns, surrounding Black and me after we stepped from the bulkhead.

Time must have passed since that happened; my brain seemed clear of hallucinogens. How had the men subdued me? Either by sedation or a blow to the head. My head didn’t hurt, so probably the former. Had they taken Black too? Or had Black been playing me?

I turned my head as far as I could to the left, then the right. The space looked to be the size of a walk-in closet or freezer. I could make out a metal door with a glass window in its upper area—the source of the dim light. There was a larger room outside the chamber. Damn, it was hot in here. Was I wrong or could I detect a trace of baked-apple scent?

I pulled against my wrist bindings and felt resistance. A man groaned behind me.

“Who’s that?” said a cracked voice, nearly drowned out by the fans and heater—white noise cranked to an eight or nine. “That you, Dillard?”

“Black?” My voice died in the artificial wind. I tried again, louder. “Black?”

I felt a tug at my wrists from behind. “We’re tied together,” said Black, raising his voice. “To state the obvious.”

“Get as close to me as you can,” I told him, half shouting over the fans.

We backed together as closely as possible, then turned our heads so our faces were roughly parallel, aimed toward the small window.

“Can you hear me better now?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Much.”

In this new position, we found we could talk without shouting.

“What is this contraption? Any idea?”

“Don’t know,” he answered. “Doesn’t look like an oven—but it feels like one. It must be a buck ten in here.”

“At least we’re alive,” I said. “I’m guessing if they wanted us dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

A drop of sweat rolled into my eye, stinging it.

I needed to get down to business. In a blunt tone I said, “What’s your connection to The Chef?”

He didn’t answer.

“We don’t have time to play games, Black. What’s your connection?”

“Connection?” His tone darkened. “What are you suggesting?”

“You know what I’m suggesting. Half of Shanti Springs is moving this guy’s product. That doesn’t happen without someone in authority looking the other way. And you’re the big badge in these parts.”

“Better say what’s on your mind, Dillard.”

“I thought I just did. Look, I don’t care what goes on in the North Carolina drug trade, and I don’t care about your involvement either. But we need each other right now, if we have any hope of getting out of here. I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

Black remained wordless for a ten count then said, “Okay, yeah, there’s a financial arrangement.”

“So, you’re taking payoffs? From The Chef?”

Black was silent again for several seconds. “It’s not what you think.”

“What is it then?”

“Long story.”

“I don’t have any pressing engagements. At least until we roast alive.”

Black sighed, either from the heat or from what he was about to share with me. I felt his body slump, as if dropping his defenses. At last, he said, “I’ve been a cop around here for almost eighteen years. Patrol officer, detective, lieutenant. I’ve helped bust up half a dozen good-sized drug operations, and what I’ve learned is… it’s just Whac-A-Mole. Knock one down here, another one pops up over there. The net quantity of poison flowing through these hills remains a constant. For years, I told myself I was doing some good, but really, I was just a lone ‘exterminator,’ trying to fight an infestation with a flyswatter. The bugs were winning. And they always would. Demand and supply: a force more powerful than gravity.” He grunted a humorless laugh. “So, one day I decided…”

He searched for the words. I supplied them: “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?”

“No,” he said sharply. “It’s true that I accept… payments. Pretty large ones too. These guys’d rather pay me to look the other way than make trouble with me. But… I don’t keep the money.”

I waited in the blown heat for an explanation.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen, firsthand, the kind of devastation these drugs wreak on Appalachian families. The charity outfits around here are all underfunded, and the list of needs is endless: detox and rehab for addicts, food and clothes for drug-orphaned kids, healthcare, housing, outreach, job training… The list goes on.” He shook the sweat from his face. “The money I collect is distributed to a group of nonprofits in the mountain country. I don’t kid myself into thinking I’m changing the world, but at least the money does some good. And that helps me sleep at night. Better than fighting an unwinnable war.”

I took a moment to digest what he was saying. “Doesn’t anyone question how a public employee, on a civil servant’s pay, can pull that off?”

“I’ve got a network of LLCs set up, shell companies.”

“Benevolent money laundering?” That was a first.

“Call it what you want, but there are kids with shoes on their feet that wouldn’t have ’em without those funds. Way I see it, the drugs—they’re going to flow, one way or the other. I do have a few rules for the sellers, like no killing on my turf, but otherwise…” he trailed off.

This was a lot to absorb. But maybe it was time to take new stock of Robert Black. Maybe he was more than just a provincial badge-man defending his turf; maybe he was some kind of Appalachian Robin Hood. And maybe I’d been wrong about him in other ways too.

“So, tell me about The Chef,” I said. “What’s he like?”

“Never met him. I do business with one of his ‘lieutenants’—squirrely little nutjob, name of Bluegill. He scares easy, so I throw a scare in him, and he relays that scare up the chain of command.”

“You’ve never met The Chef?”

“Nobody does. Even most of his inner circle. Guy’s clever. Keeps himself an unknown. That way, no one can finger him. He can walk down Main Street at high noon and buy himself a bagel; no one would know it’s him.”

“Hiding his identity also allows him to make himself larger than life,” I added. “The Flower Children think he’s some godlike spiritual leader. His enemies think he’s Heisenberg from Breaking Bad.” I paused, feeling the hot wind parch my skin. “But I know who he really is.”

43

Jack—time and date uncertain

“Albert Spencer,” I said to Black over the heat fans. “That’s The Chef’s real name.”

Black laughed out loud, despite our circumstances. “You’ve got your facts twisted up, Dillard. Spencer is Bluegill.”

“And Bluegill is The Chef. They’re the same person.”

Black laughed again. But then he clipped it off as if questioning his certainty. “Obviously, you’ve never met Bluegill. Guy can’t hold two thoughts together, never mind complex chemical formulas. And he’s not exactly cut from drug-lord cloth.”

“That’s why his act is such a great cover.” I explained to Black that I had, indeed, met Bluegill, as well as The Chef—or at least his disembodied voice. I told him how I’d been able to recognize the voice of Bluegill through his audio-effects smokescreen. “The Chef is the Great and Powerful Oz. But Spencer’s the guy behind the curtain flipping levers.”

Black breathed sharply a couple times. “No way, Dillard. No way Bluegill’s capable of pulling that off.” Doubt had crept into his voice though.

“That’s exactly what he wants you to believe,” I said. “But Bluegill is just a role he invented, same as ‘The Chef.’ It’s brilliant. Think about it.” I took a moment, dripping sweat, to piece the puzzle together fully. “You’re this genius chemist, smart enough to be recruited by the CIA—if the rumors are true. You’ve got the brains to create great product and run an organization, but you don’t have the gravitas. You’re this skinny, pimply dude with a teenager’s voice. So… you create this Bluegill character who’s in mortal terror of his all-powerful ‘boss.’ The more terrified you act as Bluegill, the more implied power you give this mythical overlord. Over time, you refine and develop the roles—and build a whole enterprise around them.”

Black took a couple more hard breaths. I could practically hear his inner gears clicking.

“It explains a lot,” he said at last. It was clear he now realized he’d been played—big-time—by Bluegill, a man he didn’t respect. And one thing Robert Black did not appreciate was being made a fool of. “I’m going to kill him.”

It was my turn to laugh.

“What’s funny, Dillard?”

“Your optimism.” The temperature in the chamber was going up. My skin was stinging, and my lungs were working overtime. “About getting out of here alive.”

Zane filled his travel mug with cold-brew coffee from the fridge and stepped out into the midday sun. He was heading to Hot Springs to follow up on a new development. After he’d tried repeatedly to reach Lieutenant Black’s office by phone, the receptionist had let it slip that Black’s whereabouts were currently unknown. The lieutenant was AWOL.

Notable timing. Maybe his disappearance was tied to Jack’s.

Zane intended to find out.

He climbed into his Prius, placed his coffee mug in the cupholder, and headed off. Excitement and dread coursed through him in equal measure. But eclipsing both was his fear for Jack. Fear and guilt. He had gotten Jack involved in the Sanchez case, and now Jack had been abducted, likely because of it. Zane felt wholly responsible for his safe return. But with every passing hour, hope grew dimmer.

Zane needed to stay focused.

He pulled onto I-26, southbound, found a spot in the left lane, and settled into his drive. Moments later, his phone lit up with a new message. He half expected it to be from Black’s office, but it was from Dreddy Eddy. Odd. An audio message, not a text. The length of the message was extremely odd: 6:56. What in the world did Eddy have to say that would take seven minutes? Zane had never heard him talk for more than seven seconds in one stretch. Probably just a butt-call. But he pulled to the side of the road to make sure his phone was set to save audio messages. Then he drove on and pressed Play.

Good morning, Mr. Nelson, this is Edmund Norris, said the oddly formal voice on the other end. I’m using my real name because I want to say something for the record. I want my mind to be clear too, so I’m free of all substances. For the first time in over three years. No fake Jamaican accent. Just a hoarse weariness in the voice. I’m going to tell you what happened to Aurora Eden. She was my friend, and I loved her, and I believe she wants her story told. I’m tired of living in fear, and I’m tired of being eaten alive by the truth.

44

Charlie was surprised to get a voicemail from Zane. The phone hadn’t rung; she’d been watching it like a hawk. But sometimes the hilly terrain of East Tennessee blocked live calls from going through while still allowing messages to be left.

She tapped her phone to hear the voicemail.

Charlie, call me right away! I got a phone message that changes everything. You and I need to meet, ASAP—in Shanti Springs—and we need to get the police involved. I think I know where Jack might be!

Charlie’s heart punched her ribcage. She immediately called Zane’s cell. He didn’t pick up. She waited a minute and called him again. Still no answer. Charlie paced the floor—a phone message that changes everything… I think I know where Jack might be. She tried Zane’s number yet again, to no avail.

Fortunately, she had signed Zane onto her Family Circle app so the two could keep tabs on each other as they searched for Jack. She tapped the app and quickly located Zane’s phone, via GPS map. The blue dot on the screen didn’t seem to be moving. That meant Zane was stationary. His location: a seemingly random spot on the Barnardsville Highway, a winding rural road off I-26 that led to… well, Barnardsville—i.e., nowhere. Why there? she wondered. He was too far off the interstate to be buying gas or coffee. She phoned him again. Still no answer. Why wouldn’t he pick up after insisting she call him? She watched the blue dot on the screen for a minute. It still didn’t move. Her gut was sending up flares.

She grabbed her purse, checked for the car keys, and threw on a light jacket.

“Ab,” she called out. Abby had come with her to the office again. Charlie knew her daughter would be a total wreck until Jack was found, so forcing her to sit in a classroom would be pointless. Abby was in Jack’s office, pretending to do schoolwork.

“I’m going to drop you at Aunt Sarah’s while I go check something out. Will you be okay there?”

“Depends. Where are you going?”

“I’m worried about Zane. He told me to call him, but he’s not answering his phone.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“No. You’re staying with Sarah. It’s probably nothing, but I’m not taking any chances.”

“I’m coming. I don’t like the look in your eyes.”

“You’re staying with Sarah, Abby.”

“Mom!” Abby said. There it was. Spoken aloud. That all-powerful, three-letter word. The first time Charlie had ever heard it from Abby’s lips. “I’m not letting you go alone. Period.”

Charlie was powerless to refuse. “Grab your jacket. Hurry, let’s go.”

Ten minutes earlier

Zane suddenly lost all sense of forward motion. When a van passed him, he thought he was going backwards and went into a panic. He hit the brakes, and the car behind him had to swerve around him, blasting its horn. He steadied himself at the wheel, but suddenly the windshield view took on a weirdly flat appearance. Was he in motion or was he looking at a stationary movie screen? He couldn’t tell. Where was he? What was happening?

At first, he thought he was having a seizure or maybe reacting in shock to what he’d heard on Dreddy Eddy’s three continuous voice memos. Despite his recent exposure to dosing, it didn’t occur to him that someone had dosed him. All he knew was that something was staging a hostile takeover of his mind. And he was behind the wheel, driving at highway speeds.

Fate seemed to be watching out for him. An exit appeared just ahead. Still feeling like he was driving into a two-dimensional plane, he managed to steer the car off the highway and navigate the exit ramp, then turn left at a T. His heart was in his throat.

After exiting, he found himself on a ribbon of country road, trees pressing in from either side. He wanted to pull over but had lost all sense of the car’s dimensions, so he kept driving. It was only now that he realized he’d been drugged. The traces of coffee in his mouth turned bitter; someone had gotten to his cold brew.

The winding road in front of him squirmed like a snake. He had no idea how fast he was going but didn’t dare look down at the speedometer. He needed to pull over. Now. He spotted a narrow shoulder just ahead and aimed the car toward it, praying the road would hold steady. But the blacktop rose up and whipped in a new direction.

And then… a bone-rocking smash. A sense of being launched forward for a microsecond, then punched backwards as an air bag exploded in his face.

A blast of spinal pain. And the world ended.

45

The longer the blue dot on the GPS map remained stationary, the more convinced Charlie was that something bad had happened to Zane. Twenty-five minutes passed, and still he hadn’t moved—unless he had ditched or lost his phone.

She took the exit for Barnardsville and drove for a few miles while Abby watched the arrow symbol on the nav screen getting closer and closer to the unmoving blue dot. Abby called out, “We just passed it.”

But that wasn’t possible. Unless…

Charlie hit the brakes and did a three-point turn. And then she spotted it, down in a wooded hollow—Zane’s car. Smashed headfirst into a tree. Easy to miss for the few passing motorists on this lonely stretch of road.

Parking on the shoulder, Charlie turned on her emergency blinkers, and she and Abby charged across the road and down the incline toward the wrecked Prius. They could see the partially deflated air bag and Zane slumped forward against it. The passenger door had been thrown open by the crash. Charlie leaned into the car, calling Zane’s name. He didn’t respond, but she could see his chest expanding and contracting. Good.

“Call 911,” she told Abby. Then a thought occurred. “Just tell them we spotted the car when driving by. Don’t say we know him.” Abby nodded, not questioning Charlie’s logic.

As Charlie leaned into the car, she could see that the front end had crunched in and pushed Zane’s leg into a grotesque angle, but he didn’t seem to be bleeding. She spoke his name several times, but he didn’t respond. His breathing was uneven but continuous. She knew better than to try to move him. Satisfied he was going to survive, she scanned the seat and floor. There it was, half under the gas pedal: his phone. She stretched to grab it.

It was undamaged, but it was locked. She knew what she had to do—Jack’s life might depend on it—but still felt terrible about it. She glanced over her shoulder. Abby was pacing outside, talking to the 911 team in an adult way. Charlie took Zane’s hand and whispered, “Sorry, my friend.” She pressed his forefinger to the home button of his phone to activate the touch ID.

Charlie navigated quickly to Zane’s voicemail log. No new messages. But on his text-message log, she found three recent audio messages. They must be the ones he was telling her about. There was also a fourth message, a map image, from the same sender. She forwarded all the files to herself, then tossed the phone back onto the car floor where she’d found it.

Charlie and Abby waited anxiously with Zane until the ambulance and cruiser arrived—it only took about twelve minutes. Charlie told the officer about having spotted the car while driving past. Not a lie but not the whole truth. She knew that if she admitted to being a friend of Zane and having received an urgent call from him, the police would have asked her to come to the station and answer questions. There was no time to deal with local cops, not if Zane’s phone messages could help her find Jack. She would make some calls later.

After the EMTs rolled Zane into the ambulance, Charlie ran back to her car and jumped in. Abby followed. Charlie quickly unlocked her phone and found the audio files she’d forwarded from Zane’s phone. She played the first one.

Leon Bates arrived at the Jonesborough office building to commence his duties as armed protection for Charlie and Abby. Lurching down the hall on his crutches, he thought, I probably should have told Joe about my broken foot when I agreed to play bodyguard. Let’s just hope it doesn’t become an issue. He knocked on the door of Dillard Law. No one answered. A sick feeling shot through his gut. Somehow, he knew he’d arrived too late to prevent the Dillard females from getting into danger. Leon turned and crutch-galloped back down the hall.

He knew he was in a race against time, and he was already a couple of laps behind.

Charlie listened to the first part of the recording, as Zane had. After Eddy said, I’m tired of being eaten alive by the truth, there was a gap of silence, and then he went on. Aurora was murdered. She was murdered, and I played a part. God forgive me.

Charlie stopped the recording and glanced at Abby. She knew she shouldn’t let her daughter hear any more. But finding Jack trumped normal parental concerns. She and Abby were in this together, it seemed, for better or worse.

She tapped Play again. Edmund Norris—Dreddy Eddy—went on: I first met Aurora in Crestone, Colorado. Little town full of seekers and drifters looking for their next high—spiritual, herbal, chemical, or otherwise.

Charlie’s knee bounced nervously. She prayed this wasn’t going to be a long story.

We hooked up a few times. To Aurora, sex was just something to do when you were high. Or a way to pay for drugs. To me, though—with her anyway—it meant more. I loved her. But I couldn’t tell her that—I knew she’d run away so fast she’d leave scorch marks. So I just made like it was casual for me too. We both ended up leaving Colorado, but we stayed in touch on the socials. We crossed paths a couple more times, in different places, and it was always the same thing. She’d call me when she needed a little somethin’ somethin’, and then maybe I’d get a little somethin’ somethin’ too.

Charlie cast her eyes at Abby again. Her maternal instincts told her to silence the recording, but Abby’s look said, Don’t even think about it. She wished Eddy would talk faster, and she wanted to skip ahead. But she didn’t dare risk missing anything important.

I’d been crashing in Shanti Springs for a while when she started having trouble with her man Joel. I thought maybe the stars were lining up for her and me to be together. I told her about the Springs. She came to visit, and she liked it here. Decided to stay. But she was different this time. She had a kid now, and she was trying to play it straight so her kid could come live with her. Got herself an apartment and a job, bought a good used car. Was trying to stay clean, didn’t need me much anymore. One day she let me borrow her car, and I crashed it. We had a big fight about it. I told her she was a sellout. She said I wrecked her car on purpose ’cause she wouldn’t sleep with me anymore. That wasn’t true. Ah, maybe it was a little true. Anyway, she decided to sue me for damages—she knew I had some stocks my grandfather left me. And that was what killed our friendship. Eddy paused for several seconds. Until she fell off the wagon and needed somethin’ somethin’ again. Then who do you think she calls?

The recording ended. Charlie immediately tapped on the next recorded message; it picked up where the first one left off. Eddy was apparently smart enough to break the recording into small files so it wouldn’t get bogged down in transit. We started partying again… And she just acted like everything was cool. But one thing had changed: no more somethin’ somethin’ for ol’ Eddy. Guess she knew she had me wrapped around her finger. She could sue me and shut me down for sex and still I’d show up for her, pockets full of pills and thrills, whenever she felt like partying. And the worst part was, she was right. But what could I do? I loved her.

But then the final insult happened…

46

Igot a letter from her lawyers, Eddy’s recorded voice went on. They wanted $25,000 or they’d take me to court. I told her about it, and she was all, “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s not personal. It’s just lawyer stuff. So maybe you’ll have to sell some of Grandpa’s stock. Boo-hoo. Come on, let’s smoke something.”

I was ripping mad at her and feeling used. But I held it in. One night, we were testing some new product for The Man, and she got totally baked. I saw a chance to get what was coming to me. I started taking her clothes off, and she didn’t fight me, so I… He trailed off. His breathing became audible on the recording.

Three of the Flower Children—all dudes—barged in on us, and Bluegill was with them. He said The Man wanted feedback on the product we were testing. Then they saw what was going on in the room, and their eyes lit up like hungry wolves. They tossed me out, and I guess they went at Aurora pretty hard. I don’t know if Bluegill joined in or not. But I heard her scream a few times.

They must have thought she was too far gone to remember it, or that she wouldn’t dare say anything if she did remember. But they were wrong. Over the next few days, she started piecing together what happened. And she was madder than I ever saw her. Like a kettle heading for a boil. She got hold of Bluegill, told him she wanted money from The Man—The Chef—as compensation, and if she didn’t get it, she was going to blow the whistle on the rape and on his whole operation. She said she knew Lieutenant Black personally and would go straight to him.

Well, there was some negotiating, and some money terms were agreed on. She arranged to meet Bluegill at Drum Circle to get the payoff—safety of the crowd and all. But ’Gill sent me instead. Me and some big dudes. I told her Bluegill changed the meeting to a more private location. She wasn’t having it, and she tried to leave. They didn’t let her.

We marched her to a van where Bluegill was waiting. She was freaking out, but ’Gill was all “sorry for the inconvenience” and “here’s the money” and “let’s have a fresh start.” She relaxed a bit, and we had a few beers. Then we broke out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. It was dosed, but she was too buzzed to notice she was the only one drinking it. Before too long, her mind was off to Disney World. Bluegill told her we had one more surprise for her—one more “thank you” from The Man for her “goodwill and understanding.”

The message ended, and Charlie, biting her lip, tapped on Eddy’s third and final audio file.

We drove to a place in the woods they’d picked out. By that point, she was basically a zombie. After we parked the van and got out, Bluegill took me aside. He said, “You’re going to handle this next part. She trusts you.”

He told me what he wanted me to do. I said, “No way, man. Not gonna happen.”

He lost it. His eyes bugged out and he started shaking with rage. “You’ll do what I tell you,” he said, in a voice that didn’t even sound like him, “or you’ll get a taste of something that’ll make you wish you were never born.”

I knew what he was talking about. An injectable The Chef developed. Makes your skin feel like it’s boiling in oil and your lungs feel like they’re breathing fire. You want to scream and beg to die, but you can’t. Your muscles are paralyzed. It’s hell in a needle.

I gave in. Like a coward. Did what he asked. I told Aurora I had a campsite out in the woods and Kaia was waiting for us there. She didn’t ask questions. Maybe because she was tripping so hard or maybe because part of her knew what was about to happen.

Three years earlier

Aurora stepped from the Flower Children’s van into an enchanted forest. Silver trees with shiny, snakeskin-like scales waved their “hands” at the moonlit sky, as fallen leaves wriggled and rustled on the ground like a living carpet. Thousands of tiny pixies made of light danced in the air. When had the world become so beautiful?

“Come, Aurora, Kaia is waiting for you,” said Eddy’s voice, up ahead.

It made sense that a world as magical as this one would have Kaia in it. Aurora stepped onto the woodland trail, and the trees bowed to her as if she was royalty. Everything moved like in an old cartoon.

“Come on, Aurora, follow the trail to my camp.”

The trail rose up like an inchworm. Then it flattened and began flowing like a stream, toward a big rock formation studded with gems and glowing with purplish inner light. Aurora skipped forward, her feet bouncing almost weightlessly, as if she was walking on the moon.

“She’s right here, Aurora. Look, she’s waving at you!”

Was she? Aurora strained her eyes. She thought maybe she could see Kaia—standing in the middle of the trail near the bottom of the rock formation, smiling and waving at her. Had Eddy been telling the truth after all? At first, when he and the other men surrounded her at Drum Circle, she’d thought they meant her harm. She was scared and expecting to die. But then, suddenly, the world turned beautiful. And now this!

Aurora put her arms out and ran toward her daughter. Kaia seemed to scamper away in play. Aurora paused, grinning. She felt Eddy’s hand alight on her shoulder. “Closer, Aurora. She’s right over there!” He pointed to a spot not far ahead. Aurora ran toward it.

Closer and closer she ran.

And then—the ground beneath her feet disappeared. The spell of enchantment ended. She plunged through cold, dark air that smelled of roots. Down, down, down she plummeted. A rock floor struck her body with the force of a giant hammer blow. The last sound she heard was the wet crack of bones. Her own.

And then, silence without end.

Present day

She went straight down an old mineshaft, said Eddy’s recorded voice. That’s where she is today. And my soul went down that hole with her.

47

Jack—time and date uncertain

The heat in the chamber was mounting like a sauna turned to max but without a trace of moisture. Every breath I took caused my throat to sting and my lungs to ache. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. Black didn’t seem to be doing too well either. He’d started mumbling in a disjointed way.

But then he shook himself to full alertness and said, “I have a confession to make, Dillard. Something I need to get off my chest, in case we…” He didn’t need to say the word pressing down on both of us like God’s boot heel.

I nodded so he could feel it through our bound hands.

“I admit it,” he said. “I was in love with her. Aurora.”

His statement hung in the heated air.

“She was a beautiful woman,” Black went on. “A beautiful person. She had a few demons, but…”

“You thought you could save her.” I knew by now he wasn’t involved in her death.

Black said nothing for a moment. “I tried but I was too late.”

“So you did the next best thing. Made damn sure the man who killed her spent the rest of his life rotting in prison.”

“And I’d do it again tomorrow.”

“Can I ask you something, Black? Did you ever seriously consider the possibility that it wasn’t Joel Sanchez who killed Aurora Eden?”

“Trust me, Dillard. It’s always the husband or boyfriend.”

“Always?”

His answer came as if cued up: “Sanchez didn’t talk to us during the investigation. Not a word. Mounted one of the weakest defense cases I’ve ever seen. Acted like he was resigned to his fate. That’s not how an innocent man acts.”

“Unless that innocent man is protecting something. Or someone.”

He gave this idea room to roam, but not much. “We had the threats, the history of domestic disturbances, the impending custody battle. We had her blood in his car. We had the two women—Davies and Swan—who said they saw Sanchez with a body and a shovel the night Aurora disappeared. We had the gum with his DNA in it, found in the exact location where they saw him…”

“The blood was a small amount, and it could have been in the car from before, you know that. Those two witnesses were sex workers with a lot to lose. You’re telling me you had nothing to do with their coming forward with that story about Sanchez? You’re telling me you didn’t plant Sanchez’s gum at the site where they allegedly saw him?”

“Is that the kind of man you think I am, Dillard?”

Was it? The truth was, now that I’d spent some time with the guy, I really didn’t see him that way anymore. Love-blind and shortsighted, maybe. But not the type to plant evidence.

“No, I don’t think that’s the kind of man you are, Bob.”

In fact, I was almost starting to like the guy. Almost.

Dreddy Eddy’s audio wasn’t quite finished.

The shaft was a good ways out in the woods. Even if someone did come across it, they wouldn’t go near it. Too unstable, too dangerous. So with no body to be found, we figured people would think Aurora just up and moved on, like she did sometimes. But then Bubba Black got a bug in his brain about murder. Not good for us. Or… was it? Black zeroed in on Joel Sanchez as her killer, so the boss decided to seize the opportunity. He gave Davies and Swan—the massage gals—a bag full of cash and candy to invent that story about seeing Sanchez with a body bag and shovel. Then I found some of Joel’s chewed gum in Aurora’s apartment, that Big Red stuff she hated, and we placed it at the spot where they claimed they saw him. Aurora’s blood being in the car was just dumb luck. It worked out better than anyone could have hoped. Sanchez was convicted and didn’t appeal. And everything was peaches and cream.

Until you and your lawyer friend started asking questions. The Chef’s going to mess you up. You know that, don’t you? Actually, he’s going to dose you and make you mess yourself up. He’s already got your lawyer friend—that’s what PJ tells me, anyway—and he’s working on him. You’re next. So watch everything you eat and drink. I mean it. Please. Mr. Nelson, I need you to tell Aurora’s story to the world. I made her a promise. I hope it’s not too late.

That was the end of the last voice message.

There was a lot to digest, but only one sentence mattered to Charlie. He’s already got your lawyer friend.

She tapped on the final file Eddy had sent Zane. It was a map image, marking a hilly rural area northeast of Shanti Springs. The only noted location was a “Red Bliss Farm.”

Charlie brought the map up on the car’s nav screen and threw the car into Drive.

“Where are we going?” asked Abby.

“To find your dad,” Charlie said. “I hope.” She stepped on the gas.

48

Dreddy Eddy sat at his usual table behind The Nosh. He finished writing the letter, then sealed it up, stamped it, and addressed it to Robert Black. It stated everything he’d said in his voice messages to Zane Nelson, with some additional details.

Then he reached into his pack and took out his pill pouch. He’d been drug-free—painfully so—for the last three days, but now that Aurora’s story was told, his vow fulfilled, he could indulge again. He swallowed three pink pills and one blue gelcap and washed them down with the last of his coffee. The chemicals hadn’t hit his bloodstream yet, but he already felt a rush of euphoria.

After placing the letter in a residential mailbox and raising its metal flag, he headed off in the direction he felt pulled in.

Twenty minutes later, he saw a figure dressed in white, waving at him from up the road. His heart leapt.

The figure ducked into the trees, and he stepped up his pace. After he’d walked another minute, the figure reappeared, waving again, and he could see it more clearly—white, sari-style dress, golden hair woven in dreads. It was her. Aurora. She hadn’t lied to him, she was here. Just as she’d promised.

When he got a little nearer, Aurora began running toward him, like a long-lost lover in a romance movie. They embraced, spinning in the road, and Aurora planted a warm, wet kiss on his lips. He felt her heart pounding against his chest and the press of her soft flesh. He could smell her sandalwood scent and taste the delicious warmth of her mouth. This was no hallucination; this was Aurora in flesh and blood. They broke their kiss at last.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Eddy said, his voice catching in his throat.

“I promised you, didn’t I? Come on, Edmund!”

She took his hand and pulled him into the forest.

They ran for several minutes, holding hands and jumping over fallen logs like children. When they reached the large rock formation, Eddy’s heart was hammering, and his legs felt like they’d run a marathon. Panting like a tired dog, he followed her around Crescent Rock into the area where the ground sloped in a funnel-like way toward a dark opening in the ground—mostly overgrown with weeds and vines. Aurora tiptoed down the incline, pulling him along.

“Wait,” she said, pressing her hand to his chest and smiling coyly. He halted. She scampered ahead and sat on the low rock near the edge of the hole. Locking eyes with him, she reached for the shoulder-tie of the white dress. Eddy felt a stir in his unwashed jeans he hadn’t felt in years. Aurora lowered the cloth, revealing her perfect breasts, then stood up and let the garment fall to the ground. Standing naked and radiating a wave of warmth that Eddy could feel from five feet away, she smiled and beckoned to him.

Eddy stepped toward her.

The ground vanished beneath his feet. He plunged fifty feet through winter-cold air and struck a rock floor with a whap that echoed in the well-like space. The face on his broken skull came to rest just inches from the face of Aurora Eden’s fleshless skeleton.

They were almost close enough to kiss.

Charlie knew it was reckless to descend on a drug dealer’s hideout, especially with her daughter in tow, but a primal impulse was in control. Jack was in danger, and every minute might count. If she called the police, it would take too long to explain the situation and to convince them to show up in force. And they might be on The Chef’s payroll anyway.

Still, she didn’t want to be needlessly reckless. She brought up her contacts list on the nav system and punched the number for Leon Bates.

He answered after half a ring. “Just the gal I’ve been looking for.”

“Ready to start earning your paycheck?” She explained to him what was happening to Jack and forwarded him Eddy’s map image. “Meet us there.”

“Oh,” said Bates with a sober tone, noting the location. “High command central.” He let out a drawn exhale. “If you get there before me, don’t do anything. Wait for me. I need to set some wheels in motion first.”

“Roger that,” Charlie said. Once she and Bates had scoped out the situation, she would rely on him to bring in the right level of law enforcement. “See you there.”

“On my way.”

Charlie glanced at Abby, hoping she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life, and drove on.

49

Most Carolinians who bought a half-gallon jug of Uncle Otis’ Unfiltered Apple Cider at their local Piggly Wiggly didn’t know they were providing cover for one of the fastest-growing illegal drug operations in the Southeast.

The 278-acre piece of land called Red Bliss Farm started at Wyattsville Road and rolled back over Priests’ Hill, encompassing most of the old village of Corbett’s Junction. It was owned by the Red Bliss Land Trust, an entity that paid its taxes, on time, every year. Much of the land was forest, but it also contained an apple orchard, three farmhouses, multiple barns and storage buildings, an old cider mill, a new cider mill, and a bakehouse, in addition to the crumbling remains of an old general store and a church-turned-dance hall-turned-flea market. The only notable twenty-first-century feature was the carbon-steel security gate blocking the entry road.

The trustee of Red Bliss Land Trust was Albert Spencer, who had acquired the property to house his rapidly growing drug enterprise. He had also acquired the apple business, which he continued to operate, selling cider, “home-baked” apple pies, and dried apple products to several dozen grocery stores in the Carolinas and Tennessee and providing legal justification for the dozens of hippie-like employees who roved the property.

The electric gate opened, and the white Lincoln Aviator drove through it with authority. It parked at the top of the hill near the new cider mill where the company offices were located. A trio of long-haired men dressed in plaid and denim strode out of the mill building to meet it.

The driver’s side window glided down. “Take us to the lawyer and the cop. Quickly.”

Charlie slowed as she passed the old “Entering Corbett’s Junction” sign.

“We’re getting close,” said Abby, watching the GPS image on the nav screen.

A few hundred yards down the road, Charlie saw another sign: “Red Bliss Farm. Home of Uncle Otis’ Unfiltered Apple Cider and Uncle Otis’ Apple Pies.” The entry road was blocked by a security gate; Charlie drove a bit farther. The crumbling remains of an old village settlement—a general store, a church, a couple other structures—stood near the road. She drove past them and turned left down an old dirt road lined on its left by a tall wire fence.

She drove a hundred yards uphill, noting that wire fencing seemed to enclose the whole farm property. Was that a video camera on one of the fence posts?

“Duck down,” she said to Abby.

“Why?”

“Cameras. Please. Just do it.” Charlie pulled over on a dirt shoulder and said, “We’ll wait here for Leon. Stay down.”

Joe Dillard paced back and forth on the porch of his rented cottage near West Bay Road on Grand Cayman, his windbreaker zipped to his neck. The wind rattled the fabric with a machine-gun sound, causing Rio, his old German Shepherd, to drop to his haunches and growl. Joe whipped out his phone and checked the website of Owen Roberts International Airport for the hundredth time. “Closed until further notice,” the home page still read. He growled in frustration.

The browser screen went blank. The spinning circle told him he’d lost Internet service completely. “Damn!”

Joe switched to the phone function and tried to redial one of the private pilots he’d been hounding, though he knew none of them would fly in this weather. Phone service was dead too.

He was going nowhere. Period. End of story.

Joe clenched his fists and looked up at the gunmetal clouds shifting in the sky like huge 3D game pieces. “Caroline,” he raged over the wind, “why are you doing this to me? It wasn’t enough to put me through this once already? Watching, like a helpless idiot, while you slipped away from me? Unable to do a damn thing? Now I have to go through it all again? Watching. Waiting. Nothing I can do. Why? Why?”

Only the roar of the wind answered. And then a thought snuck into his head, speaking in the soft voice of his late wife. There’s one thing you can do, Joe. You can pray. You can pray for Jack.

Joe supposed he could. Even if he didn’t know how. Or to whom.

He bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Charlie and Abby had been waiting in the car, outside the farm, for about fifteen minutes when they heard a gunshot, causing them to sit up in alarm. Seconds later, they spotted a guy on foot, cresting the hill about fifty yards up the road. Long-haired, plaid flannel shirt. He was walking right toward them. Uh-oh, thought Charlie.

But wait. The guy was staggering and holding his stomach in pain. Had he been shot?

“Stay down. Don’t move,” Charlie told Abby. She stepped out of the car.

The man dropped to his knees, then collapsed, face-down on the side of the road near the fence. Acting on instinct, Charlie ran up the hill toward him. “Hello? Are you okay?”

The man didn’t respond. Charlie ran closer.

When she neared him, the man rolled to his side. It took her brain a full two seconds to process the fact that he was holding a handgun. Aimed at her. He sprung to his feet, uninjured, and said, “Come with me, Mrs. Dillard.”

50

The sound of shoe heels clomping on concrete snapped me to attention, and a bright light came on outside the small window. Before I could speculate on what was going on, the door to the chamber flew open, admitting a rush of cool air. Light stung our eyes. Not just from overhead lights, but from flashlights. Aimed at our faces. After a moment of blindness, I made out a group of men standing around the doorway in a semicircle. I couldn’t see their features but three of them were dressed in white suits and fedora-style hats. A couple of others were long-haired Flower Children in T-shirts and jeans. The Flower Children held rifles; the men in white suits carried stubby automatic weapons.

“Guess we should be flattered, Dillard,” Black said to me, finding a reserve of defiance. “All this firepower for little ol’ us.”

“Gratitude is the emotion you should be feeling right now, gentlemen,” said a syrupy drawl I recognized but couldn’t place. “For I have come to deliver you from suffering.” The man who spoke shone a flashlight at his own face, and my nerves did a shimmy of surprise.

Jonathan Jenkins.

What was he doing here, surrounded by a squadron of armed men? A spark of memory flared to life in the back of my mind: Leon Bates’ account of the drug ring. I guessed I knew the answer to my question. Jenkins was The Chef’s partner, his “head of sales.”

“The device you’re reposing within,” he said, “is a commercial fruit dryer. They wheel the apple slices in on those racks over there.” He pointed to some metal trollies lined with shelves. “It’s presently on its lowest setting. Now… my business partner, he would be content to crank it up and leave you in here until you were sixty pounds of discount jerky. But my partner is not a Christian man. Fortunately for you, I am.”

He turned to his men. “Untie them,” he ordered. “But cuff them and make sure they can’t do-si-do or promenade.” The two suited men knelt and cut the ropes from our wrists and lower extremities. They snapped handcuffs on me and shackled my ankles with a short rope, allowing me to shuffle but not run. They did the same to Black.

Jenkins told us to stand and step out of the drying chamber. We complied.

Jenkins’ white-clad henchmen moved in behind Black and me, guns at our backs. The Flower Children flanked us on the sides.

“Don’t go mistaking my mercy for latitude, gentlemen,” said Jenkins. “You are going to die. But if you are cooperative, I’ll allow it to be quick and easy. You’re welcome.”

The pack began marching en masse. Black and I had no choice but to move with it.

“I’m disappointed in you, Lieutenant,” Jenkins said to Black. “I’m told you’ve been a reliable silent partner these last few years. But I suppose all good things come to an end… including this brief ballet called life.”

We headed through a long room lined with stainless steel tanks.

“Step lively, gentlemen. We have a small jaunt ahead of us. I suggest you use that time to get right with your Lord and Maker.”

Abby, still in the car, watched the plaid-shirted gunman lead Charlie over the crest of the hill. Fighting panic, she forced herself to recall her Krav Maga lessons: Avoid conflict whenever possible, but when it’s unavoidable, don’t mess around. Incapacitate the enemy, using whatever objects are on hand.

In the movies, people used tire irons as weapons, she recalled. She exited the car and popped the trunk latch.

Abby found the “tire iron”—an eight-inch piece of molded aluminum, not the two-foot steel bludgeon from the movies. Luckily, though, her baseball bag lay in the trunk too. She grabbed her Louisville Slugger.

Treading lightly and ducking low, she trotted up the hill, gripping the bat.

As she crested the hill, she saw the man in the plaid flannel shirt marching Charlie toward a pickup truck parked on the roadside about thirty yards ahead. Beyond it was a gate leading to the farm property. Abby had no place to hide; she would have to follow them on the open road. Her only hope was that the man wouldn’t turn and look behind him.

Abby cushioned her footsteps and kept following.

51

Black and I were loaded into the bed of a red Jeep Gladiator marked with apple decals. We sat side by side, facing the rear, as Jenkins and his men took the cabin seats. The truck started off down a dirt road, followed by a second Jeep occupied by the Flower Children.

From what I could see as we bounced along the bumpy road, the farm had once been a minor tourist attraction, with pick-your-own-apple “safaris,” hayrides, picnic areas, walking trails, game booths, and a petting zoo. Most of it had gone to seed years ago, but the trails remained, still marked by old signs with names like Appleseed Way and Delicious Trail.

I could almost see ghosts eating candy apples and tossing rings onto milk bottles.

The Jeep turned down a smaller road marked by a carved wooden sign: Granny Smith Lane. Half a mile later we turned down an even smaller, tree-lined path, barely wide enough for vehicles. Branches crowded the truck. We juddered on rocky terrain.

The forest thickened around us, and the shadows grew darker.

Abby ran up the road on tiptoe, keeping her eyes glued to Charlie and her armed captor. The man continued marching Charlie forward without looking back.

Abby closed the gap to fifteen yards, then ten, then five.

When the pair reached the pickup truck—which faced toward Abby—the man stopped and reached into his pocket. Pulling out a key fob, he aimed it at the door, unlocking the vehicle. Within seconds, Abby would be spotted!

The long-haired man gestured toward the door with this gun, and Charlie climbed in. Her eyes went wide as she saw Abby. Charlie shook her head in a small but urgent way, trying to warn Abby off. But it was too late; Abby was committed to action.

The man walked around the back of the truck to get to the driver’s door. Abby stayed behind him, circling in a wide arc, as he turned the first corner, then the second. Her best chance to strike would come when he went to open the door.

As if reading Abby’s mind, Charlie pressed the button on her armrest, locking both doors. This would buy Abby a few extra seconds. The longhaired man shook his head, annoyed at the delay.

He stopped at the driver’s door and, with a frown, dug in his pocket for his fob. Abby made her move. She darted up to him and lifted the bat.

Her blood went cold. The shadow of the bat landed on the door, right in front of the man. He saw it!

The man turned, lightning fast, his gun moving into firing position.

Abby had one chance to make the swing of her life. Remembering her Krav Maga instructor’s advice, “Aim to incapacitate. Go for a vulnerable place,” she swung the bat, full strength, whomping the side of the man’s head. The blow made a horribly wooden sound as a pop echoed from the man’s open mouth. An almost cartoonish expression of shock and pain overtook his face, and he staggered sideways. He didn’t fall, though, and he didn’t drop the gun. “Try to hit the same place repeatedly,” Abby recalled her instructor saying. Before the man could gather his wits, she struck the side of his head again with a choked-up swing. He collapsed to his butt on the dirt road. Abby repeated the blow three, four, five times, fast. The lights went out in the man’s eyes, and he toppled over onto the ground.

Abby felt sickened by what she’d done. She hoped the man wasn’t dead or permanently injured, but there was no time to worry about it. She grabbed the gun from his limp hand and picked the key fob off the ground. Seeing that Charlie had already slid into the driver’s seat, she jumped in the passenger side.

Charlie fired up the truck and dropped it into gear. She did a screeching U-turn, the wheels dipping off the road, and sped toward the gate. As the truck skidded to a stop, the gate opened automatically! Must have one of those transponder thingies, Abby surmised.

Charlie gunned it through the gate, abandoning the idea of waiting for Leon Bates. The gate closed behind her, and it was only then she said, “My phone! I left it in the car.”

A cluster of barn-red buildings lay straight ahead. She aimed the truck toward them but then steered off the dirt road and parked behind a shed-like building collared by overgrown bushes.

“This is close enough,” Charlie said. “I’ll go on foot from here.”

“We’ll go on foot from here,” Abby replied.

Charlie sighed. “There’s no point trying to convince you to wait in the truck, is there?”

“None,” said Abby. “Besides, I might be in worse danger waiting here.”

“True,” Charlie conceded. “But I’ll take this.” She lifted the gun from Abby’s hand. “You hang onto that.” She pointed at the bat. “You obviously know how to use it. Stay behind me and do whatever I say.”

52

Our Jeep followed the overgrown trail past a stagnant pond, through another stand of woods, and into an open space marked by blackened earth and piles of rotting branches and old lumber. It appeared to be the place where employees of yesteryear burned brush and junk wood.

The two vehicles stopped, and we were pulled out of the back, still in handcuffs and ankle ties.

Three Flower Children were already at work in the clearing. They had moved one of the branch piles aside and were digging a large oblong hole.

I had a pretty good idea what the hole was intended for. And after the deed was done, our woodland grave—Black’s and mine—would be covered again with the pile of old branches to hide the newly dug earth. The crease in Black’s brow told me he was thinking the same thing.

Black and I stood on either side of the double-wide grave-in-progress, each of us flanked by one of Jenkins’ gunmen. Both of us outsized our guards by at least two inches and twenty pounds, but their automatic weapons nullified our size advantages. The two Flower Children with rifles paced about, looking at their phones.

“There will be a short delay while site preparation continues,” said the white-clad Jenkins. He cast his eyes at the hippie men excavating the trough. “And so…” He paused and took a small leather-bound book from his jacket pocket. “If either of you gentlemen has a preferred prayer—from the Christian repertoire, of course—you would like me to read, I will try to accommodate your wish.” He looked from Black’s face to mine, getting no reaction from either of us. He frowned. “But if you’re of the heathen persuasion, you’re on your own, I’m afraid.” He returned the book to his pocket with a rueful headshake. Addressing the diggers, he said, “I think that’s deep enough to keep the dogs away.”

The two gun-bearing Flower Children set their weapons down to help their associates climb out of the freshly dug grave. Black flicked his eyes at me. Two of the four guns were now unmanned. That increased our odds a bit—but still not enough to try anything.

Staring at the hole in the ground, an eerie calm descended on me. A strange reaction, perhaps, for a man who was about to be shot and laid in an unmarked grave. But I was Jackson Dillard, and I had been publicly reviled, privately loathed, and written off as a failure, a lesser man than my father. Or maybe that was only my own judgment. But one thing I knew for sure: I was weary. Weary of the guilt. Weary of the loss. Weary of the self-recrimination. The struggles with alcohol and other demons. Maybe all that could finally stop now. An even more enticing idea dawned: maybe I could see my mother again, the person who’d understood me better than anyone else on Earth. I missed her so much. Since her death, I’d been haunted by images of her, alone and adrift in… whatever realm lies beyond this one. Maybe now we could—

No! Mom would never permit this kind of thinking. And neither should I.

Horror stabbed at me as I realized what I was about to lose. I loved my wife and my adopted daughter with a fierceness beyond words. I still had a chance to prove myself worthy of their love and admiration. I still had a chance to live up to the high expectations I had set for myself in this life. And to find my real calling.

But all of that was about to be robbed by a lying swamp rat in a white suit my father would have backhanded into oblivion.

Anger ignited in me once again, eclipsing all other emotions. I reined it in. I needed to think. There had to be something I could do to save myself—and Black. Something.

But, short of a miracle, I could think of nothing.

And then, just as hope was about to die on the vine, I heard a sound, quiet and unobtrusive, and hope grew a tender new shoot. It wasn’t the sound of police sirens wailing or a bullhorn shouting, “Drop your weapons!” It was far less climactic. I glanced at Black, and I knew he recognized it too.

The sound—which no one else seemed to notice—was the whirring of a drone’s propeller.

53

“Attention, please,” came the voice of The Chef from the in-wall speakers. The lab employees halted their tasks, mid-motion. Those who were using motorized equipment—the centrifuge, the blender, the tableting machines—shut their machines off. Everyone stood at attention, surgical masks hiding their full expressions.

“Good morning, Children,” announced The Chef, injecting a smile into his voice.

“Good morning, Papaji,” chorused the lab workers with practiced brightness.

“Please prepare to run a drill. Our field team has learned there may be movement afoot among those who would try to harm our mission.” He allowed this news to sink in. “With that in mind, let us take a moment to remind ourselves of the sacred nature of our work. We are in the business of transforming human consciousness. What we do in this lab is above and beyond the laws of men. And so, no trace of our formulas, our methods, our materials, or our… human resources must be discoverable by law enforcement teams. Are we aligned on this?”

“Yes, Papaji.”

“Excellent. Should these premises be breached by the armed forces of ignorance, no physical traces of our work must remain.”

“Yes, Papaji.”

“Fear not. All the data we generate is backed up off-site, so our good work will continue elsewhere. As for yourselves, please remember, Children: no true harm—only reward—will come to you because you are already walking in the Eternal Gardens. Are you prepared to do what is necessary?”

“Yes, Papaji.”

“Blessings and gratitude. The drill will now proceed.”

A recorded female voice came through the speakers: “In the event of a major security breach, you will hear this signal…”

The speakers blasted the recorded sound of fast, rhythmic voices chanting in a ringing tone, “Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya…”

“You will then have fifteen seconds to take the steps each of you has been trained to take. When this final signal is heard…” A climactic note rang out through the speakers—an angelic chorus accompanied by a full orchestra. It was the sound of spiritual glory and battle victory, all rolled together. “You will take your respective actions. The drill will begin in five seconds. Remember, this is only a drill. Five, four, three, two…”

As the whirring of the drone came closer, I shot a glance at Black, hoping he was thinking the same thing. Resisting the temptation to look up, I instead watched the face of the gunman beside me. The moment he raised his eyes to see what the noise was, I made my move. I grasped his gun with my cuffed hands and used my larger size to plow him backwards and trip him with my leg. He lost his hold on the automatic weapon, and I was able to wrap my hands around it. Immediately I trained it on Jonathan Jenkins.

Across the hole from me, Black was trying to do the same thing—wrest the gun from his guard. But he was not quite so lucky. His man regained control of the weapon.

“Drop it or I shoot your boss,” I said to the man.

“Drop yours or I shoot your friend,” replied the white-clad gunman. I wasn’t sure Black and I could be classified as friends—not yet anyway—but this wasn’t the time for semantics.

“I’ll shoot you both,” said one of the Flower Children who’d taken up his rifle again. The confused look in his eyes told me he wasn’t sure what to do next.

We’d reached a standoff, at least temporarily. Once this truth dawned on everyone, our collective attention shifted to the drone hovering twenty feet over our heads. No one seemed to know how to interpret its presence. Who was operating it? Friend or foe?

It could be the police, I realized with a surge of hope. Conversely, it could be The Chef or Jenkins’ people monitoring the grounds. Or…?

No one commented on the hovering object, probably for fear of betraying ignorance. No one fired at it either, uncertain as to whose side it was on. The three gravediggers seized the distraction to flee toward the compound.

The drone sunk lower and made a slow, circular pass over all of us. Whoever was operating the device was capturing a live video feed of our bizarre tableau.

The drone then lifted skyward and zipped away, making that weird sound like a swarm of bees flying through an electric fan.

The standoff continued, all of us frozen in position.

Stasis wouldn’t hold for long, though, I knew. More “troops” would soon arrive, thanks to the video the drone had captured.

I had no idea whether those troops would be friend or foe.

54

Charlie and Abby crept up toward a red, barn-like building, then hid in the surrounding greenery. They had no idea how big the property was, whether Jack was really being held here as Dreddy Eddy’s map seemed to suggest, whether he was alive or dead, or where he might be. Charlie was flying blind. And she was beginning to realize what a needle-in-a-haystack situation she’d stumbled into. If Red Bliss Farm was indeed The Chef’s headquarters, the illegal part of the operations was no doubt well disguised. Jack could be anywhere.

“What should we do?” asked Abby.

Charlie had no answer. She was feeling rash and stupid and thoroughly irresponsible. Frightened to her bones. She wished she had her phone so she could call Leon Bates and find out if he was nearby yet. She wished she could just leave and regroup, but walking away was not an option. If she and Abby were caught wandering the grounds, they were dead.

The situation went from bad to worse when a whistling-whirring sound filled the air. Abby and Charlie looked at each other wide-eyed as they recognized the object: a drone. It must be the farm’s security team, scanning for the intruders who’d knocked out the pickup driver.

“Duck,” Charlie said, pressing Abby into the brush.

Her heart shuddered as the drone paused in the air directly overhead. Capturing security video of them, no doubt. How long till armed guards came running? Fifteen seconds? Thirty?

Before she had time to ponder the question, a small rectangular object bounced in the grass four feet from her. Dropped by the drone? It appeared to be an electronic device.

Charlie dashed out of hiding and grabbed it. The drone flew away at high speed.

The device was a digital recorder.

When a digital recorder falls from the sky, there is really only one option: Charlie pushed Play.

“Ms. Charleston,” said the familiar voice, “this is Leon Bates. Sorry we didn’t connect before you… took action. I can’t get onto the property. Without a badge, they won’t open the gates for me, and I can’t climb fences or tussle with guards because my foot’s busted. But I did bring my surveillance drone with me, which you just saw. I’ll explain more later, but listen to me. Jack is alive. I saw him. He’s in a bit of a jam, but he’s alive. I uploaded the video to the state police. They were already on their way, thanks to my heads-up. Should be here any minute. Hang tight and stay safe. This is a weapons-drawn situation. Extreme danger. Wait for the boys in blue. I’ll keep doing whatever I can from out here.”

“Freeze!” someone shouted from the nearby woods.

We couldn’t get any more frozen than we already were.

“North Carolina State Police!”

A half dozen police officers charged from the trees, guns drawn. Two guns were aimed at each of the three weapon-holders, including me.

“Lower your weapons very slowly and place them on the ground,” ordered the officer in charge.

I was happy to comply, gently laying my weapon down. The others also did as ordered.

“Place your hands in the air where we can see them.” Everyone obeyed. An officer dashed about, gathering the guns.

Crisis averted for the moment, the man in charge turned to Black. “So… Bob. I see the rumors are true. They’ve got you riding a desk now.”

“Well, you know, those traffic violations aren’t going to file themselves,” Black deadpanned back.

The two men looked at each other and burst into laughter. It was the kind of laughter that can only come from two old comrades neck-deep in a tension-filled situation.

The laughter quickly expired. “Care to explain what’s going on here?”

“I’ll do my best, Chip,” said Black.

“Look!” Abby whispered.

A line of men and women wearing dark khaki pants and black Kevlar vests and carrying rifle-style weapons filed up the hill. They must have entered the property by the same gate Charlie drove through. They were moving quickly and quietly.

The cavalry had arrived. To rescue Jack, she hoped.

Charlie and Abby watched as the armed troops streamed through a section of apple orchard and over the crest of the hill. They seemed to know exactly where they were going. If Charlie had been closer to them, she would have seen that their insignias read “DEA,” not police or armed forces. But it wouldn’t have mattered to her. Rescue was rescue.

“They must know where to find him.”

Before Charlie could stop her, Abby took off at a full sprint, following the armed men and women. Charlie cursed below her breath but had no choice but to follow.

In truth, a mountain gorilla couldn’t have held her back.

55

Ilistened as Black gave his state-police friend—Captain Chip Harwood—the condensed version of everything that had happened: my captivity, Black’s attempt to free me, our subsequent capture, the arrival of Jenkins’ men, the graveside standoff.

Harwood placed Jonathan Jenkins under arrest. I wished Charlie had been there to see it. He also arrested Jenkins’ men and the Flower Children who hadn’t gotten away. While Jenkins’ hands were being cuffed, ours were being uncuffed, by means of a key Jenkins’ men gave up.

Harwood ordered two of his officers to take the arrestees into custody and place their guns into evidence. Jenkins flashed me a manure-munching grin as he and his white-jacketed goons were marched away. No doubt, his lawyers would have him back at his swimming pool before bedtime, but I relished the visual anyway.

Captain Chip Harwood then explained to Black how the police had been tipped off to my kidnapping location by a “rent-a-cop with big ambitions” and how said rent-a-cop had arrived ahead of them and snagged the drone video of our near-death experience.

A call came in on Harwood’s shoulder radio, and he said, “Go ahead.”

I heard some garbled words from the radio, then, “It’s a go.”

“Roger,” replied Harwood.

He explained to Black, “There’s a… situation unfolding that we need to participate in.” He was being guarded with his words, due to my presence.

“Dillard’s okay,” Black told him. “What’s going on?”

Harwood shot a wary glance at me but said, “The DEA is doing a raid right now. They’ve been eyeing this place as a drug hub for some time, trying to get their ducks in a row, but we alerted them that this was happening…” He nodded at me, the whole scene. “So they decided they better make their move. They want us to provide backup. Stay right here, we’ll get you guys out ASAP.”

Harwood’s cellphone rang, and he stepped aside to answer it. He turned toward me and said with bewilderment, “It’s the rent-a-cop. He wants to talk to you.”

He switched the phone to speaker mode and handed it to me. I raised a baffled brow and accepted it.

“Jack,” said the voice for all to hear, “it’s Leon. I’m glad you’re okay. Listen to me: Charlie and Abby are here. On the grounds. They got a tip that you were here, and they’re looking for you. I can’t do a whole lot to help them, what with my mangled foot. But I’ll keep an eye on them from the air.”

My heart dropped into my belly. “That’s my wife and daughter,” I told the others.

“We’re joining your raid team,” Black informed Harwood.

“No, you’re not, Bob,” Harwood answered. “Too dangerous. Too much liability. You guys aren’t armed or wearing protection.”

“The man’s wife and daughter are in harm’s way,” said Black. “We’re coming with you. End of discussion.”

I was really starting to like this guy.

Harwood let out a sigh but didn’t argue. He and his remaining three officers ran off at a trot. Black and I followed. The cops pretended not to notice us.

Charlie and Abby followed the Kevlar vests over the crest of the hill, staying a good distance behind them. The vests streamed through an orchard area toward a dirt road, where another three vest-wearers filed in from the left. The two lines fused into one and proceeded down the road, where it dipped into a hollow. The team seemed laser-focused on its task. None of them were looking back. Still, Charlie and Abby kept their distance, trying to remain unseen.

When Charlie and Abby reached the road, half a minute behind the armed brigade, they noticed a sign pointing to “Old Cider Mill.” The road was lined with hedges. They stayed behind the hedge line and followed the road down into the hollow. There, they observed the Kevlar team fanning out around a large old building with a hand-carved sign identifying it as the cider mill.

“This must be where he’s being held,” Abby whispered. “Are they going to bust him out?”

“I don’t know what they’re going to do,” Charlie answered.

Abby eyed a collection of antique cider barrels at the end of the hedge line, about twenty feet from the right side of the old mill. The barrels were stacked decoratively in tiers to enhance the place’s rustic charm, but they also offered a convenient hiding spot. Abby, who had apparently learned the principle, “Better to apologize than ask permission,” took a deep breath, then sprinted toward the stacked barrels, staying behind the hedges.

Charlie couldn’t yell for her, couldn’t do a thing but follow once again. She made a mad dash along the hedge line, keeping her eyes locked on Abby.

Mother and daughter made it to the barrels without being seen. They hid behind them, peering out. All they could see were the armed men and women, their postures alert, awaiting orders or a signal.

It was only now that Charlie noticed the DEA lettering on several of the vests. Before she could ponder why the Drug Enforcement Administration would be involved in a kidnapping situation, a wholly unexplainable sound seized her attention. Blaring from speakers both inside and outside the building came the recorded chanting of high, fast, ringing voices—monks of some kind, maybe: “Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya…”

56

Black and I kept pace, following the three police officers down a series of trails and passing a sign: “Old Cider Mill.” At one point, Harwood stopped to take a phone call, halting his two colleagues. With a baleful look, he turned and reached out the phone to me. “It’s the rent-a-cop. Wants to talk to you again.”

“Captain Harwood,” I said, catching my breath, “just so you know, that ‘rent-a-cop’ is Leon Bates, former sheriff of Washington County, and one of the finest law enforcement officers—and men—you’ll ever meet.”

“Noted,” said Harwood. “No insult intended. But make it fast.” He handed me his phone. “We’re a tad busy, as you may have noticed.”

“Jack,” said Leon Bates, again on speakerphone. His voice pulsed with urgency. “I’ve got eyes on the action right now. Charlie and Abby are right outside the old cider mill where the raid is about to go down. They’re hiding behind a stack of wooden barrels, near the front.”

My blood pressure shot into the red zone. I tossed the phone back to Harwood. Black and I took off at a full gallop. Harwood and the other three cops fell into pursuit behind us.

The lab sprang into action. Having just run a drill, everyone knew their assigned steps: attach the wired packs to their specified locations and then click together the electric couplings—always kept separated and cased in plastic. After completing those tasks, each member stepped to the front of their workstation and put their arms up to signify they were ready to receive their chest-packs. Several team members then began handing out the fabric-wrapped bundles and ensuring they were properly fastened and enabled.

The rapid chanting of Om Namah Shivaya put everyone simultaneously on high alert and in a calm and focused state.

As we drew near the old cider mill, I saw several DEA agents wearing black Kevlar vests arrayed in position and holding weapons. Another group of them was off to the side, talking animatedly, their hands gesticulating. Blaring from the building was a recorded sound that made no sense: spiritual chanting of some kind?

Suddenly, every danger receptacle in my nervous system fired at once. The ping hit me on a seismic scale, and time slowed to a crawl. My brain teemed with images I didn’t understand: old footage of the Waco, Texas, standoff in 1993 and the Ruby Ridge siege. Images of Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate too, from a course I took in college. I didn’t know why.

But then I thought about Albert Spencer—aka The Chef, aka Bluegill—and the kind of person he seemed to be. His mission to “transform human consciousness.” The insane ways he strove to manipulate and control people, including me. His army of faithful devotees who served him with religious fervor. His massive ego and high intelligence.

A flash of understanding body-slammed me: this was not a man who would allow himself to be arrested by “mere mortals” or have his work taken from him. I knew in every cell of my body that Spencer would not go down gently. I knew what was about to happen.

I yelled, “CHARLIE!” and raced, full bore, toward the stack of old cider barrels on the far side of the building, passing in front of the armed agents.

I barely registered the DEA voices shouting, “STOP! FREEZE! WE WILL SHOOT!” at me. All my concentration was focused on reaching that wall of barrels. Some distant part of me also hoped I wouldn’t feel the pierce of a bullet.

Another voice shouted, “DON’T SHOOT!” I had no idea whose.

Miraculously, I reached the barrel barricade without being shot or tackled. When Charlie and Abby saw me, their faces registered shock and disbelief, and they leapt to their feet.

Warmth and relief flooded me upon seeing them.

And then…

Time froze solid. Something wholly inexplicable happened. The flesh on my wife’s and daughter’s faces began to bubble and break out in ugly red pustules. My blood curdled, and my feet felt paralyzed. Charlie’s and Abby’s skin melted away in sheets, revealing oily, black muscles and mocking grins. Demons. They were demons, hiding out in “costumes” of human flesh. Just as I’d always suspected. I felt the muscles of my face pull back in loathing. My hands, shaking with rage, reached out to grab the neck of the “Charlie” demon and wring the—

Stop!

My hands froze in place. I realized what was happening. It was the posthypnotic command Albert Spencer had implanted in my drugged mind—hoping I would do something violent and unthinkable.

I seized control of my mind.

You lose, Bluegill. I’m stronger than you. I willed the “demons” to disappear, and Charlie and Abby once again became the two people I loved most on Earth.

“Jack?” said Charlie, looking at me strangely, then lunging to embrace me.

“Dad!” said Abby, doing the same.

“How did you know we were—?”

“I’ll explain later,” I cut her off. I then shocked them both by grabbing them by their waists and hoisting them like toddlers, one in each arm. Although I was a large, athletically built man, it wasn’t my habit to show off my muscle. But at that moment, normalcy had no bearing. Using all the strength I typically downplayed—doubled by a blast of adrenaline—I tucked my wife and daughter to my sides like twin bags of rice and ran, with sprinter’s speed, away from the building.

As I charged toward a low stone wall a hundred feet away, I shouted behind me at Black, “BOB, RUN!” then added, “EVERYONE, MOVE BACK! MOVE BACK! MOVE BACK!”

A climactic musical note, sung by an angelic chorus, rose from the speakers.

I felt the explosion before I heard it. I don’t know if the blast literally lifted me off my feet or if I was already mid-leap when it happened, but I flew with accelerated force over the stone wall, and then the three of us—me, Abby, Charlie—rolled like tossed rocks on the ground.

The sound hit me in the chest more than the ears—the final boom of a fireworks display, multiplied a hundredfold. As my family and I scrambled back toward the shielding of the stone wall, the silence of deafness greeted our movements. All I could feel was an internal ringing, as if my whole body was a bell that had just been struck by a giant mallet. Debris rained silently down from the trees surrounding us.

After confirming Abby and Charlie were unharmed, I gathered the nerve to peek out from behind the wall. All I could see was a massive, smoking crater where the old cider mill had stood. The bodies of several DEA agents lay strewn on the ground, their Kevlar vests no match for the caliber of “weapon” that had just been discharged. No trace remained of the stacked barrels Charlie and Abby had been hiding behind. I didn’t know where Bob Black was.

I felt a stab of grief for the families of the DEA agents who wouldn’t be coming home.

But then, for a selfish moment, my thoughts returned to my own good fortune. My family was safe. I don’t know what strange species of intuition had prompted me to take action, but I would be forever grateful I had heeded it.

Hoping my hearing wasn’t permanently lost, I ducked down once more and kissed my wife and daughter on their heads. Then I jumped back over the wall to look for survivors and help the wounded.

57

Four months later

“In summary, Your Honor,” Charlie said to Judge Fulton Grimes, “I am moving, once again, to dismiss the case against my client, Aden Anderson, in light of recent facts that have emerged.”

It had taken some time to assemble all these facts in a cohesive way and to get Grimes to grant her another dismissal hearing. It had also taken time to convince Aden Anderson that he was no longer under threat and that rehiring Charlie was his best shot at getting his charges dropped.

“We have just heard testimony that a strain of synthetic cathinones, laced with other chemicals, was circulating in Unicoi County at the time of LeRoy Jenkins’ death. We’ve heard an expert witness testify that this drug can cause extreme hallucinations and bizarre, often violent behavior. We have also heard testimony that LeRoy Jenkins was a frequent drug user who had easy access to this particular strain, for reasons we will outline in court. And a retesting of his blood strongly suggests he was under the influence of these drugs at the time of his death.

“As we all know, the victim’s father, Jonathan Jenkins, is now up on drug distribution charges, and, should our case go to trial, we will learn that he was selling the very drug his son ingested before his death. In fact, we expect to hear testimony from one of Jonathan Jenkins’ own employees about something even more shocking…”

Charlie’s office was in the process of negotiating an immunity deal for Margaret Simms, Jenkins’ personal assistant who had long helped him maintain his cover as a respected real estate developer. Simms, it turned out, had frequently recorded her boss’s private meetings, as potential insurance for herself. And now she was planning to cash in that policy.

“Namely,” Charlie continued, “that Jonathan Jenkins himself supplied his son with synthetic cathinones from a batch he knew to be chemically tainted.” A murmur erupted from the gallery, almost like in a movie, and she waited for the prosecution to object. No objection came. She took that as a positive sign.

Both Charlie and the DA’s office knew that, once the immunity deal was inked, Simms would testify to some extremely damning truths about her boss. Specifically, that son LeRoy had known about his father’s involvement in the drug trade and often used the implicit threat of exposing dear Dad as a means of squeezing him for drugs and cash. Needless to say, Father did not approve of this dynamic. Things had come to a head recently, and the elder Jenkins decided to put young LeRoy in his place. He deliberately gave his son a highly potent, paranoia-inducing substance provided by The Chef, hoping to show him who was boss and maybe even “scare him straight.” He hadn’t intended his son’s death, but he had intended to terrify him into sobriety.

What she wanted to say to the judge at this point was, We all know, Your Honor, that Jonathan Jenkins is a good friend of yours and of the district attorney. We also know he was using his influence to pressure the DA’s office into charging Aden Anderson with murder. He was doing this to deflect attention from the fact that his son was under the influence of a drug he himself was distributing and had, in fact, given his son. We also know he threatened Sage McBain and Aden Anderson to keep them from speaking up. Things could get extremely ugly for Jonathan Jenkins, and his associates, if this thing goes to trial. And “the people” will lose. Wouldn’t it be better for all concerned if we just dropped it?

What she actually said was, “My client is happy to stand trial. He would welcome the opportunity to tell his complete story to a jury and clear his name. But I wonder if it’s a wise use of county resources to waste this court’s time when the state has no credible case.”

“Good of you to be mindful of Unicoi County’s budget, Ms. Dillard,” said Judge Grimes in a low drawl that sounded very much like Fred Gwynne’s in My Cousin Vinny. “But we will adjudicate this motion strictly on its merits. Mr. Connor?”

Grimes looked toward the thirtyish attorney with the boyish, freckled face who was manning the table for the DA’s office today.

Connor stood and said, “We have no objection to the motion to dismiss.”

Charlie stifled a double take, maintaining her look of stoic confidence.

Judge Grimes hammered his gavel once. “Motion to dismiss in case number 25-67891 granted. Mr. Anderson is to be released immediately from Unicoi County Jail. Court is adjourned.”

Charlie strolled from the back door of the courthouse, wearing a quiet smile. The press contingent was camped outside the front door, and she had no desire to deal with them.

Ordinarily, after winning a dismissal like this, Charlie might have driven straight to the jail to share the good news with her client. But not today. The truth was, despite his criminal innocence, Aden Anderson was still a sexist slimebag. Charlie was in a celebratory mood, and she didn’t want to spoil it by having Anderson leer at her and call her “pretty lady,” now that he had nothing to lose.

But the real cause for her triumphant mood was Jack and Zane. Tonight, Zane was hosting a party to celebrate the success of Season 1 of Vindicate, his podcast, to which Jack had been a major contributor.

Zane had recovered from his car accident, but only partially. A spinal injury had rendered his left leg largely immobile. Long-term recovery was possible, though uncertain, and Zane was currently the proud operator of an Electra 7 HD-Wide power wheelchair. Rather than become despondent about his new disability, Zane had redoubled his commitment to the podcast. He spent his days feverishly chasing down loose ends—with Jack and an aide providing transport as needed—and his nights in his home studio, putting the audio production together.

By the time episode three was released, the podcast had earned a huge following, and by its final episode, it had made many national top-ten lists, just a slot or two below Crime Junkie. It had already been nominated for an Ambie and a People’s Choice Award in the True Crime category.

Abby had become a bit of a celebrity at school, thanks to her appearance in the podcast. She had used her new status to start a chapter of the SAVE Promise Club, a student anti-violence group. Too many times in her young life, circumstance had pushed her to commit brutal acts, and now she was committed to promoting peaceful solutions in whatever way she could. Charlie couldn’t have been prouder.

As for Jack, his sense of hearing had returned after the explosion, and lately he was in the highest spirits she’d ever seen him. His “rage in a cage” had been noticeably absent. Charlie’s plan for the evening was to drive home and get ready for the party. And if Abby was busy with homework, maybe the two grown-ups might even slip upstairs for a private celebration of their own before the big event.

Charlie started her car and located the podcast on the sound system. She’d listened to the whole thing three times already. The final episode was almost at its end. She hit Play and drove out onto Main Street in Erwin, took a left on 2nd, and headed out onto I-26. Keeping the window down to feel the breeze, she turned up the volume.

The podcast’s signature music played—the lone, mournful Tennessee fiddle that filled in all the breaks in the show. And then Zane’s voice, in narrator mode, came over the speaker.

“Five DEA agents died that day, and three more were injured. As for Lieutenant Bob Black…”

Black’s recorded voice came through the speaker: “I heard Dillard telling me to run, so I ran. Guess I’d come to trust the guy. I got hit in the back of the head by a flying shingle. Needed a few stitches, but Jack Dillard saved my life. The man’s a hero, if you ask me.”

Tears rushed to Charlie’s eyes. After the endless vilification Jack had suffered over the last couple years, it was a breath of sweet air to hear him called a hero on a podcast that had become a national sensation.

Zane’s voice continued, “The families of most of the Flower Children who died will never know what happened to their loved ones. They were drifters from all over America, most of whom had dropped off the grid.”

The mournful fiddle played a few notes to signify a change in tone and topic. Then Zane’s PBS-worthy voice came on again. “I had a strong feeling Dreddy Eddy was dead. No one had seen him since he sent me that long confessional message, which sounded like a suicide note. Twelve-year-old Abby Dillard—Jack’s daughter, now thirteen—led the police to the spot where she’d witnessed his strange psychotic episode: the overgrown mouth of an old mineshaft. The police sent an experienced cave team into the shaft…”

A sound bite played—a muffled voice shouting, “I’ve got something!”

“…where they discovered three bodies—in very different stages of decomposition. One was Edmund Norris—Dreddy Eddy—and another was Sydney Woods, aka Aurora Eden. The third turned out to be an amateur spelunker who disappeared forty-one years ago.

“Based on several new developments—Dreddy Eddy’s ‘final confession,’ the recanting of the eyewitness testimony, and the coroner’s opinion that Aurora likely died from the fall—Joel Sanchez is almost certain to be granted a new trial. We now know the reason he kept quiet after his false conviction: to protect his daughter. The threat to her, unfortunately, escalated after we began investigating his case for this podcast.”

“One day I entered my cell after mealtime,” came Joel Sanchez’s soft voice on the car speaker, “and there was a photograph sitting on my pillow—my daughter Kaia sleeping in her bed in my mother’s house. The timestamp showed it was taken the night before. And my mother didn’t take it. I got the message.”

Zane’s voice returned. “The main person of interest in Eden’s murder is now Albert Spencer, aka Bluegill, aka The Chef, aka The Man of the Mountains, aka Papaji. But he hasn’t been seen since the explosion. Did he die, along with the others? Go out in a blaze of glory?

“The police would certainly like us to believe he did. After all, the flood of tainted cathinones dried up immediately after the lab exploded and hasn’t started again. The Unicoi County police logs have resumed their humdrum slate of DUIs, domestic assaults, and the occasional meth-kitchen fire. In the cops’ minds, Spencer either died in the explosion or relocated to parts unknown, in which case he’s SEP. Someone else’s problem.

“Do I think he died? Nah. Guys like him—megalomaniacs, master manipulators, monsters—never do. They let others do the dying for them. When you really think about it, Spencer is the most craven type of coward imaginable. He can only deal with enemies by dosing them from a distance. He can only satisfy his twisted carnal appetite with women who are drugged senseless. This gutless swine made his getaway, you can bet on it, and eventually he’ll resurface again. I don’t know if he really believed his own talk about ‘transforming human consciousness’—like some modern-day John C. Lilly—or if he just used that as a ploy to develop an army of fanatics who’d work for almost nothing. But I do know, from talking to many of the Flower Children, that he was obsessed with the idea of using drugs and hypnosis to override the mind’s basic instincts. And he seemed to have been at least partially successful. I can only imagine what could happen if his methods and chemicals were used on a wide scale. Do I think he died? No. But I hope he did. If I’m being honest, I hope there isn’t a molecule left of the guy.”

“Me too,” said Charlie, shutting off the sound system and stepping on the gas. “God forgive me, but me too.”

58

Iloved the feel of the room. There was laughter, camaraderie, support—things that had been missing from my life for so long I’d forgotten them. Zane rented one of the upstairs rooms at Mulligan’s for the party. An Irish pub, it had a strong clientele of D&D gamers, sword-and sorcery fans, and fantasy weapons collectors like himself.

I was here, of course, to celebrate my friend’s—and my—amazing success with Vindicate. But I was also here to make an announcement of my own, and I was feeling a bit nervous about it. Maybe a little food and beverage would take the edge off.

Zane had splurged for a great spread, and he was zipping around the room in his Electra 7, making sure everyone was well fed. I was glad to see Abby digging into the food with gusto, but I was even happier that she had brought a friend. The girl was named Lila, and the two of them were getting up to private mischief of some kind. Lila was a bit of an outsider, like Abby, and she shared Abby’s brains, humor, and heart. The two had recently met in the softball clinic and formed a quick bond. I hoped the friendship was a sign of real healing for Abby, a chance for her to be a kid for just a while, before the teen years took over.

As I went to grab a plate, I looked around to take in the guests. I saw Rosa Sanchez, with a flower in her hair, laughing loudly with Zane and tossing her head back. I suspected she’d already downed another drink in the ten minutes since I’d spoken to her. And why not? She deserved it. Not only had her son’s name been cleared by our podcast, but our motion for a new trial—Charlie was handling his case now, in partnership with a North Carolina team—had been granted, and the DA’s office had even hinted it might move to vacate the sentence. And Rosa herself had been a guest on several talk shows, where she was able to advocate for the falsely accused.

I was headed toward my sister Lilly and her family—they’d flown in for the event—when I heard Charlie’s voice from across the room. “Jack!” I turned to see her standing with Sage McBain and a woman who looked so much like Charlie, I might have mistaken her for my wife in a crowd. “Come meet my cousin Dahlia,” said Charlie.

After introductory pleasantries, Dahlia said to me, “I want to thank you and Charlie for everything you did for my sister.” She then took me aside and said, “And I want you to send me a bill for whatever else she owes you. Your wife won’t hear of it, but I won’t hear of you two working for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing,” I told her. “She gave us a down payment, and now that Anderson’s case has been dismissed, we’re planning to return some of it to her. She’s family, and you are too. I can’t tell you what it means to Charlie to suddenly have you two in her life. Family hasn’t been a lucky area for her.”

Dahlia reached out and clasped my hand. “We love her. We really do. It’s so our privilege.”

I felt a swell in my heart, but before I could get sappy, a huge hand slapped my back.

I turned to see my lanky ex-sheriff friend, now walking without a crutch. “Mr. Bates!”

“Leon,” he corrected me. “I want to congratulate you on some fine investigative work—you and your young partner. You solved a murder, freed an innocent man—”

“Not quite yet,” I interrupted. “But knock on wood, he’ll be free soon.”

“—shut down one very nasty drug operation, and pulled down the pants of an unctuous, Bible-thumping con man who had half of East Tennessee under his spell. On top of that, the podcast was a damn good listen.”

“Thanks, Leon. I have no illusions that we’ve put a stop to Spencer or to Jenkins… or that we haven’t created some powerful enemies.” I sometimes privately wondered, too, whether I would have been strong enough to overcome Spencer’s implanted command to harm my family if he had been able to complete his hypnosis programming on me.

“Word in my circles,” said Leon, “is that Jenkins wasn’t well-liked, even by his allies, and that a lot of people are running for cover now. I suspect he’ll be behind bars for a long time.”

“You were a huge part of this, my friend. Without your drone heroics, I’d probably be pushing up kudzu right now, and who knows what would have happened to Charlie and Abby. Jonathan Jenkins would be walking free and—”

“When you neuter a dog—” Leon winked, “he finds other ways to make trouble.”

I noticed Zane Nelson trying to flag my attention from across the room, so I excused myself. My podcast partner led me out of the room on his motorized wheelchair and into a back hallway no one was using.

“Before the evening gets rolling too hard,” he said, “I want to give you this.”

He handed me an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“Your first payment.”

I must have looked puzzled.

“From the podcast. It took a while for the sponsorship money to start rolling into my bank account.”

“I’m glad you’re making some money, Zane. But why don’t you just hang on to this for now, and I’ll send you an invoice for the work I did.”

“No, Jack. When I asked for your help and I had no money, I said you’d be making an investment in the show. You took a risk, and not just a financial one. So now, as my trusty partner—and cofounder—you get to share the rewards.”

I pulled open the envelope and peeked at the check inside. My brain almost exploded. It was more money than I had earned in the previous two years combined.

“Is this a joke?” I asked him.

“No. You earned every dime of it. And there’s more to come. I can’t believe it either. When podcasts hit the big numbers, like ours is doing, the money’s just silly. I know one thing for sure.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m finally going to buy that Orcrist sword from London Bladesmiths I’ve been drooling over since I was twelve.”

“You’ve earned it, my man. In more ways than one. Gold or silver scabbard?”

“Silver? Peh. I spit on you. What kind of peasant do you take me for?”

I laughed. “I know one thing for sure too.” I hoisted the envelope containing the check. “This is going to make my announcement a whole lot easier.”

Zane and I headed back into the function room together, one of us on foot, one on wheels.

“Can I have everyone’s attention for a sec?” said Zane, raising his voice. Guests stopped talking and turned toward him with open expressions. “I want to thank you all for coming. Tonight we’re celebrating the success of Vindicate, which has had over half a million downloads per episode…” He held for applause. “But we’re really celebrating Rosa and Joel Sanchez, the whole reason I launched the podcast. I never dreamed we’d solve a three-year-old murder and prove Joel’s innocence, I only hoped to get the investigation reopened. But now it looks like Joel will be trading in his orange jumpsuit for some dad jeans and a fanny pack.” Everyone cheered. Rosa held Kaia up, and she beamed and clapped. “And none of this would have been possible without the help of a man I hope I can count as a friend for life, Jack Dillard. He gave me his skills, his support, and his trust—but more than that, he put his literal life on the line for this project and for me, and I’ll never forget that. Jack?”

He waved his arm toward me to give me the floor. I looked out at the smiling faces and noticed Charlie beaming and slyly aiming her phone camera at me. “When Zane approached me with this project,” I said to the crowd, “I only agreed to help because I figured he’d get himself killed and I could have his sword collection.” Everyone laughed. “Seriously, though. I didn’t want to get involved, but something kept pinging me about it—as my friend Stony might say—and drawing me in deeper. And now, two innocent men are walking free, not just one.

“I want to thank you, Zane, for giving me this opportunity and refusing to take no for an answer. I learned a ton by working on this project: I learned I’ve got a pretty good ‘ping meter’ and I’m only happy when I’m using it. I learned I’m better at solving puzzles than I am at filing briefs.” I knew a lot of the strangers in the room didn’t have any context for what I was about to say, but now I was speaking mainly to family and friends. “And I learned that I’m not my father, and I’m tired of trying to be. I love and admire Dad more than any man on Earth. He’s a great man and a great lawyer. I’ll always strive to be the man he is… but not the lawyer. My wife’s the one with the legal chops in my family.

“Me, I’m going to do what I’m good at for a change. Tonight, I’d like to announce…” I looked at Charlie. She and I had already discussed this—I wasn’t blindsiding her—but she didn’t know I was ready to make it official. “…the launch of Dillard Investigations. I hope to specialize in helping people like Rosa Sanchez, who feel they or their loved ones have been treated unfairly by the justice system. Oh, and when I’m not busy with that, I might serve a few subpoenas for my wife.”

People laughed.

“You better leave enough room in your schedule to help me with season two of Vindicate,” Zane chimed in.

I gave the floor back to him, while I slipped back into the crowd to talk to Charlie. “I hope I didn’t freak you out with that announcement.”

“No, it’s what we talked about, and I’m thrilled to see you making it official.”

“Meanwhile,” I said, handing her the envelope, “this should tide us over until Dillard Investigations is bringing in some bucks.” When she saw the check inside, her knees literally buckled, and she clutched my arm. “And there’ll be more coming.”

“I am so damn proud of you, Jackson Dillard.”

Words a man would kill to hear from the woman he loves. “The only thing that would have made tonight more perfect,” I said, “was if my dad had been here to see it.”

After the events of three months earlier, my father had flown me and my family down to the Caymans for a week. He wanted to see us, and he figured, rightly, that we could all use a tropical vacation. We had a wonderful time snorkeling and sailing, but in the end, he still wasn’t ready to return to the States.

“About that…” said Charlie. She grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd, out into the back hallway. Standing there, in flesh and blood, was my father, Joe Dillard.

Hugs first, questions later. We threw our arms around each other and squeezed like we were trying to make juice. He then explained to me that he hadn’t wanted to hog any of the spotlight from me but had been watching my speech from the hall.

I was thrilled to see him, of course, but wanted to know why he had chosen now to end his self-imposed exile.

“I wasn’t going to miss this night, Jack. I’ve been missing too many things lately.”

I pressed him about why he’d been staying away so long, and he said that after Abby’s kidnapping and my frame-up—which was done to target him—he felt like more of a threat than an asset to the Dillard family. Ashamed of the hardship he had caused. “But Jack, I realized I’ve been using that as an excuse. The real truth is that walking in the old places, doing the old things, felt too painful without your mother beside me.” I reached out and touched his arm. “Losing her was like having my soul ripped in two. I guess living on a faraway island has felt easier than facing the void of her absence every day… But it’s time to face the storm and ride it out.”

“You’ll be staying at the house then?”

“Not this time. I still have some… business to take care of. But soon.”

We spent the next hour—my family, my dad, and me—catching up and sharing our memories of my mother, who we all wished was here. Dad revealed he’d brought a gift for Abby and gave it to her: a brightly colored DeMarini Prism—a top-end softball bat that looked as cool as it supposedly performed. Abby and her friend Lila stared at it like it was a Jedi light saber. And I knew, in that moment, Abby had taken on softball as her next dragon to slay.

My father excused himself, saying he’d soon be seeing more of us. I guessed that would have to do for now. Charlie and I were tired and started making our goodbye rounds. I saved my last hug of the evening for Zane Nelson, my new friend and the man who’d changed my life without intending to.

It was time to go home. Home to the house I loved. With the family I loved. But without the anger I thought had embedded itself in my DNA. That’s because I was going home as something new—as a man who was pulling his own weight and packing something more powerful than the fiercest weapon:

Purpose.

EPILOGUE

Four months earlier

Albert Spencer marched down the dark, dirt-floored tunnel toward the tiny square of light at the end. He carried a duffel bag containing printed and electronic copies of his lab records, a new set of identification papers and bank documents, and $180,000 in hundreds.

The tunnel was an abandoned emerald mine left over from the gem-mining heyday of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Spencer had learned about it, with great interest, when purchasing the old apple farm. He had simply added a short underground extension so he could access it from the basement of the Old Cider Mill.

The horizontal passageway exited on a hillside beyond the farm borders. Spencer used it from time to time when he wanted to come or go without fanfare. He thought it added to his mystique and kept his employees on their toes.

It also served as an excellent emergency exit.

As Spencer was nearing the door marked by the mesh-screened window, a female voice spoke out in the darkness. “Papaji?” Her voice was soft, reverent, imploring.

Still, she shouldn’t be here, whoever she was. The tunnel was off-limits.

“Who’s here?” Spencer said, reprimand in his voice. As he spun around, trying to glimpse the woman in the shadows, something sharp jabbed his neck, like the sting of a wasp. “Ow! What was that? Who are you?”

The exit door squeaked open on ancient hinges, allowing the sun to stream in like a searchlight. A shorthaired woman moved into the doorway, silhouetted by the brightness. Her left hand held a motorcycle helmet, her right hand an empty syringe.

“Just one of the faithful,” she said. “Leaving a parting gift for the Master.” Her voice dropped in register and acquired a steel edge. “I got it from your private stock—you know, like the stuff you and your buddies give the faithful before gang-raping them.”

Albert Spencer looked at the empty syringe again, then fell to his knees, unable to control his muscles. His torso tipped forward, and his chest and cheek slapped the dirt with a flabby thud.

“This is the ‘hard stuff,’ though. Your very private stock. I’ve heard it makes the skin feel like it’s being stabbed by a thousand red-hot daggers and the lungs burn like they’re inhaling acid. But the user can’t scream for help because their muscles don’t obey them anymore. I don’t know if that’s true.” She tossed the syringe on the ground beside him. “Guess I’ll just have to take it on faith.”

She turned and walked off into the light.

The last thing Albert Spencer saw was her red feather earrings dancing in the wind.

The last thing he felt was his skin lighting on fire from the inside.

The last thing he heard was a muffled explosion and the rumble of the mine tunnel collapsing around him.

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AN INNOCENT CLIENT

JOE DILLARD BOOK 1

SCOTT PRATT

KRISTY

This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit and to her inspirational courage. I loved her before I was born and I’ll love her after I’m long gone.

-Scott Pratt

PART I

1

April 12

7:00 a.m.

It was my fortieth birthday, and the first thing I had to do was deal with Johnny Wayne Neal. The forensic psychiatrist I’d hired to examine him said Johnny Wayne was a narcissist, a pathological liar, and a sociopath, and those were his good qualities. He called Johnny Wayne an “irredeemable monster.” I’d asked the shrink not to write any of that down. I didn’t want the district attorney to see it. Monster or not, Johnny Wayne was still my client.

Johnny Wayne Neal had hired two of his thug buddies to murder his beautiful, heavily insured young wife. She woke up at 3:00 a.m. on a Wednesday morning about a year ago to find two strangers standing over her bed. The men clumsily and brutally stabbed her to death while Johnny Wayne’s three-year-old son, who’d been sleeping with his mother that night, crawled beneath the bed and listened to the sounds of his mother dying.

It took the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Johnson City Police Department less than a week to figure out who was responsible for the murder. Johnny Wayne was arrested and charged with both first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and because of the heinous nature of the crime, the State of Tennessee was seeking the death penalty. A heartless judge appointed me to defend him. The hourly rate was a hundred bucks, about the same as a small-time prostitute’s.

The prosecutor had offered to take the death penalty off the table if Johnny Wayne would plead guilty to first-degree murder and agree to go to prison for the rest of his life. When I told Johnny Wayne about the offer a week ago, he’d reluctantly agreed. We were supposed to be in court at 9:00 a.m. so that Johnny Wayne could enter his plea. I was at the jail to make sure he hadn’t changed his mind.

Fifteen minutes after I sat down in the attorney’s room, Johnny Wayne, in a sharply creased, unwrinkled orange jumpsuit, was escorted in. He was handcuffed, waist-chained, and shackled around the ankles.

“I wanted to make sure you’re still willing to take this deal before we go to court,” I said as soon as the uniformed escort stepped out and Johnny Wayne awkwardly made his way into the chair. “Once you enter the plea, there’s no turning back.”

Johnny Wayne stared at the tabletop. His short hair was the color of baled straw, wispy and perfectly combed. He was much smaller than me, well under six feet, thin and pale. His face and arms were covered with tiny, pinkish freckles. He started tapping his fingers on the table, and I noticed that his nails looked recently manicured. He smelled of shampoo.

“How do you manage to stay so well groomed in this place?” I said. “Every time I see you, you look like you just came out of a salon.”

He rolled his eyes. They were pale green, sometimes flecked with red depending on angle and light. They were closely set, and the left eye had a tendency to wander. It made looking him in the eye uncomfortable. I never knew quite where to focus.

“The fact that I’m incarcerated doesn’t require me to live like an animal,” he said. “I’m able to procure certain services.”

“You mean a barber?”

“I have a barber, one of the inmates, who comes to my cell once a week. He trims my beard and shampoos and cuts my hair.”

“Does he give you a manicure too?” I glanced at his fingernails.

“I do that myself.”

“Who does your laundry? All my other clients look like they sleep in their jail uniforms.”

I could tell the questions were irritating him, so I kept on.

“My laundry is done along with everyone else’s,” he said. “I simply purchase commissary products for an individual who treats my laundry with special care.” His speech was a tinny, nasal tenor, his diction perfect. I imagined shoving a turd into his mouth, just so he’d mispronounce a word.

“Why are you so interested in my personal hygiene?” Johnny Wayne said. “Does it offend you?”

“Nah,” I said, “I was just curious.”

His disdain for me was palpable. With each visit I could sense it growing like metastasizing cancer, but I didn’t care. I disliked him as intensely as he disliked me. He’d lied to me dozens of times. He’d run me and my investigator all over east Tennessee following false leads and locating bogus witnesses. He whined constantly.

“So now that we have those incredibly important matters out of the way,” Johnny Wayne said, “explain this deal, as you so eloquently put it, one more time.”

“It’s simple,” I said. “A moron could understand it.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m a moron?”

Answering the question truthfully would have served no useful purpose, so I ignored it.

“The deal is you plead guilty to first-degree murder. You agree to a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. You give up your right to appeal. In exchange, you get to live. No needle for Johnny Wayne. That’s it, sweet and simple.”

He snorted. “Doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me.”

“Depends on your point of view.”

“Meaning?”

“It depends on whether you want to spend the rest of your life in the general prison population where you can at least get a blow job once in a while or spend the next fifteen years in isolation on death row, then die by lethal injection.”

“But I’m innocent.”

“Of course you are. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise.”

“All circumstantial. Or lies.”

“What about the cell phone records that match exactly with the statements Clive and Derek gave the police? The calls they say you made to check on them while they were on their way up here to kill Laura, and while they were on their way back.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened. Johnny Wayne didn’t like discussing facts.

“What about the four separate life insurance policies you took out on Laura over the past eighteen months? Three hundred and fifty grand, Johnny Wayne.”

“Lots of people over-insure their spouses.”

“Explain why Derek and Clive would say you hired them to kill Laura and promised to give them 10 percent of the insurance money.”

“They’re trying to save themselves.”

“If you didn’t hire them, why’d they do it? They didn’t even know her.”

“Why? Why? Why are you asking me all these stupid questions? You’re supposed to be my lawyer.”

I should have brought up the audio tape, but I decided to cut him some slack. Clive and Derek, the thugs he hired, had both caved immediately during the interrogation. They confessed and told the police Johnny Wayne had hired them. The police outfitted them with tape recorders and sent them to see Johnny Wayne, who talked freely about the murder and the money. The first time I played the tape for him his face turned an odd shade.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Part of a lawyer’s job is to give his client good advice. And my advice is that the prosecution could bring in a trained monkey and convict you of this murder. The evidence is overwhelming, the murder was especially cruel, and your little boy witnessed it. My advice is that your chances of getting the death penalty are better than excellent.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said.

“Maybe not, but she’d be alive if it weren’t for you. The jury will hold you accountable.”

“So I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life in prison for something I didn’t do.”

“You can either accept their offer and plead, or you can go to trial.”

“With a lawyer who thinks I’m guilty.”

“Don’t put this on me. I’m just giving you an honest opinion as to what I think the outcome will be. You should be thankful. Your mother- and father-in-law don’t believe in the death penalty any more than I do. They think if you’re convicted and sentenced to death, your blood will somehow be on their hands. They’re the ones who talked the district attorney into making this offer.”

“They’re hypocritical fools,” Johnny Wayne said.

I wanted to backhand him. James and Rita Miller, the parents of his murdered, beautiful, innocent young wife, were two of the nicest people I’d ever met. I interviewed them as I was preparing for the trial. One of the questions I asked was how a nice young lady like Laura had ever become involved with Johnny Wayne. James Miller told me Laura met Johnny Wayne while she was attending college at Carson-Newman, a small school in Jefferson City only sixty miles away. Johnny Wayne, who lived in Jefferson City and was a part-time student, had made himself a fixture at the Baptist Student Union, a gathering place for students of the Baptist faith. It was there that he ran his con on Laura, convincing her that he held deep convictions about Christianity. James and Rita said they had concerns, but they trusted Laura’s judgment. Johnny Wayne seemed intelligent and acted as though he loved Laura. They never imagined a monster lurked beneath the careful grooming and easy smile. But the marriage began to show serious cracks soon after the wedding and steadily broke down. Not long after their third anniversary, Johnny Wayne left Laura for another woman and moved to North Carolina. He was in Charlotte at a bar with his newly pregnant girlfriend the night Laura was murdered.

I looked at Johnny Wayne and envisioned my knuckles cracking into his teeth. It was an image I found soothing.

“What’s it going to be?” I said. “I need an answer. We’re supposed to be in court in two hours.”

“I need more time to consider it.”

“No, you don’t. It’s a gift. Take it or leave it.”

His hands went to his nose, and he began his obnoxious habit of squeezing his nostrils together with his thumb and index finger. Squeeze and hold. Release. Squeeze and hold. Release.

After three squeeze-and-holds, he said, “Screw it. I’ll do it. Throw me to the wolves.”

“Good decision,” I said. “First one you’ve made in a while.”

“Are we done here?”

“I suppose. You in a hurry?”

“I have to take a crap. It’s the bologna they serve in this dump.” His voice, like his face, was devoid of emotion. He hadn’t bothered to ask how his son would be affected. He hadn’t mentioned the boy in months.

I got up and pushed the button on the wall to summon the guards. Johnny Wayne remained seated while I leaned on the wall and stared at the ceiling. I didn’t want to sit back down. I wanted to be as far away from him as possible. After three or four minutes, I could hear the thump of heavy boots as the guards made their way down the hallway toward the door.

“Hey, Dillard,” Johnny Wayne said suddenly.

“What?”

“Everybody thinks she was such a saint. She was a stupid whore. All she had to do was give me a divorce on my terms, which weren’t that complicated. She brought this on herself.”

“Don’t say another word,” I said. The vision of flying teeth was acquiring details.

The door clanged, and the guards pushed their way through and gathered him up. One of them, a skin-headed, thick-necked youngster, looked me up and down.

“You only do criminal defense, ain’t that right?” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Then I reckon you’ll be glad to know that an old lady called into dispatch a little while ago and reported that her cat found a human pecker out near the lake. A body’ll probably turn up soon.”

“A pecker? Do you mean a penis?”

“Penis to you. Pecker to me.”

“So?”

“Thought you’d like to know. A dead body means business for you, don’t it? Sort of like an undertaker.”

He winked at his partner and they shared a laugh. Even Johnny Wayne smiled. After they left, I stayed on the wall for a few minutes, their laughter and Johnny Wayne’s vulgar confession replaying in my head. The rattle of the chains faded as they led him away.

My head started to pound and my stomach tightened as I made my way back through the labyrinth of steel and concrete. I was sick of defending the Johnny Wayne Neals of this world, and I was sick of being mocked and laughed at by pricks like the two guards. I reminded myself that I was getting out of the legal profession. In less than a year, I’d be free of it. No more Johnny Waynes. No more pricks.

As I made my way toward the entrance, I tried to tell myself to take it easy. Don’t let it get to you. You did your job. I forced myself to think about something more pleasant. My birthday. Celebrating with my wife Caroline and the kids, the most important and beautiful people in my life. Chocolate cake. What would I wish for this year?

It came to me as I stepped out the front door into the rain, and the thought made me smile. The chances of the wish coming true were about a million to one, but what the hell? Why not?

This year, I’d make my birthday wish simple and selfish. This year, before I gave up the practice of law, I’d wish for one—just one—innocent client.

2

April 12

8:45 a.m.

An hour later, I was sitting in my truck in the parking lot at the Washington County Courthouse in downtown Jonesborough. It’s a postcard-pretty little town, the oldest in Tennessee, nestled in the rolling hills ninety miles northeast of Knoxville. I looked across the street at the National Storytelling Center, which was built a few years ago and brings Jonesborough a limited amount of national acclaim. Every October, thousands of people gather for a huge storytelling festival. I smiled as I thought about the irony of having a storytelling center so near the courthouse. There were whoppers being told in both places.

As the raindrops patted against the windshield, I opened the console, took out a bottle of mouthwash, and gargled. I’d gotten in the habit of carrying the mouthwash with me because my mouth seemed to stay dry and bitter during the day, especially when I had to go in front of a judge or jury. The dryness was accompanied by a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach and a nagging sense of impending doom. It would disappear sometimes when I was with my family, but it was never far away. At night, I kept having a dream where I was on a makeshift raft without a paddle, floating down the middle of a wide, raging river that was rushing me toward a deadly waterfall. I couldn’t get to the side of the river, and I couldn’t go back upstream. I’d wake up just as I went over the falls.

I put the cap back on the bottle and took a deep breath. Showtime. I climbed out of the truck and walked up the courthouse steps, through the foyer, and up to the security station.

The security officer was John Allen “Sarge” Hurley, a gruff but good-natured old coot with whom I traded friendly insults every chance I got. Sarge was legendary around the sheriff’s department for his bravery and machismo. My favorite story about him was the time Sarge single-handedly apprehended a notorious armed robber named Dewey Davis after Davis held up a grocery store on the outskirts of Jonesborough. A much younger Sarge, responding to a robbery-in-progress call, showed up just as Dewey was walking out the front door of the Winn-Dixie carrying a shotgun. As the story goes, Sarge jumped out of his cruiser oblivious of the shotgun, ran Dewey down in the parking lot, and knocked him unconscious with one punch before he hauled him off to jail.

Sarge had to be in his early seventies now. He was still tall and lean, but Mother Nature was beginning to bend him like an old poplar in a stiff wind. There were dark liver spots on his huge hands, and his upper lip had retreated until it was tight across his dentures, giving him a permanent snarl. The buckle on his gun belt was notched two inches above his navel, but he had no holster and no gun. He carried only a nightstick and a small can of pepper spray.

“What’s up, Sarge?” I said as I walked through the metal detector.

“The rent,” he growled. “I hear your boy Johnny Wayne is throwin’ in the towel today.” The sheriff’s department was a more efficient gossip pipeline than a sewing circle. Sarge always knew what was happening, sometimes before it happened.

“Good news travels fast,” I said.

“Can’t believe they ain’t gonna give him the needle.”

“Hell, Sarge, he’s innocent. He’s just being railroaded by the system.”

“Innocent, my ass. Nobody you represent is innocent.”

As I started to walk past Sarge toward the elevator, he grabbed me by the arm. His gnarled fingers dug deep into my bicep.

“You know what I’d like to see?” he said. “I’d like to see that sorry SOB hanged on a flatbed truck right out here in front of the courthouse. That’s what I’d like to see. I’d buy a goddanged ticket.”

It was a sentiment prevalent in the community. Laura Neal, Johnny Wayne’s wife and victim, was guilty of nothing more than picking a bad husband. She was a third-grade teacher with a wonderful reputation, her parents were solid and hardworking, and her brother was a college professor. People wanted to see Johnny Wayne burned at the stake, and I had the feeling most of them wouldn’t have minded seeing his lawyer go up in flames with him.

I pulled away from Sarge and headed up the side stairwell to the second floor. There were about a dozen people milling around in the hallway outside the courtroom, speaking in hushed tones. The hallway was dimly lit and narrow. I never noticed any color in the corridor outside the courtroom. Everything always seemed black and white, like I was walking onto the set of “Twelve Angry Men.”

I stepped into Judge Ivan Glass’s courtroom and looked around. No judge. No bailiff. No clerk.

“Where’s His Holiness?” I asked Lisa Mayes, the assistant district attorney who had been assigned to prosecute Johnny Wayne. She was sitting at the prosecution table contemplating her fingernails.

“Back in chambers. He’s not in a good mood.”

Glass had been a notorious drinker and womanizer for more than three decades. He’d been divorced twice, primarily because of his affinity for younger women, but the good people of the First Judicial District didn’t seem to mind. They elected him every eight years. Glass’s father had been a judge, and his father before him. To hear Glass tell it, the bench was his birthright.

He was known among the defense bar as Ivan the Terrible because of his complete lack of compassion for criminal defendants and because he treated defense attorneys almost as badly as he treated their clients. I got off on the wrong foot with him right out of law school. The first day I was in his courtroom he put an old man in jail because the man couldn’t afford to pay his court costs. I knew what the judge was doing was illegal—debtor’s prisons were outlawed a long time ago—but he seemed to do whatever he wanted regardless of the law. I did some research and found Glass had been doing it for years. I wrote him a letter and asked him to stop. He wrote back and told me young lawyers ought to mind their own business. So I sued the county for allowing one of their employees, the judge, to commit constitutional violations during the course of his employment. By the time I was done, the county had to pay out nearly a million dollars to people Glass had jailed illegally, and Glass was seriously embarrassed in the process. He hated me for it, and one of the ways he exacted vengeance was by appointing me to cases like Johnny Wayne Neal’s.

The courtroom was tense and somber. The media vultures had already filled the jury box. James and Rita Miller, Johnny Wayne’s in-laws, were sitting in the front row. Rita was crying. James looked away when I tried to catch his eye.

I walked over to the defense table to wait for the judge, who finally teetered through the door in his black robe a half hour later. His hair was snow white, medium length and chaotic. He wore tinted reading glasses that made it difficult to see his eyes. His clerk helped him up the steps and into his chair. The clerk called the case, and the bailiffs brought Johnny Wayne in through a door to my right and led him to the podium ten feet in front of the judge.

I stood at the podium next to my client while the judge went through a lengthy question-and-answer session to ensure that Johnny Wayne was competent to enter a guilty plea, that he understood what was going on, and that he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Lisa Mayes, the prosecutor, then stood and read the litany of evidence that would have been presented had Johnny Wayne gone to trial. I could hear Rita Miller sobbing uncontrollably behind me as she was forced, one last time, to listen to a detailed description of her daughter’s brutal murder while her grandson hid beneath the bed. I felt ashamed to be representing the man who had caused her such misery.

When Lisa was finished, Judge Glass stiffened. “Johnny Wayne Neal,” he said in a voice made gravelly from booze and tobacco, “how do you plead to the charge of first-degree murder?”

The moment of truth. The point of no return.

“Guilty,” came the answer, barely audible. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“On your plea of guilty, the court finds you guilty and sentences you to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

Glass then lowered his glasses to the end of his nose and leaned forward. His eyes bored into Johnny Wayne.

“Just for the record,” the judge said, “I want to tell you something before they trot you off to the penitentiary for the rest of your miserable existence. In all my years on the bench, you are, without question, the most disgusting, the most cowardly, the most pitiful excuse for a human being that has ever set foot in my court. There isn’t an ounce of remorse in you, and I want you to know that it would have been my distinct pleasure to sentence you to death if you’d had the courage to go to trial. I hope you rot in hell.”

Johnny Wayne’s head rose slowly, and he met the judge’s gaze.

“Screw you,” he said quietly.

Glass’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”

“I said screw you, and the district attorney, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and this pathetic excuse for a lawyer you dumped on me, and everybody else who had a hand in framing me.” The words spilled out in a crescendo. By the time he finished, his voice was echoing off the walls.

There was a stunned silence. The judge surprised me by smiling. He turned his head to me.

“Not only is your client a coward, Mr. Dillard, he’s a stupid coward.”

“Screw you!” Johnny Wayne yelled.

“Bailiffs!” Judge Glass roared. He half rose from his seat, like a jockey on a thoroughbred, and pointed his gavel at Johnny Wayne.

“Take him out and gag him!”

They were on him in a second. Two of them took him down and another two jumped into the fray. I could hear the cameras clicking and people gasping as I moved out of the way. Johnny Wayne was screaming obscenities as they punched and kicked at him. The bailiffs finally got enough control so that they could drag Johnny Wayne across the floor by his feet and out the door. I sat down at the defense table and wondered briefly whether I should be offended that Johnny Wayne had called me a pathetic excuse for a lawyer. I was a pathetic excuse for a human being, maybe, but I was a pretty damned good lawyer.

Everybody sat around stupidly for a few minutes until finally the bailiffs, now in a tight phalanx, dragged Johnny Wayne back into the room. They’d stuffed something into his mouth and covered it with duct tape. I wondered how it was going to feel when they ripped the tape off his neatly trimmed beard. They pulled him upright at the podium in front of the judge.

“Mr. Neal,” Judge Glass said, “your little outburst caused me to briefly consider rescinding your plea agreement and forcing you to go to trial. But I think this punishment is more appropriate for a man like you. You’re going to die in jail, but before you die, I think you have plenty to look forward to. A handsome young man like you, with a pretty potty mouth like yours, will undoubtedly enjoy tremendous popularity in the general population at the penitentiary. I’m sure you’ll be a favorite among the sodomites. The sentence stands. Life without parole. Get him out of here.”

My last image of Johnny Wayne was of his being dragged backwards across the floor, refusing to walk, tears streaming down his face and onto the silver tape stretched across his mouth. The worst part of it for him, though, had to be the fact that his jumpsuit had become terribly wrinkled during the fight with the guards.

I ducked out through a side door to avoid the media, went down the stairs, and headed back through the security station. Sarge was going through a woman’s purse. As I walked by, he handed her the purse and headed straight for me.

“Hey, Dillard, you hear about the murder?”

“What murder?”

“They found some guy in a room up at the Budget Inn stabbed to death. Somebody cut his dick off. A cat found it this morning out by the lake.”

“I didn’t do it, Sarge.” I kept on walking, but I could hear him laughing.

“Maybe you’ll get to defend the killer,” I heard him say. “Yeah, maybe the killer’ll be just like ol’ Johnny Wayne. Innocent. Railroaded by the system.”

3

April 12

10:00 a.m.

Special Agent Phillip Landers’s cell phone rang a little before 10:00 a.m., just as he was wrapping his mouth around a breakfast burrito at Sonic. Bill Wright, the special agent in charge of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation office in Johnson City, was calling. Bill was Landers’s boss. Not that the brownnosing jerk should have been the boss. Landers should have been the boss. By his own account, he was, by far, the smartest, hardest-working, best-looking TBI agent in the office. He knew he’d get his chance soon though. Wright was about to retire.

“There’s a body at the Budget Inn,” Wright said as Landers chewed slowly and stared at a teenage waitress on a pair of roller skates. “Male. Stabbed to death. That’s about all I know. I already called forensics. They’re on the way.”

The Johnson City police didn’t have any forensics people on the payroll, so murders were often passed along to the TBI. Landers took his time finishing his burrito. No big rush. The guy was already dead.

There were six city cruisers in the Budget Inn parking lot when Landers pulled in a half hour after he got the call. All the cruisers had their emergency lights on, as though the cops who drove them were actually doing something. The patrol guys never ceased to amaze Landers. They’d stand around for hours at a crime scene, screwing off, trading gossip, and hoping for some little tidbit of information they could share with each other. If they were really lucky, maybe they’d get a glimpse of the body and could go home and tell their wives or girlfriends the gory details.

Landers opened the trunk, lifted out a couple pairs of latex gloves, and walked up the stairs to Room 201. It was overcast and drizzling outside, but it still took his eyes a second to adjust to the dim light in the room. As soon as he cleared the door, he could smell blood. His eyes moved to the left. Jimmy Brown, a big, dim cracker with a butch haircut who had worked his way up through patrol and was finally, after twenty years, an investigator with the Johnson City police, was leaning over the bed. Beneath him was the body of what appeared to be a male whale. A very pale male whale. He was buck naked, lying flat on his back. His legs were splayed, and his arms went straight out from his shoulders. Spread-eagled. He was covered in dark, dried blood.

“So much for death with dignity, huh?” Landers said.

Brown looked at him deadpan. He didn’t even smile. How could he not smile? That was pretty funny. Landers chalked it up to petty jealousy.

“Where’s the forensics team?” Brown said.

“On the way. Should be here in an hour or so.” The TBI’s east Tennessee forensics guys and girls scrambled out of Knoxville, ninety miles to the west. They were responsible for covering the entire eastern half of the state. Landers knew they’d show up in their fancy, modern, mobile crime-scene van dressed in their cute little white uniforms. Thanks to the CSI television shows, they all thought they were stars.

“Who’s the pretty boy?” Landers said.

Brown stepped back away from the body and pulled out his notepad.

“Signed in as John Paul Tester and gave a Newport address, confirmed by registration in the glove compartment of his car. His wallet’s gone, if he had one. Manager says he checked in late yesterday afternoon, said he was here to preach at a revival, and asked where he could get a good hamburger. The manager told him to go to the Purple Pig. We’re getting a driver’s license photo from the Department of Safety so we can take it down there and ask around.”

Landers wondered why Brown needed the notepad to impart such a brief summary. The guy was really thick. Landers began to walk around the bed, looking at the dead whale. There were dozens of stab wounds, most of them concentrated around the neck and chest.

“Preacher, huh? Looks like somebody didn’t like the sermon,”

“That’s the least of it,” Brown said. “His dick’s gone.”

“Jesus! Really?” Landers hadn’t noticed with all the blood. He looked between the whale’s legs, and there was nothing but a mess of dark red goo. Whoever cut it off had to work for it. Landers figured it had been quite a while since the whale had seen his own dick.

“And get this,” Brown said. “Some woman called the sheriff’s department this morning. She lives out by Pickens Bridge, and her cat brought her a little gift. Turned out to be a human penis. Probably belongs to this guy.”

His logic was astounding. “Any idea how long he’s been dead?” Landers said.

“He’s cold and stiff. I’d say more than eight hours.”

“Security cameras?”

“Just at the front desk. Nothing in the parking lot or anywhere else.”

A patrol officer knocked and walked in. He was carrying an eight-by-ten photo of the dead guy. He handed it to Brown, who handed it to Landers.

“Are you here to help or are you just sightseeing?” Brown said.

“Your wish is my command, at least until the case officially gets dropped in my lap.”

Brown gave him a shove-it look. “Why don’t you take this down to the Purple Pig and ask around?”

“Done,” Landers said. “Anything else?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got people running down the woman who was on duty last night, canvassing the rooms, and working the Newport angle. You say forensics is on the way. I think we’ve got it under control for now.”

“Cool. I’m off to the Pig.”

Landers walked down the steps, past the patrol guys, and got into his car. He recognized a reporter from the Johnson City paper loitering outside the entrance. Her name was Sylvia something. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she wasn’t hideous, so Landers got back out of the car and went over to chat with her for a couple minutes. He leaked her a little tidbit about the missing penis, thinking it might be worth a blow job somewhere down the line.

As he made his way south down Roan Street, Landers kept glancing at the photo of the dead preacher. He had reddish hair, semi-decent features, and wide sideburns that ran to the bottom of his ear lobes, á la Elvis Presley. Not a bad-looking dude, but damn sure not in the same league as Landers.

“What’d you do to get yourself killed, Rev?” Landers said to the photo as he turned into the parking lot at the Purple Pig. “Dip the old wick in a vat of bad wax?”

If you enjoyed the beginning of An Innocent Client, you can purchase here via Amazon:

An Innocent Client

Again, thank you for reading!

Scott

ALSO BY SCOTT PRATT

The Joe Dillard Series

An Innocent Client

In Good Faith

Injustice for All

Reasonable Fear

Conflict of Interest

Blood Money

A Crime of Passion

Judgment Cometh (And That Right Soon)

Due Process

Last Resort

The Presley Carter Series

Blood is Black

The Darren Street Series

Justice Redeemed

Justice Burning

Justice Lost

The Miller & Stephens Series

The Sins of the Mother

The Billy Beckett Series

Deep Threat

Divine Strike

Ripcord

Break Point

Out of Bounds

Standalones

River on Fire

Children’s Books

An Elephant’s Standing in There

A Ride on a Cloud

ALSO BY J.D. PRATT

Last Resort (Joe Dillard Book 10)

Wreckage

ABOUT SCOTT PRATT

Scott Pratt was born in South Haven, Michigan, and moved to Tennessee when he was thirteen years old. He was a veteran of the United States Air Force and held a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from East Tennessee State University and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Tennessee College of Law. He lived in Northeast Tennessee with his wife until his untimely death in November, 2018.

scottprattfiction.com

ABOUT J.D. PRATT

If you're reading my work, you can expect PG-13 Southern Crime Fiction. My novels are fast-paced and cinematic, with a focus on developing strong characters. My writing centers around characters created by Scott Pratt in his Joe Dillard universe. Even the moniker, J.D. Pratt, is a pen name created to honor the legacy and work of the late Scott Pratt.

jdprattfiction.com