Family is tough for a lot of people. Throw a handful of individuals into a house for almost two decades, and it’s no surprise the memories run the gamut from nostalgic to traumatic. For some, it’s a haven; others, a prison. Our first relationships are with our parents and siblings, often dictating how we interact with the world. Those eighteen years of development are foundational, setting a course for what comes after. No wonder therapists often ask about it as they seek to understand their patients, the cliché being “Tell me about your mother.”

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Life in the Bubble

For Joe Richards in particular, family history is a sore spot that Pine Haven jams a firm finger into. Earlier chapters hint at a bad relationship with his father, one of them describing in detail how he witnessed his mother’s death. This is the framework of who Joe is, the mold he was poured into no matter how far he ran to escape it. Within his first day back, he isn’t the same person who woke in Maryland that morning.

Even as he relaxes on the front porch, Dan Thomas snoring in the rocker beside him, Joe feels the pull of his memories. Down a hill and across the highway is a large cemetery with a lone tree sitting atop another tall hill. The town calls it “Memorial Hill,” and as with all small town landmarks, there’s a story behind it. Apparently, Joe has his own, but before his mind can wander there, he falls asleep. Suzanne wakes him as she leaves work.

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Joe knew he’d walked into something as soon as he left his room. Below him, in the Hovington’s lobby, Suzanne kept her weary stare on the deputy, the tension between them a solid mass.

“I’m sorry,” Joe said when the uniformed officer looked back at him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s okay. I was leaving anyway.” The deputy headed for the hallway, Suzanne watching him with a confused squint.

“I thought—”

When the screen door slammed, Joe went downstairs. “Are you okay?”

Suzanne’s hand trembled, but she composed herself with a breath. “I’m fine. That was my ex, the one whose daddy died Monday night.”

Outside, the poor guy sat on the hood of his car, staring into the trees. It had been a decade since Joe’s father died, but he remembered the hollowness—the empty space a relationship left behind. That solidarity, the surge of nostalgic emotion, was the reason he agreed to meet Vick later to discuss Grady Perlson. He justified it as a step toward closure, something to make what came next easier. Even so, the Cherokee idled at the bottom of the Hovington’s driveway, Joe’s eyes fixed on Memorial Hill.

Elaine’s arrival should have been the tip-off. She wouldn’t clear her schedule for loneliness. Though she did surprise Joe every once in a while with a ravenous glimmer in her eye, he should have questioned why sex was the first thing on her mind. He should have known something was up when she came back to the room wanting more. They hadn’t gone back to back since they were newlyweds, but all his questions abandoned him when she straddled his hips and kissed him like she did back in college.

Joe had settled for satisfied ignorance. When they were done, Elaine curled naked beside him, the heat rolling off her in waves. “I got a call from Rucker last night.”

“Yeah?”

“He told me about your meeting on Friday.”

“Did he?” Joe kept his voice calm, even as he realized he’d been duped.

Propping on her elbow, Elaine met his eyes. “I think it’s a good idea. You’ve held this in for so long, it’s eating away at you.”

Joe pushed air through his nostrils.

“He thought you might do it if I asked.” Elaine smiled softly.

“Is that what this was about?”

“No. I missed you and wanted to be here for you, but it is the right decision.”

Even if Rucker suggested it, Elaine did take the time off to drive from Maryland to Pine Haven. She wanted what was best for him. How could he stay angry?

Elaine had offered the doe-eyed expression she’d mastered over the years, the tension draining from Joe’s face as it always did. He sighed his surrender. “I’ve been working up to it.”

She shook her head. “You’re too good at talking yourself out of things. If you’re serious, do it tomorrow, before you go to the prison. You’ll feel better when it’s over.”

Rucker’s words in Elaine’s mouth. He’d probably had her memorize it, like a spell guaranteed to work. Maybe it was. After all, Joe did answer her with a kiss and a nod.

At the bottom of the Hovington’s driveway, Joe’s eyes traced the hill down to the access road leading to the cemetery parking lot. He searched for an excuse to drive the opposite way, toward the prison. He told himself he wasn’t ready and never would be. There was too much history. It wasn’t as simple as walking to a headstone.

Rucker would argue it was the same flawed logic that kept their patients from healing. It didn’t push Joe’s foot to the accelerator, but Rucker’s genius anticipated it. That’s why he sent Elaine, knowing Joe had never broken a promise to her.

Turning right, Joe coasted down the highway to the access road. When he reached the cemetery, he parked near the sidewalk. The air in his car warmed as soon as he cut off the engine, but he remained, staring through the rows of headstones to build his nerve. As he dropped his eyes from the windshield, he noticed a hint of blue tailfin sticking out of his messenger bag. Grady went looking for Henry, even after all the terrible things his brother had done. How hard could it be to walk to a grave and say a few words?

Along the cracked path between the rows, Joe studied the sprouts of crabgrass crawling up through the sidewalk. His feet dragged over the concrete as he approached a statue of a praying angel, the path curving along the bottom of the hill. Everything felt familiar, as if he’d been there just a few days ago.

Veering into the grass, Joe passed among the polished headstones toward an old dogwood with its limb drooping low. Two markers were planted beneath it: one a rust-colored marble and the other a deep gray. All that remained of his parents. He approached the spot where he’d left them.

In his last meeting with Rucker, the one the old bastard called Elaine about, Joe pleaded for him to send someone else. Of course Rucker asked why. Maybe part of him wanted to help, but he’d also want to see what happened.

Rucker gave Joe homework—to go to his father’s grave and say what he never could. I forgive you. Joe had laughed in his stone face before being reminded that Rucker was retiring soon and would recommend his replacement to the board. It was blackmail, but Joe did his part, squatting at the deep brown headstone with his eyes fixed on his father’s name.

“The year after Mom died, you were supposed to drive me to Little League signup but got drunk and called it a waste of time. Drunk was your best excuse—why you missed the state tournament when I hit that homerun and how you forgot all about my graduation. The few times you managed to stay sober, you put work first.”

Joe’s mouth turned with a sour taste, but he went on. “I wrote the day I was leaving for college on every calendar you owned, but you still scheduled an appointment and sat with a patient while I loaded the car. I waited in the driveway for half an hour after she left to see if you would come say goodbye.”

Saying the words out loud made Joe feel somewhat better, though it wasn’t the breakthrough Rucker and Elaine expected. Still, his chest wasn’t as tight. His stomach wasn’t as sour. Progress was progress.

“I understand some of it now. If I had to raise Brad alone, I might be as bad at it as you were. Sometimes I make the same mistakes even with Elaine around, giving work too much time and not leaving enough for him. The disappointed look he gets feels so familiar, but I ignore it. Maybe that makes me worse.”

Clearing his throat, Joe read his last name on the headstone. He dreaded the next part, mostly out of fear it would change nothing—that he couldn’t avoid becoming the man he’d despised for so long after his death. After he’d killed him. With the words in his throat, he held a small measure of hope.

“I came to forgive you for the times you let me down. For making me figure out life on my own. For making me want you dead. Maybe this gives me a chance to avoid becoming you. To keep Brad from becoming me.”

Joe stood and turned toward the sidewalk. With a glance up the hill to the maple, he recognized the angle from his dream. From his memory. This is where he broke from his father’s grip, but he couldn’t remember why. The scene lacked context, a fragment of seconds that slipped away like a fish through his hands. He stared at the maple, hoping to trigger something. When nothing came, he followed the sidewalk to his car.

On the way to the prison, Joe considered hypnosis to figure out what he was missing, though it was a longshot and not the best choice for memory retrieval. It had too much potential to cause more harm than good—to plant false memories instead of unlocking true ones. Even without the risk, who would he trust to do it? After this week, definitely not Rucker, but everyone else he knew with the necessary training was a colleague. He’d see them at conferences and annual meetings, look them in the eyes, shake their hands, and know they held his deepest secrets.

Joe had almost given up on the idea by the time he passed through downtown Pine Haven, where a familiar brown van was parked in front of a café. With the storm gone, Dan had finally ventured from the Hovington porch. Driving past, Joe smiled until a ridiculous thought grew and lingered.

A retired carnival performer with hypnosis experience was an interesting choice. Despite all Joe’s logic about false memories, Dan had one quality he couldn’t resist. When they left Pine Haven, they’d never see each other again.

The rationale was weak, but Joe couldn’t shake it. In the prison’s parking lot, he decided to at least bring it up and see what Dan thought. What was the harm in that?

At the lobby’s security checkpoint, the corrections officer yawned as she searched Joe’s messenger bag for the fourth time that week. Her eyebrow arched at the metallic clatter of the car inside. Holding it up, she regarded Joe with a silent question.

“It’s a toy,” Joe said.

“I know what it is. Tell me what it’s for.”

“It belonged to my patient a long time ago.”

The guard’s head tilted, her eyes narrowing. “It’s also made of solid metal with tailfins that aren’t exactly dull. Your ‘patient’ gets a hold of this, one good whack could kill you.”

“I only want him to see it.”

Shaking her head, she picked up the phone receiver. “I gotta call the warden.”

It took her longer to get George on the line than for him to say yes. She hung up and dropped the car back into Joe’s bag before sliding it through the window, her eyes locked with his. “Make sure he just sees it.”

After a short elevator ride, Joe reached the hall with the conference room. The door stood open and lights were on, George waiting with two tall Styrofoam cups of coffee on the table in front of him. By the heavy droop of his eyelids, he hadn’t slept at all last night.

“Everything okay?” Joe asked as he sat.

“Do I look that bad?”

“You look tired.”

“That’s better than I feel.”

“Want to talk about it?”

George forced a smile, his eyes drifting closed. “If I started, you’d call up to Maryland and tell them to bring two straightjackets. Me and Grady could be roommates.”

“Or I’d just listen. I’ve gotten decent at it over the years.”

The warden shook his head. “It’s nothing I can’t work out on my own.”

A slamming door and jingling chains announced Grady’s arrival. Sipping his coffee, Joe set the voice recorder in its usual spot at the center of the table. The car went beside it, but as the guard’s warning echoed in his head, he pulled it a few inches closer.

George stared in awe at the bright blue toy. “It was where he told you it’d be.”

Joe nodded then realized it wasn’t a question. He turned to the warden and found him unsettled, his eyes fixed on the car. It affected him, but before Joe could ask why, the rhythmic jingle approached the open door.

As Grady shuffled into the room, he noticed the toy car and stopped. His eyes rimmed red and wet, blinking tears over a tentative smile. When Sergeant Muñoz prodded his back, he continued to his chair.

For the first time that week, Grady met Joe’s eyes without cowering. “You found it.”

“How did you know I’m staying in the same room?” Joe asked.

“Like Sagin said, the stone loves patterns. You learn to look for them. Did you call the police?”

Joe nodded. “They found her where you said.”

“Do you believe me now?”

With a sigh, Joe dropped his attention to the car. “Most of it.”

“The rest takes time, but you’ll get there. The stone will make sure of it.”

“Where did you bury it, Grady?”

“I don’t remember. Sagin made sure Wolgiss couldn’t find it. That’s what saved me in the jungle. If I died, he’d lose it forever.”

“Are you ready to talk about what happened there?”

“You really want to know what he did to all those innocent people?” Grady’s eyes drifted to George, but the warden didn’t say a word.

“Only if you’re ready to tell it,” Joe said.

Grady considered the car before giving Joe his full attention. “Once I got to Fort Bragg, everything moved fast. It was like I stood still and the world turned around me. I didn’t have to look hard for Henry. Matter of fact, I asked one question and he came looking for me.”

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Vick was careful not to squeak the door’s old hinges as he slipped inside and down the hallway. At the open door into the lobby, he stopped and peered in, setting his eyes on the recess behind the stairs. Before he could move toward it, voices approached from the dining room.

The first was Pete’s. “I’m serious. Tell me what you want me to cook.”

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re cooking?”

By Suzanne’s tone, her lips curled in that sassy way that used to make the world vanish. Hearing it for some other guy, especially Pete, brought an eerie calm that made Vick feel helpless.

Last night, Vick regained hope he hadn’t lost Suzanne for good. If she could come back to Pine Haven—to his mom’s house—maybe she could come back to him. But she would never lead someone on, which meant Pete had a legitimate shot. The realization made Vick wish he never went inside. Now, he had no choice but to listen. Slipping behind the door, he rested the back of his head on the wall and did just that.

When Pete answered, Vick imagined his lopsided grin. “Well, you could keep me company or, if that don’t suit you, sit on the porch and relax. I’ve got it screened in to keep the bugs out. It’s supposed to be clear all weekend, so you can look out at the stars and not worry about a thing.”

“And what am I supposed to be worried about?”

Vick doubted Pete noticed the change in her tone. It took years together to catch something so subtle and understand what it was—a warning shot.

“What Vick’s gonna think when he finds out.”

A smile oozed across Vick’s face.

“Finds out what?” Suzanne’s eyes would be as cold as her tone.

Pete stammered. “That I asked you out. That you said yes.”

Vick winced. He thought Pete was gathering his nerve, but apparently, the deal was done. They were only sorting out the finer details.

“Sweetie, this is Pine Haven. If you don’t want Vick finding out, you need to forget this conversation happened.”

The silence drew out so long, it almost got the better of Vick. He was curious what it all looked like—Pete deciding whether she was worth his bravery as she grew more impatient with every quiet second. It took all he had to resist peeking, risking one or both spotting him to watch Pete crash and burn.

“So what do you want me to cook?”

As much as it stung, Vick was kind of proud. For the first time in his life, Pete stood on his own. What really hurt was knowing Suzanne’s answer, which Vick whispered in a breath before she did.

“Eggplant parmesan.”

Pete chuckled. “Tomorrow night, you’re gonna have the best eggplant parmesan you ever tasted.”

“I can’t wait.”

The carpet muffled Pete’s approach, so Vick didn’t know he was close until quick clomps crossed the hardwood before the hallway. It gave just enough time to press flat to the wall, but it wasn’t necessary. Pete hurried down the hall with his eyes on the floor to avoid tripping over his own feet. He pushed through the screen door and nodded a love-drunk smile in the direction of the old man before turning toward the porch steps.

Vick almost sighed his relief before remembering Suzanne still stood in the lobby. His best chance was to sneak back down the hall and slam the door, hoping she’d think he just walked in. But in the same way he could picture her face by her voice, she’d know what he’d heard when she saw him. Instead of giving her a chance of calling him on it, he stood straight, got a firm grip on his dignity, and stepped into the lobby.

Suzanne stood behind the desk with her attention on some magazine, a massive bouquet of roses in a clear vase beside her. Imagining how cheesy Pete must have looked handing them to her, Vick stood in the doorway until she glanced up. She squinted as if aiming down the barrel of a rifle, her lips pressed to her teeth.

“What are you doing here?”

Despite everything Vick planned to say, different words left his mouth. “I came to see one of your guests.”

“We’ve got two. You passed Mr. Thomas on your way in, so what do you want with Dr. Richards?”

“He might know something about what happened to Dad.”

“Why are you back at work? Sheriff Arkin should have given you a couple weeks off.”

Vick nodded, his cheeks flushing warm. “A couple weeks. Did Pete tell you that?”

“You were spying on us.”

“I wasn’t trying to. I came to find this Dr. Richards and heard you in the dining room.”

“And you didn’t think to let us know you were here?”

“I heard enough to know it’d make things more awkward, if that was possible.”

Suzanne glared. “Don’t. He did something nobody else in this town had the nerve to do.”

“Going behind my back? Yeah, that’s a fine quality to look for in a man.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Eyes aimed at the carpet, Vick went to the stairs and sat. “I don’t understand what he was thinking.”

“Maybe that it’s been two years and how many women?”

Vick knew better than to answer.

“That’s what I thought.” The bite left Suzanne’s voice. She sounded hurt and tired, as if they’d had this conversation before—maybe in all the imagined words they said to themselves. The perfect him told the perfect her they could be friends again. The perfect Suzanne assured him he hadn’t thrown everything away, that there was still a chance if he was patient. Perfect Vick gave Pete his blessing because he wanted what was best for her.

They could take a step in that direction if Vick let go. He didn’t have to accept it, just change the subject. Instead, he shook his head, smiling as if the whole thing was a joke. “Pete?”

“I said don’t. He’s a good guy, and he’s safe.”

“Safe?”

“It means he’s not you.” Suzanne blinked hard as if even she couldn’t believe she’d said it.

Vick stared at the carpet in hollow silence until a door at the top of the stairs opened and closed. Without looking, he knew it was Joe Richards, but all the motivation Shelley built in him was gone.

Halfway down the staircase, the man spoke. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Vick,” Suzanne said.

Vick stood. “It’s okay. I was leaving anyway.”

“I thought—”

Vick didn’t let her finish. He crossed the lobby to the hallway and then out into the hot summer air. The screen door slammed behind him as he kept going, down the steps and into the parking lot.

At his car, Vick snorted through his nostrils without any idea who he was mad at.

The easy answer was Pete, but Vick couldn’t imagine driving off to find him, either to kick his ass or just yell. Instead of fighting back, Pete would nod and tell him he was right. He’d done wrong and would call the whole thing off. But what would that matter? It wouldn’t help get Suzanne back.

It means he’s not you. How did she know? Maybe Pete was worse, some psychopath who only needed a trigger to start killing, hiding all his crazy under that goofy grin. The idea was so ridiculous, it took some of Vick’s steam, making him realize he couldn’t be mad at either of them.

Two years ago, when the whole mess with Suzanne went down, his dad gave him the answer. It’s not her fault for not forgiving you or that other girl’s for taking her clothes off. This is because of you. You have to own that.

The memory made Vick miss his dad, though he’d have shrugged off any of Mitch’s advice. In a final tantrum, he kicked gravel across the side of his car, leaving tiny dents in the door. He ran his hand over them but didn’t care much about the damage. Worry like that belonged to a Vick who died with his dad. The new version sat on the car’s trunk and stared into the trees as if waiting for something to emerge.

“You okay?” The voice from the stairs was behind him again. This time Vick turned to look at Joe Richards.

Between his shaggy hair and beard stubble—tan slacks and an untucked black button-up—the man looked more like an English professor than a serial killer. The genuine concern in his eyes as he waited for Vick’s answer added more doubt. Though anyone had the potential for murder, nothing about the man set off any alarm bells.

Vick returned his attention to the trees. “I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry again for interrupting in there. Timing has never been my thing.”

“You gave me an excuse to leave.”

A crunch of gravel brought Dr. Richards closer. “I know it’s not my business—”

“You’re right.”

“I just wanted to say they need time.”

“Who?”

“Women.”

With a sharp laugh, Vick wondered if the conversation was God’s idea of a joke. Maybe ghosts did exist and his dad couldn’t resist giving a little more unsolicited advice.

“I’m pretty well covered in that department,” Vick said.

“Fair enough.”

The gravel shifted again as Dr. Richards walked away. After a few steps, it occurred to Vick he might not have screwed everything up. Things with Suzanne needed work, but he still had a chance to find out what the doctor knew. He hopped down and followed the man to his car.

“There is something you can do for me. I have a few questions about the body found over at the gas station on the south end of town.”

Dr. Richards stopped and let Vick catch up. “I told the sheriff I’d cooperate, but I have to protect my patient’s interests.”

Vick didn’t have a clue about any patient or even what type of doctor this man was. There was a lot Shelley didn’t tell him, but he doubted she knew either.

“I understand. I’m not going to pressure you. I just hoped you’d meet me for lunch.”

The doctor considered and then nodded. “After my session.”

“Great. There’s an old diner south of town—”

“The Road King. I remember it.”

“You’ve been here before?”

The doctor’s sharp frown as he nodded made it clear the memory wasn’t a good one. With a forced smile, he offered Vick his hand. “One o’clock at The Road King then, Deputy—”

“Hafferty.” As Vick shook the doctor’s hand, he wondered if he should say he wasn’t on duty. Maybe that could wait until after lunch. He’d call it a misunderstanding, say he hadn’t heard the man say deputy. He’d had a fight with his ex-girlfriend and was upset. It wasn’t a perfect excuse, but it satisfied Vick enough to keep his mouth shut as the doctor got into his Cherokee.

Returning to his own car, Vick leaned on the trunk and watched the doctor leave. He stood with his arms crossed until the brake lights flared among the trees and disappeared. Then, he drove to his apartment to change clothes and wait.

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The suffocation left, but the fog lingered. Pine Haven’s quiet streets and bleary-eyed store owners vanished, leaving only the asphalt under Vick’s feet. It might as well have been the surface of the moon. He didn’t know where to go or what he’d do when he got there but refused to let his mom see him lost and depressed, even if she did want him to fail. He could get drunk, but the All Rise wouldn’t open for three hours. That left his apartment, but maybe it was what he really needed, a place where no one could watch him fall apart.

At his car, Vick put the key in the door lock. Before he could turn it, a cruiser blocked him in. Shelley called through the open passenger window. “You okay?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Get in.”

Vick had a decent idea where they’d end up. His apartment or hers, maybe some secluded spot in the woods with half their clothes off and the other half on their way. He could convince himself she was what he needed and deal with any consequences later.

With a sharp breath from his nose, Vick got in the cruiser.

Shelley made a U-turn, but instead of either apartment or a rural road, she turned into the lot behind the sheriff’s department and parked in an empty spot. She looked at Vick with a soft smile. “I can help you.”

Meeting her hopeful eyes, Vick shook his head. “I said my piece. Arkin sent me home. Unless you can go back and stop me from bothering, it’s hopeless.”

“He doesn’t understand what you’re going through.” Shelley curled her lip as if she’d taken a bite of something rotten. It was a hard look Vick had never seen from her, something in it making him wish she kept driving to that spot in the middle of nowhere.

“You do?”

Shelley nodded. “I’d have to be blind not to see all that hurt. You feel lost, but you’re not alone. This isn’t the town we grew up in or even the one we woke up to Monday morning. We lived in a bubble that just popped, a fantasy we were safer here than anywhere else in the world. People need that back if there’s any hope of that Pine Haven existing again. They need something better than Arkin can give them.”

“You’ve been talking to Mack.”

“He said what we were all thinking. Arkin doesn’t know what he’s doing, but maybe there’s a reason. Maybe he can’t find who’s killing these people because you’re supposed to, because it’s what Pine Haven needs. Not a man in cuffs and reporters on the courthouse steps making the world believe this is just another place where bad things happened. We need someone to step up and do what needs to be done.”

“And what’s that?” Vick knew the answer but needed Shelley to say it. She leaned across the seat and whispered as if someone might hear.

“Find him and kill him. Show them all this is a town that stands up for itself.”

“That’s the exact reason Arkin doesn’t want me back.”

Shelley offered a sweet smile. “Who said you’ve got to come back?”

When Vick realized what Shelley meant, his jaw went slack. She wanted him to take off his badge and find the man, hoping he had the right one when he pulled the trigger.

“That’s insane.”

Her smile faded. “No, it’s justice and the only chance you have at getting over this. You shouldn’t call someone crazy when they’re trying to help you.”

Fuming, Shelley shoved the cruiser into reverse and backed out of the parking space. She left the lot, turning toward the courthouse and Vick’s car parked at the end of the street. When she stopped, she wouldn’t look at him.

Tears threatened the corner of Shelley’s eye. Instead of getting out, Vick studied her profile. “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to help, but this isn’t something I can think about with everything else in my head. I’ve made too many bad decisions that way.”

Though Shelley remained silent, her frown faded. Vick considered it progress as he stepped out onto the street. Before he shut the car door, she said something he knew he shouldn’t have heard if he meant to wait for Arkin to do his job.

“If you change your mind, a good place to start is the Hovington. There’s a man staying there named Joe Richards. He called in the tip about the Pump and Save.”

Shelley had to know what that information would do to Vick. It was like the first taste of whiskey after a long day or the flirty drift of a woman’s eyes hinting all she was prepared to do with the right words. Every time Vick swore he’d be better, reciting all the lessons he learned the last time, he ended up doing the wrong thing anyway. Sometimes he wondered if that made him a bad person or just a stupid one.

On the way to the Hovington, Vick worked on a plan. His first idea was to sit in the parking lot and wait for this Joe Richards to come outside. Once he got a good look at him, he could decide what came next. But Suzanne might glance out a window and see his car. To her, it might look like stalking. Maybe she’d call Arkin, who’d drive over with that look that said he knew he wasn’t there for his ex-girlfriend.

With Suzanne there, Vick had no choice but to go inside, though he came up with an easy excuse. He just wanted to stop by and thank her for sitting with his mom last night, to make sure she knew how much good it did. How could he help a guest wandering into their conversation?

Thinking he was ready for anything, Vick pulled in past the Hovington’s sign. When he drove out of the trees at the crest of the hill, he spotted Suzanne’s convertible and smiled at the idea of seeing her again. Then, he noticed the silver Prius in the back of the lot. Pete’s car. Vick stomped the brake pedal, his back tires sliding in the gravel.

Of course Pete would be there. He made a point of checking in on his grandma at least once a week—maybe even every Thursday morning. The real question was whether it mattered. If Pete ran into Vick, would he mention it at work? Would Arkin put together what that meant?

Glancing through the driver’s-side window, Vick met eyes with a white-haired man in a front porch rocker, his head tilted as if this was the most interesting thing he’d seen all week. Was he Joe Richards? The man had a good enough look at him and the car he drove to mention it if Vick did something suspicious, like driving away. Without much choice, Vick nodded to the man and parked beside a brown van.

Still in his rocking chair when Vick topped the porch steps, the man added a smile to his curious stare. “Good morning. Looks like the storm’s far enough away to say that again.”

“I guess.” With an indifferent shrug, Vick peered through the screen door with his hand on the knob. No one stood at the front desk. Maybe he could sneak in without being seen, hide behind the stairs until Pete left, and hope Suzanne didn’t find him before he snuck back out.

“He’s in there somewhere.”

Vick’s eyes darted back to the man. “Who?”

“The other deputy. Flowers in his hand and that terrified look that’s been around as long as men and women. As if asking a girl out takes all the courage in the world. Maybe it does.”

As his eyes narrowed, Vick told himself this was just some stranger passing through Pine Haven. He didn’t know Pete Finch—the same kid who’d rode the bench every football season just to hang out with him. The same Pete who looked like he won the lottery the day Arkin told them to share an office.

Despite his silent arguments, Vick’s jaw firmed like his dad’s had when he worked some problem out in his head. He squinted through the screen at the empty lobby and swore it was impossible, though part of him knew it wasn’t. Suzanne had a way of driving sense from a man, and under all his shy loyalty, Pete was still one of those.

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On Thursday morning, Vick was careful not to wake his mother as he slipped down the hallway to his old bedroom.

His tan uniform had hung in the closet since Tuesday, another relic of who he used to be. Like the football jersey to its left, it’d hang there forever if he let it. Instead, Vick carried the uniform to the bed. He doubted he was ready to sit in a cruiser, distracted by memories of his dad or fantasies of what he’d do to his killer—doubted his dad would be proud of his reasons.

After Vick dressed, he sat with his polished loafers at his feet and gave the doubts equal time. When they didn’t talk him out of it, he put on his shoes and left the room.

From the living room, he smelled breakfast on the stove. He’d missed his chance to sneak out, but it would have been a mistake and a cruel one. She’d worry either way but worse if he left without telling her, saying goodbye like his dad would.

Tara Hafferty focused on the omelet in her pan so didn’t notice Vick’s uniform. She smiled when he stood beside her, the same way she did last night when he came home to find her on the couch with Suzanne, holding her hand with a contented grin. As if it was all she needed. He’d savored that look from the foyer, knowing Suzanne would take it with her when she left.

“This has your name on it,” Vick’s mother said.

Vick couldn’t tell her he wasn’t hungry, that he didn’t want to demand anything from Arkin on a full stomach. He took a plate from the cabinet and turned again to find her staring. She didn’t say a word as she dropped the omelet on his plate.

A few minutes later, they sat together at the table, Tara with a small portion of scrambled eggs. She didn’t ask about his uniform and Vick didn’t explain why he wore it, but the conversation played out in short glances he avoided. If they each spoke their mind, she might have told him not to go, that she couldn’t imagine losing him too. He might have given her all the excuses he’d prepared for Arkin. Maybe she’d beg. Maybe he’d give in. Instead, there was silence.

Vick finished eating and set his plate in the sink, kissing his mother’s cheek before he left. When he arrived at the sheriff’s department, Arkin’s office was still dark. Slipping past the open doorway at dispatch, he went to the office he shared with Pete, who wouldn’t be in until the afternoon. He closed the door so no one would know he was there, but within two minutes, someone knocked and turned the handle.

Shelley beamed when she cracked the door and saw Vick. “I noticed the light but figured Pete left it on last night. I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

With a finger to his lips, Vick waved Shelley into the room. She blushed as he closed the door, embarrassed or with some expectation of why he was being sneaky.

Shelley’s crush on Vick was never a secret. She was his first real kiss, on the couch at some party down the street from Eric’s house, her tongue searching out his while his hands explored under her shirt. Her brother’s glare when he found them was a sharp enough warning to keep Vick from ever calling her, though he’d promised he would with their last subtle kiss. When things ended with Suzanne, Shelley was still there, pretty and willing, but her brother was replaced by Vick’s father.

Don’t shit where you sleep, son. Vick ignored plenty of his dad’s advice over the years, but that one seemed sound. After all, every time he saw her now, she wore a gun on her hip.

Shelley leaned back against the door. “Sorry I missed the funeral.”

Vick shrugged. “Someone had to be here.”

Her eyes never left his. “You’re really back?”

“I have to talk to Arkin first.”

“What do you think he’ll say?”

“No. But I have to try.”

“What if he does say no?”

“Go home, I guess.”

Shelley nodded, lowering her eyes to search for something else to say. “Well, call me if you need anything.”

As she grabbed the door handle, Shelley met Vick’s eyes with a smoldering confidence. When she slipped into the hallway, he was tempted to call her back. They could block the door with Pete’s chair and clear his head.

Before Vick was tempted to make the fantasy real, Shelley’s voice came down the hall.

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

Vick smoothed his uniform like a nervous kid preparing to ask out the head cheerleader. This was worse. Instead of hot and untouchable, Arkin was a cranky old asshole and the most stubborn man in Pine Haven. If he screwed it up, Vick would be back at his mom’s house in time for coffee.

When Arkin closed his office door, Vick stepped through his. He walked down the hallway and past the dispatch desk, where Jake looked up and nodded. With a short nod back, Vick turned his focus to the door marked Sheriff. Remembering to breathe, he knocked.

“Come in.”

The voice wasn’t as gruff as Vick expected, instead strained and weak. Opening the door, he found the sheriff with his head propped in one hand, the other rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. Vick had seen that look in the mirror too many times to count. Arkin was hungover.

The sheriff glared through one bloodshot eye. “I thought I was clear I didn’t want to see you in that uniform for two weeks.”

“I want to work.” Vick shouted, digging the spike into Arkin’s ear.

Teeth clenched, Arkin leaned in his chair. “Keep your voice down. You don’t want to work. You want revenge, which isn’t what we do here. This ain’t a hundred years ago, and your name’s not John Valance. Now, does your mom know you’re here?”

Vick’s cheeks blazed. That wasn’t a question one grown man asked another—a deputy at that. It was something you asked a kid who’d wandered from home. “What does that matter?”

“Answer the question.” Arkin strained a smile as if he’d already won.

“She saw me leave in uniform, so I’m sure she put it together.”

“You know why she let you come?”

Vick seethed. “I’m old enough not to be ‘let’ do things.”

“You know why she didn’t say anything?”

“Get on with it.” The determination sapped from Vick’s voice as he plopped into the chair in front of Arkin’s desk.

“She knew I’d be a damn fool to let you out on official sheriff’s business with the weight of this week on your back. You think you’re in control. Right now, you might be. But let’s say we catch a break. Evidence appears out of nowhere. We get a suspect in for questioning. Maybe you’re the one who picks him up. You stand in the same room when he confesses to putting a mattock through your poor daddy’s skull.”

Vick winced, doubling over as if socked in the stomach.

“I’m sorry, but think about what will go through your head in that moment with a gun on your belt. I wish I could help you, son. I really do. But I can’t let you out there with that scene playing out in my head.”

“You said you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t, but that’s why the SBI is here. They’ve got a lab analyzing footprints and tire marks as we speak, working to get us a name or at least a short list. It won’t be long before your daddy gets real justice and we can put this behind us. Your job will be waiting for you in two weeks, but right now, your mom needs you more than I do.”

Rubbing his forehead, Vick searched for any of the “airtight” arguments that convinced him to come in the first place, but they all abandoned him. The bowling ball of swirling emotion in his gut couldn’t match an ounce of Arkin’s stubborn. He wasn’t going to say anything as he walked to the door, but the cold knob felt too much like giving up.

Without turning, Vick asked, “What changed since last night?”

“I sobered up.”

Vick knew it was the only answer he’d get. He made a beeline from Arkin’s office to the door leading outside. Halfway past the front window, his chest tightened as if someone took a fistful of his lungs and squeezed. With one hand on the brick sill for balance, Vick bent forward.

Did he really think Arkin would nod and smile with an enthusiastic “go get ‘em”? If Vick thought it through, he wouldn’t have bothered putting on his uniform. He’d have stayed with his mom. His dad would want that more than revenge.

But it was never about what Mitch Hafferty wanted. Like every decision Vick made, this was about what he wanted—to do this himself. The thought festered like an infection in the empty place inside him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Straightening, he continued down the sidewalk.

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Whether by extreme coincidence or some accidental symmetry, my “deeper dive” posts have started to mirror upcoming chapters. The previous post covered Eric Vanger’s first interaction with Grady Perlson as well as his first shift at Starks Prison and was written as I posted the chapter detailing his second. For this one, I’m discussing the first chapter that focuses on George Carmichael as I prepare the post for the next one.

It’s given me a chance to look directly at these secondary but highly important story arcs to make sure their trajectory matches my intention. So far, I’ve been happy. Now, let’s get to it.

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On the heels of the revelation that Jim Stucker has some deeper knowledge about Grady Perlson, the next chapter focuses on George Carmichael, warden of Starks County Prison. We follow him home from work, meeting him at the door from the garage, though he is expecting someone different. His wife Nicole usually waits for him at the kitchen table. To George, her absence is an omen.

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George pulled into his garage Wednesday night exhausted, wrung out like a mop used to scrub every inch of Starks Prison. Hours hunched over the police scanner left his back sore. Behind his right eye, a headache blossomed. Slouching into the kitchen, he wanted nothing more than to go upstairs and sleep until Wolgiss considered his debt paid. Instead, he found Nicole at the kitchen table.

Wicked men deserved no rest.

One of Nicole’s hands held her silk robe closed under her neck, the other with a teacup near her mouth. Fear kept her eyes wide, her whisper a breath through the steam. “They found another one. A woman from out of town.”

George could have assured her they were the safest people in Pine Haven, but then he’d have to explain why. He wasn’t ready for that conversation. With a frown, he nodded. “Who told you?”

“I heard people at the grocery store talking. One had lunch over at the Road King and saw the sheriff putting up police tape behind the old gas station.”

Setting her cup down, Nicole covered her face with both hands. George sat beside her and kissed her forehead. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You’re never here anymore.”

“You know where I keep the gun.”

Despite her nod, George doubted Nicole could point the .357 at any living thing and pull the trigger. When she met his gaze, he worried she’d see right through him to the truth, remembering her trip to the prison basement and the dark god who healed her.

Nicole reclaimed her tea and stood, heading toward the den. George went upstairs to shower.

Under the near-scalding water, George wished he hadn’t listened. He might have bought another day before learning what it meant to obey voices in another man’s head. But he was curious what they’d find at the Pump and Save so borrowed Becky’s scanner, shutting his office door so he could hear it all.

His jaw set against the scream building inside his chest.

George thought it would be an even trade: the life of a stranger for his wife’s. He hadn’t paid attention to the fine print.

Into the spraying water, he whispered, “Everything I ask.”

Waiting for Joe Richards’s turn to die, he’d ignored the bodies stacking behind him.

Pressure grew until George had to release it in a series of stifled moans. He watched the blurred door through the frosted glass. If Nicole came to see what was wrong, he’d tell her everything. He’d beg her to understand his choices were right because he made them out of love for her.

Hank Barbour had been shocked when George brought Nicole to the basement block. Jim Stucker wore a smile as if listening for the punchline. They followed him to that single occupied cell, asking questions George ignored.

Grady had waited at the cell door with those black, empty eyes. Stepping into his reach, George offered him his wife. As the inmate’s massive hands reached through the bars, light spilled from cracks in his fingers. Nicole’s skin drank the glow when he touched her, his eyes shutting as hers fluttered aware.

Hank and Jim were chosen as witnesses. A different word teased the back of George’s throat as he got out of the shower and dried, demanding his voice as he dressed in a pair of loose shorts and a white t-shirt.

“Disciples.”

The three witnesses to that miracle became disciples of something they didn’t understand, but each played their assigned part. Wiping a hand across the fogged mirror, George stared into the clear streak at his reflection. How had he been so stupid? He’d joined a cult—founded the damn thing.

George found Nicole half-asleep on the living room couch, watching a show where strangers in a house proved the worst aspects of humanity. On tonight’s episode, two girls verged on war after finding out they were sleeping with the same guy. Slumping into his leather armchair, George picked a spot below the screen and stared, hoping Nicole was too tired to notice anything wrong.

What would happen if he went to Sheriff Arkin and narrowed his list of suspects to two? Wolgiss wouldn’t shrug and let it go. At the least, he’d take back his gift and return Nicole to her inner darkness. But if he allowed Hank and Jim to keep at it, he was just as guilty.

Forgetting he wasn’t alone, George let his head fall.

Nicole muted the television as the shouting girls were about to start swinging. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“It’s just been a long day.”

George rubbed his temples, hoping she’d leave him alone. Instead, Nicole got up and stood behind him to massage his shoulders. It made him feel better but wasn’t what he needed.

With a final squeeze, Nicole said, “Whatever it’s about can’t be worth the stress.”

Leaning back, George took one of her hands and kissed its palm. “If you only knew.”

Nicole returned to the couch and finished her show, then handed George the remote as she kissed him goodnight. When her feet thumped up the stairs, he turned off the television.

In the blank screen, George made his decision. It was one thing to trade a man’s life to have Nicole back, but the body count was already at five with no indication of ending soon. He considered what it meant to walk away, to watch her wasting again like a lost spirit. He’d rather see her dead.

The thought lingered. Without Nicole, Wolgiss had nothing to keep George walking his hard, twisting road. It might save the next five lives, including Joe’s. He imagined getting the pistol from his study and pointing it at her—pulling the trigger to end her life.

After checking the front door’s lock, George did the same for the one in the kitchen. He poured a glass of tap water and drank it, one hand on the counter and his eyes fixed on the large wooden block of knives beside the sink. Touching their handles, he drew one with a long, thin blade, squeezing the handle in his white-knuckled fist.

Though Nicole wouldn’t know what a creak from the stairs meant, George took his time to avoid making a sound. At the closed bedroom, he turned the knob and cracked the door to peek inside. Despite the dark, her shape was easy to find. The bedsheets gathered at her waist, the rhythmic rise of each breath proving she was asleep.

The mile to the prison felt shorter than the ten feet to the bed. Standing over Nicole, George waited for some force to move his hand—a temporary insanity to drive down the knife—but found his thoughts the clearest they’d been since his son died.

Where should he stab her? If the chest or neck, he’d need to roll her over, which risked waking her. Her head was a better option, but how could he damage the face he loved more with every line carved by their years together? His best bet was her back, aiming for her heart with a hope it wouldn’t take more than one try.

George lowered to his knees and positioned the knife below Nicole’s shoulder blade. He drew a slow breath and touched the blade’s tip to her skin, blood beading around the metal. As she stirred with a light moan, he jerked the knife away, afraid he’d impale her if she rolled over.

The instinct to protect her made it clear he could never hurt her, the realization a relief. If something inside Grady had the power to heal Nicole, the rest might also be true. Wolgiss came from the future to find some magic rock, a stone that kept time on a predetermined road. If George was meant to kill his wife, it wouldn’t have felt impossible.

A sharp throb from George’s knees got him back to his feet with a loud arthritic pop that froze him. Eyes fixed on Nicole, he waited until her light snores filled the room before creeping back out to the hallway, easing the door shut behind him.

Downstairs, George washed the speck of drying blood from the knife’s tip and slipped it back into the wooden block. Empty, his hand trembled, the hard shiver racing up his arms to fold him over the countertop. The idea of what he’d almost done sat heavy. Closing his eyes, George pictured it. The plunging knife and blood seeping out on the sheets. The question in Nicole’s face as she woke, disoriented and dying.

A mass closed his throat, either building a scream or the urge to vomit. Fighting both, George buried his head under his arms to weep in silence.

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One short, awkward conversation repurposed all his regret to that ancient Friday when the life he wanted slipped through his fingers. Three weeks with Suzanne at school gave Vick plenty of opportunities to drink too much at the All Rise and find himself pinned under some girl in the back of her Chevy Blazer. The guilt ate at him as he strategized what to say to Suzanne until the next day she came home. She’d pulled him to the bedroom, kissing him so hard they stumbled. Sitting on the bed to work his belt, she told him in rough breaths to take her pants off. Just like that, he pulled away and confessed.

For all the town got wrong, Suzanne did hit him. The five-hundred-dollar engagement ring on her finger dug the small scar on his forehead. With her eyes swimming in tears, she’d seethed. Don’t ever call me. Don’t ever come see me. I hate your face and never want to see it again.

Downtown Pine Haven mourned Mitch Hafferty with darkened windows of closed shops. Vick expected a few people to linger, continuing their conversations on the sidewalk. Any other day, he’d have thought the rapture came and left him the last sinner in that corner of nowhere. With Arkin’s cruiser parked up the street, he rested easy in knowing one other person missed the cut.

Instead of parking at the door, Vick pulled into a spot at the far end of the sidewalk, where the front light at the All Rise could tempt him on his way out. He walked with his hands in his pockets, the warm night washing sweat down his back before he reached the window with the giant star.

Shelley sat at the dispatch desk and brightened when Vick walked in, her face a balance of sultry and sympathetic. The result made Vick feel like a wounded puppy as he waved and disappeared down the hall to his dad’s office. He dragged his last few steps to the door and took a long breath before going inside.

A trace of Mitch’s aftershave lingered in the room, tightening Vick’s throat as he sat in his dad’s chair and closed his eyes. With tears racing his cheeks to his jaw, he sobbed low and dropped his head to the desktop.

Most of Vick’s memories of his dad lived in that office. His mom used to bring him there when the school sent him home for fighting. During the summer, they’d bring his dad lunch and eat with him. It made sense it was the one place where he’d be able to let go. The tears drained him, burning his cheeks and eyes raw, but it beat feeling nothing.

Someone knocked, and Vick wiped his eyes. Sheriff Arkin came in with two coffee mugs and nudged the door closed with his foot. The bourbon fumes were strong enough to peel paint off the walls, but Vick took a long swig as his eyes followed Arkin to the chair across the desk. Plopping down, the sheriff stared into his mug. He spoke in a whisper, as if talking to himself.

“When I ran for sheriff, I knew Mitch wanted it, but I also knew the kind of man he was. I waited until he came off patrol one day to tell him and knew by the look he gave that he wrestled with what to say. Eventually, he smiled in his polite way and said, ‘I’ll vote for you.’”

Arkin sipped his whiskey and sighed. “After I won that first election, this bourbon waited on my desk with a card tied to its neck. It read ‘congratulations’ with your daddy’s signature at the bottom. I locked that bottle in the drawer with my gun so I’d never forget what I took from this town.”

“Nobody blames you for what happened to Dad.”

“Mack does. He looks at me like he’d shoot me in the back if I showed it to him.”

Vick shook his head. “He holds you responsible because you’re sheriff and Dad wasn’t. It sounds like you already blame yourself for that.”

“What about you?”

Another sip helped Vick answer. “I think if Dad was sheriff, some other deputy would have gone to Coach Barbour’s house. He’d sit here and blame himself the same as you, wondering how things would have been different if someone else had the job. None of it changes anything. If you think he’d want you moping around here getting drunk on his account, you didn’t know him at all.”

“I’ll be honest with you, son. I’m no closer to catching your daddy’s killer than when we found him. That’s with two more bodies in the coroner’s office. I don’t expect to sleep much with all that swirling in my head.”

“Pete told me about Lonnie. I’m guessing the other one was why you left the funeral so fast.”

“I hoped you didn’t see that. There was a woman at the Pump and Save from out of town. I’m expecting reporters to show up any second.”

“More reason to go home. You want everyone in a fifty-mile radius to see you half-drunk and exhausted?”

Arkin twitched an unconvincing smile. “At least I’d have an excuse. But you’re right. I should at least pretend I know what I’m doing when they get here.”

Rising to his feet, Arkin shuffled to the door. “Good night, Vick. I really am sorry.”

“Me too,” Vick said and watched the door close.

Alone again, he leaned back in his dad’s chair and stared straight ahead. A framed photograph hung on the door, one he must have seen a thousand times. Old Sheriff Cox stood with his deputies in a line beside him: a younger version of Mitch Hafferty next to Mack. They couldn’t have been much older than him and Pete, but Vick couldn’t imagine any of them as young and dumb. Each had families, even Mack with his first wife, who wouldn’t stick around to see his hair fall out. The men staring back made Vick feel small, like a boy imagining he’d one day be a man like his father.

Opening the desk’s top drawer, Vick found a large misshapen star of hammered tin with blue construction paper pasted in the middle. Messy letters read, When I grow up, I want to be like my daddy. He remembered making it in elementary school, a craft project his dad showed everyone who came by the house for months. In that drawer, he must have seen it twenty times a day.

With a hard exhale, Vick picked up the star. The day he brought it home, his mom tried to put it on the refrigerator, but his dad pinned it to his shirt and wore it all day. Studying the relic, Vick wondered what his dad would say if he was there. You want to be like me? Get to work. This job doesn’t do itself.

Trading the star for the mug, Vick swirled the liquor inside and considered downing it in one swallow. It would mute his thoughts to a dull hum, but he didn’t want quiet. He wanted his father’s voice sharp and loud, prodding him forward.

Vick carried the mug to the break room and washed the whiskey down the sink. On his way out, he waved to Shelley and Arkin and debated whether to tell them he’d be back tomorrow. He decided to let Arkin sober up before he made his demands.

In the morning, Vick would pick up the pieces of his life and put them back together. As he drove back to his mom’s house, he smiled and imagined his dad would too.

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An hour after his dad’s funeral, Vick couldn’t escape his parent’s house. Every time he found a clear path to a door or, as he grew more desperate, a window, someone else approached with the same forced smile as the rest.

No one believed this could happen. Not to Mitch Hafferty. Not in Pine Haven. Vick bit his tongue to keep from saying he didn’t care what they could or couldn’t believe. He’d seen how his dad looked under that coffin lid—his crushed head barely recognizable.

Some put their hands on his shoulder, their eyes hard and serious when they said they were sorry.

“Well, I am too.” Vick pulled away from Bill Freeman a little too quickly. People turned with that unbearable pity, excusing him with a silent understanding, as if he was a child who didn’t know better.

Raising his hands, Vick backed away and almost made it to the kitchen when Mack stepped up with a short nod and pulled him aside, leaning in so only Vick heard him whisper. “Between you and me, we should have buried Arkin today.”

Shock darted Vick’s eyes to meet Mack’s stare and then search for the sheriff’s wife and granddaughter. He found them at the back door, talking to the preacher. Wishing pain onto any of them stood opposite of everything his dad believed. Given the choice, Mitch Hafferty would have volunteered to stick his head under that mattock if it meant saving someone else’s life.

But Vick couldn’t deny the same thought had crossed his mind, there under the dark blue canopy as the sheriff put down his corner of the casket. He’d walked away without a glance at him or his mom, Vick’s anger flashing like fire as he wondered how a good man could be laid low instead of someone like that. It only brought the truth into focus: he’d never be as good as his dad.

On the couch behind them, Tara Hafferty told the same story Vick had heard fifteen times that day. How she hadn’t thought anything was wrong that day. That sometimes Mitch came home late and slept on the couch so he didn’t wake her, leaving early the next morning before she had a chance to make him breakfast.

Vick couldn’t listen to it anymore. With a short mumble and nod, he slipped away from Mack. He made it to the kitchen, where people lingered around buckets of fried chicken and a sea of casserole dishes, leaning on the counters to discuss whether it had rained enough to avoid a drought.

With a deep breath as if preparing to dive underwater, Vick passed through to the back door without a word. Outside, he exhaled.

The sun shone high above the backyard hill, gleaming on the parts of his old swingset that rust hadn’t claimed. Lowering his eyes, Vick headed toward it as his own shrieking laughs echoed in his memory. His dad used to go out there with him, pushing him as high as the chain reached.

Angling past the swings, Vick crossed the field to the woods. The old trail he’d cleared was overgrown with weeds and briers. As he stepped over them, he tried to remember the last time he’d been out that far.

He believed it was one summer night after graduation. In a rare frisky mood, Suzanne suggested they go out in the field, to do it in the open air where the moon and stars could watch. Vick knew she’d chicken out but let her lead him by the hand to a place where the ground was soft. Before he had her shirt off, she lost her nerve. What if your mom glanced out the window right now? His mom had been in bed for two hours, the field so dark he could barely see her, but Vick knew better than to argue when sex was within reach. He coaxed her to a spot in the woods where the trail dipped behind a large pine, trading romance for an awkward quickie in hard-packed dirt.

The end of the trail opened behind Memorial Hill. A back hoe engine hummed in the distance as Vick walked to the lonely maple and leaned on its wet bark to watch. The dull yellow machine edged the graveyard and turned toward the rectangle dug in the ground. A gangly high schooler walked from the parking lot with a shovel. Vick guessed he was the back hoe driver’s son, working for summer cash while his dad called it bonding. He’d been there.

With the back hoe parked a few feet away, the two gravediggers took their shovels to the dirt in its metal trough. The father dumped his dirt as the son filled his shovel, their coordination making the work fast.

After patting the ground flat, the father waved up the hill to Vick and climbed into the back hoe to retrace its arc around the graveyard’s border, his son returning to the parking lot.

Vick watched until they were gone then debated walking down to the grave. His father wasn’t in that freshly turned soil—at least not the part of him Vick was looking for—so he returned to the woods and the trail.

In the field behind his mom’s house, Vick’s attention darted to the swing set, a young woman sitting in a swing with her back to him. He knew her by the way the sunlight turned the tips of her blonde hair white—the way she held the chains by her face like a five-year-old. Memories of that silhouette tortured him on lonely nights spent wondering how his life could have turned out, but none of it prepared him to see her again.

“Suzanne?” Vick’s chest went hollow as she turned.

With tear-stained cheeks, Suzanne summoned a brief smile. “There you are.”

She started to stand, but Vick waved for her to stay, keeping the swing set’s frame between them.

“I brought Maribeth,” Suzanne said. “She’s inside with your mom. Eric wanted to come, but he had to work.”

She could have read him her grocery list or named state capitals. Vick couldn’t comprehend any of it as he watched her lips form each word.

“I stood at the front door like an idiot, but I couldn’t go in. There are too many memories in there. So I came up here and hoped you’d see me. If you didn’t, maybe it was for the best.”

Vick’s voice scraped his throat. “Mom would love to see you. It might cheer her up.”

Suzanne frowned. “I doubt that. Besides, I wanted to see you.”

With his eyes fixed on the ground, Vick dug the toe of his right loafer into the mud. “You didn’t care much for it the other night. The way you looked at me when you left that bathroom, I figured it was the last time you’d come into town.”

“Your reaction was so much better. You and Eric damn near tore the door off its hinges getting out of there.”

“It was complicated.”

“With you, it always is.”

Vick ran his thumbnail across his forehead. “I’ve spent two years planning what I’d say if I ever saw you again, but I can’t do this tonight.”

Giving a subtle nod, Suzanne stood and smoothed her skirt. Her face hadn’t changed, but the person behind it teetered between the girl she was and the woman she’d be. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

As she walked away, Vick couldn’t breathe. Suzanne still moved the same, every step forward with purpose, her head high and eyes focused. Though it was nearly the same gait as her father’s, Vick loved the minor touches that made it hers. Lost in the sway of her hips, he was caught off guard when she stopped and looked back.

“I saw him that morning. He pulled me over but never got out—just turned and drove away. The rest of that day, I wondered why he wouldn’t even walk up to say hey to me.”

That explained why his dad had been so pissed off, but the answer didn’t satisfy Vick. “It tore him up what happened between us. I think he hated me for it.”

“I doubt that.” A surge of emotion caught Suzanne’s voice, her short sniffle crushing Vick. He wanted to touch her—even a brief hug that didn’t mean anything—just to remember that feeling of having all he needed. But it wouldn’t be that simple. Worse, it’d be a distraction. Something still nagged him about his dad’s last day alive. If he didn’t find it in the house or cemetery, one place remained.

Vick joined Suzanne at the crest of the hill. “Can you sit with Mom for about an hour?”

She shook her head fast. “It’s been too long.”

“It would mean a lot to her.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Something personal. You don’t owe me anything, but please do this.”

With Suzanne’s short nod, they walked down the hill together, a few feet between them as if getting too close was dangerous. Outside the back door, she raised a hand to stop him.

“Seeing us together might give her the wrong impression.”

Old habits tempted Vick to huff and tell her she was being ridiculous. Instead, he took his car keys from his pocket. “Tell her I went into town and will be back soon.”

Suzanne studied his face to figure out what he was up to, an expression that defined their entire relationship. He wondered if she felt it too, the old patterns that stirred in him, festering in the hole he’d crammed with alcohol and willing women. She wore that look in his dreams, so he answered with his same lazy smile.

“If I was gonna do something stupid, I’d have done it already.”

Sighing, Suzanne turned toward the door, her fingers lingering on the knob as if she still hadn’t decided. The light in the window silhouetted her face, reminding Vick he did all the stupid that mattered two years ago.

She opened the door without another word and left Vick alone. He walked the sidewalk to the driveway with a heavy mass in his stomach, a few cars still parked at the road as he backed out.

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The last time we saw Eric Vanger and Jim Stucker, they were riding in Jim’s truck, late for their shift at Starks County Prison—Eric’s first. Given his severely injured knee, he believes it may also be his last job prospect. Even so, when Jim suggests they stop to buy some illegal drugs before work, he doesn’t protest. Pain is his weakness, and his father-in-law exploits it well.

A Few Bumps Later

We catch up with the two at their post, a mostly abandoned cell block that used to serve as Starks County Prison’s Death Row. Eric’s painkillers have him in the clouds when they relieve their commanding officer, a person we’ve recently met.

Sergeant Muñoz’s brief mention reveals who Eric will be guarding. The basement is Grady Perlson’s personal cellblock because he hurt a lot of people his first night at Starks, including guards. Since Jim’s an asshole, Eric doesn’t know any of this, but it explains to him why the warden hired a man whose leg injury has disqualified him from any other work. He just needs a warm body for the skeleton crew assigned to watch Grady.

In a brick recess near the cell block door, Eric fixes his stoned stare on an open locker full of riot gear as Jim taps out another line of cocaine on the desk. His plain answer to Eric’s concerns over getting caught is that no one will ever check on them.

Convinced he’s being set up for a prank, Eric shrugs off the bluster. Jim answers with a dare: walk down the block and check on our prisoner. He’ll even fetch Eric a coffee as he does. Taking him up on it, Eric limps toward Grady’s cell as Jim leaves.

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In the alcove beneath Starks Prison, Eric sat at the desk with the procedure binder open to a random page. Bent forward, he stared at the block of text describing what to do if a prisoner escaped. He pretended to read but knew it wouldn’t matter.

Jim leaned in the brick archway, showing his teeth with a grin. “Look at you being a good Boy Scout. Hope you ain’t doing that to score points with the warden. If Big George stops by, it won’t be to see you.”

Eyes down, Eric focused on last night’s dream—the potential of what his life could be. If he lost sight of it, he’d chicken out, but this was something he needed to do. For his family. Wasn’t the most important job of a husband and father to do whatever was necessary to provide for them? It was important enough to skip the funeral for his best friend’s dad and avoid his wife all morning until he kissed her goodbye.

Pulling his shoulder from the wall, Jim sauntered out to the cell block. “You’re in some mood today. Boring me damn close to tears. I’m going for a cigarette.”

Without looking up, Eric said, “Bring me a coffee.”

“Well, shit. It does speak.” Jim let the stairwell door clang shut behind him.

Alone, Eric put his face in his hands. It had to be now or he’d lose his nerve. Pushing his chair back, he opened the drawer for the ring of cell keys. One hand braced on the desk as he stood, the stiff weight of his bad leg making a silent protest. After surgeries, rehab, and drugs, its pain and limitations were about to leave him. Hope for the miracle drew his slow limp under the arch.

Pain motivated Eric among the cells but abandoned him at the first hint of yellow jumpsuit down the block. Doubt replaced determination, each lurching step a reminder of how wrong this was. In the best case scenario, he’d be fired. In the worst, he’d be dead.

When Eric was halfway down the block, Grady stood from his cot and went to the cell door. He was too far away to tell, but Eric imagined his eyes were black—a hard thing to hope for but even harder as he approached the dark, waiting stare.

In his last steps, Eric lowered his eyes to his own feet. “I thought about what you said.”

“And?”

Eric raised the keys, heavier than they were a minute before. His hand shook as he searched for the one he needed and slid it into the lock. A sharp, metallic click brought the door open a half-inch, leaving nothing but hinges between the world and a living monster.

Grady offered a sympathetic smile. “You thought it would be this easy?”

“I thought this was what you wanted.”

“You believe in my power, enough to set me free, but don’t think I could snap these bars if I wanted?”

“Then what?” Eric asked.

“A new life costs its value. A life for a life is only fair.”

“You want me to kill someone?” With the question, Eric wondered if he could, for his family and for himself.

“Think it over, but don’t take long. This day has happened many times, but the week won’t last forever.”

Pulling the cell door closed, Grady locked it and tossed the keys to Eric. Despite his blank stare, he caught them. They rattled in his trembling hand, all his anticipation for nothing.

As Jim’s footsteps echoed down the stairs, Eric limped back to the alcove as fast as his brace allowed. His knee ached with every hobble, reminding him how his life would pan out if he didn’t do what Grady wanted. Helping a prisoner escape was one thing, taking a life much darker. Every time he looked in his daughter’s face, he’d see his victim and feel ashamed. All to bend his knee.

At the desk, Eric dropped the keys in the drawer and plopped into the chair. Sweating and shaking, he returned his focus to the open binder.

With a clank of the stairwell door, Jim whistled through the alcove with two coffees. He set one in front of Eric and took his to the arch, leaning in the exact spot he had ten minutes ago. “I miss anything?”

If Jim wasn’t family, Eric wouldn’t mind killing him.

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Hank Barbour was so big most people would need a fresh pair of underwear if they met him in a dark alley, but those who knew him struggled to name a single time they’d seen him angry. When Lud had his lumber yard, Hank would come every weekend for some project or another. Plywood for a buddy’s roof. Two by fours to frame a shed. He’d stick around an hour shooting the shit, his smile passing to Lud for the rest of the day. It was hard enough to imagine him walking his shift at the prison, much less killing somebody.

Lud kept his mouth shut, though it was a near criminal thing to do. If it came down to it, he’d put the handcuffs on Hank himself, but he had to be sure a man was guilty before he accused him of something that terrible.

With a ruler from his evidence kit, Baker measured the wound. “Whoever it is can’t keep this up forever. Sooner or later, he’ll leave something to point us in the right direction. Figuring out who this girl is and where she was killed is a good start.”

“My deputy found her car in the river with her purse and said there are footprints. I was about to head over if one of you wants to ride with me.”

Baker looked at Overton, who lowered his camera with a nod. Before he and Lud made it to the door, Baker called out to them.

“We’ll also need someone at that diner across the street to find out who worked last night and if any locals came in.”

As Overton walked outside, Lud stopped at the last row of shelves and looked back. Baker leaned over Amber Waitly’s body, staring into her face as if he’d been talking to her.

“I’ll get my deputy on that as soon as we’re done with him,” Lud said. “Anything else?”

“Just keep thinking about people who fit that description. Even a long list helps.”

Through the door and around the building, Lud tried to push Hank out of his head, but as he approached his cruiser—Overton waiting by the passenger door—he couldn’t shake him. Cranking the engine, he pondered a motive and found connections between Hank and almost every victim. He worked at the prison with Lonnie, and it was his brother Mitch shot before his own last breath. If he saw it happen, it made some sense he’d take revenge.

Once Lud started down that mental path, there was no turning back. It dawned on him the deer stand where the Chapman boys found Curtis Markham belonged to Ty and that Hank hammered its boards together.

On their way down the highway, Overton stared out the window at the passing trees. When they passed the tall green sign that read You Are Now Leaving Starks County, he cleared his throat. “He’s not like that all the time, you know.”

Glancing over at him, Lud asked, “Pardon?”

“Baker. I know he comes off as a jerk. He can remember details of every crime scene he’s processed but rarely gets out of a conversation without pissing someone off. He’s better suited for lab work and would be happier doing it, but here he is.”

Lud slowed as they approached the bridge, Jackson’s cruiser parked on the shoulder. He pulled in behind it. “I don’t care what makes him an asshole. I’m not inviting him over for dinner when this is done. I don’t want a friend. I want somebody to find out who’s killing people in my town. If he does, I’ll shake his hand and thank him before waving goodbye to both of you. I don’t mean any offense by it, but one of my deputies went into the ground today, and his family expects justice.”

Every word sounded harsh in Lud’s mind but came out slow and even, like telling a Road King waitress what he wanted for lunch.

Overton closed his eyes and sighed. “I didn’t realize that was today.”

“I know you didn’t. And I appreciate your sorry, but it’s not what I was looking for. I just want you to understand where my mind’s at.”

Overton nodded as he opened his door. “Fair enough.”

Past Jackson’s cruiser, parallel rivets ran off the road to the corner of the dented guardrail.

“A little fast for a rainy night,” Overton said as he stood over the tire marks.

Lud didn’t answer as he continued to the bridge and looked down at the swollen river, the water dark and muddy from the rain.

On most summer days, the river weaved around large rocks, the spaces between them wide enough for a canoe to pass and with pools plenty deep to hook a catfish. If not for the rain, there’d be families all over the place, kids wading in as far as they dared to catch water spiders and minnows while their fathers lined the bank to drink and fish.

Past a semicircle of yellow tape and three feet from the river bank, a Ford Focus was upside down in the water. Its windows were all smashed, the windshield cracked where it hit and rested against a rock. Jake stood at the bank and waved when he saw Lud and Overton. Instead of waving back, Lud traced the ground with his eyes, trying to count the indentions between them. Jake was right: they looked like someone danced. Among those steps, a woman lost her life.

Overton joined Lud and snapped a picture of the dented guardrail. “What do we have?”

“Footprints. Let’s hope for a clean one.”

With a smile, Overton took a picture of the car. “If it helps, we have plenty of chances.”

“It’s a start.” Lud looked over but didn’t match Overton’s smile. To keep his shoes clean, he crossed the grass to the gravel road leading down to the water.

Even connected to four victims, Hank wasn’t the kind of person to hurt someone. He was a Christian man, which might not make him perfect, but he did so much within the Presbyterian church across town, his heart was at least in the right place. A deacon and volunteer, he spent weekends repairing homes for the poor and elderly. He once drove Curtis Markham to the Road King to buy him lunch instead of liquor, lending less sense to the idea he’d shoot the same man in the face.

Jake met Lud at the riverbank. “She had to be going at least seventy when she hit that guard rail.”

With careful steps down the muddy bank, Overton joined them. “She tried to walk out. About halfway to the road, someone came from under that bridge.”

Aiming his camera at the footprints, Overton followed the water and stopped ten feet away. “This one’s clean enough to give us a print. Her killer brought her to the water. See this dent? I think she put up a fight. They must have fallen in, because that’s the last of their tracks.”

Jake pointed across the river. “There’s more on the other bank. I ran out of tape to mark it.”

Lud followed Overton back to the road and across the bridge. On the other side, a tire track puckered the mud deep enough to guess the size of the truck that made it. Overton took a picture, his smile so wide Lud thought his mouth might tear. Stopping beside him, he understood why. A distinct pattern rose in the mud, a tread mark drying in the sun.

With a smile of his own, Lud asked, “This some of that evidence you were talking about?”

“I do believe so.”

As Overton took out his phone, Lud followed the footprints to the water. One set led down, another back up. Someone parked at the road and walked to the river’s edge, then came back to drive away.

Lud tried to picture it. A dark figure walked from the truck, maybe wearing Hank Barbour’s warm smile. The water was too deep to cross, but even if he managed it, how could he surprise a woman stumbling up the other bank? How did he know she was there? Maybe he caused her wreck, explaining why she drove so fast in the rain. She’d tried to get away, and he caught up. Forced her off the road? Clipped her bumper? If so, he might have left paint on her car, narrowing the list from the tire track.

Staring across the water, Lud searched the overturned car for a hint of displaced color, but something else caught his eye—a flash of sunlight reflecting from the flat back tire. “What is that?”

Jake stared across the water with a confused squint.

Lud pointed. “In the tire.”

As Jake climbed onto the bottom of the car, Lud returned to the road, where Overton stood watching. Neither spoke as they crossed the bridge again, their eyes fixed on the car rocking under the deputy’s weight. At the tire, Jake opened his pocketknife to pry something out onto his hand.

The three met at the river bank, each staring at the object in Jake’s hand—a large ball bearing with four sharp prongs welded to it. A homemade caltrop. No matter how it sat, one of the prongs would stick straight up, popping the tire of some unfortunate driver.

Snapping on a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, Overton took the caltrop from Jake and bounced it in his hand. “You ever use one of these?”

Lud shook his head. “The trees stop most chases around here. We have a box collecting dust somewhere, but this isn’t one of them.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure. By those weld lines, someone put this together themselves.”

“Anybody come to mind?”

Lud didn’t know if Hank could weld but wouldn’t be surprised. Both Barbours collected hobbies, working at something until they did it well before moving on to the next thing. It was a second chance to say his name, but Lud let it pass. “We might as well go door to door.”

Overton handed the caltrop back to Jake. “Nobody throws just one of these. I bet we’ll find more if we look.”

Jake nodded. “I’m on it.”

“Walk toward town,” Overton said. “I’d say fifty yards from the bridge.”

As Jake jogged up to the road, Overton turned to Lud. “Our guy followed her from town. Spooked her. She sped up and lost control when he threw those out. Hit the guardrail and went into the water. Want to take it from there?”

With a slow scan of the footprints, Lud cleared his throat. “He parked at the road and walked to the water, but I lose him there. He was on the wrong side, the water too high to cross.”

“He didn’t need to cross. He just had to be sure she didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those prints on the other side of the river are close to a size 10, but these are almost 13. Whoever ran her off the road didn’t kill her but watched the person who did. That one came from under the bridge and caught her halfway up the hill. They struggled to the water, and someone fell. My guess is that’s when he hit her. If she went in, we’d find her the next town over, so I think he held her head under. Drowned her. Then, the two killers loaded her in the truck to drive to the abandoned gas station.”

“You got all that from some footprints?”

“As many as they left, they could have drawn a map.”

Lud felt sick. “Two killers.”

“I think we’d have three if your deputy hadn’t shot one.”

Staring across the river, Lud could almost see it as Overton described. Two dark figures: one to stalk an innocent woman and the other to watch her die. If one was Hank, his feet were the biggest, making him the one who put that knot in the side of Amber Waitly’s head. What part would Ty have played if he had the chance? None of it made sense, and Lud was glad for it, even if it made him a terrible sheriff. If nothing else, it put him on the right side of sane.

Lud offered Overton his hand. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Shaking the hand, Overton nodded. “You can have your deputy back. Baker will pick me up when he’s done at the gas station.”

“You sure? What happened to Mitch—they’re not worried about killing people with badges.”

“I’ll be fine.”

At the road, Lud whistled to get Jake’s attention. The deputy jogged back with empty hands and a dejected look.

“Nothing yet.”

“Let those state agents dig in the weeds. I’ve got something more important for you. Get over to the Road King and find out who worked last night. Talk to everyone who might have seen something and then get back on patrol.”

“Yes sir.”

When Lud returned to his office, he hung his hat on its peg and locked his gun in the bottom drawer of his desk. He sat down, but his mind wouldn’t rest, forcing him back to his feet within two minutes.

Shelley looked up when Lud walked back out, neither saying a word as he followed the hall to Mitch’s old office. No one had been inside since Mitch died, everything where he left it the night he drove out to Ty’s house. The desk was like a museum exhibit, Lud clasping his hands behind his back to avoid touching anything. He thought about Mitch and his widow, how lost Vick looked at his father’s casket. The Barbour brothers: one dead and the other a possible murderer. Lonnie, Curtis, and a woman who passed through Pine Haven and caught the wrong man’s eye.

Overwhelmed by it all, Lud focused on the large calendar on top of Mitch’s desk, short notes scrawled in its squares. Phone numbers and times of appointments scratched through as their need passed. Mitch only wrote one thing outside them, in the bottom right corner near his phone. A name that convinced Lud his lost deputy had figured something out before he died.

Lonnie Carlson.

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The old gas station across from the Road King Diner closed around the time Lud was elected. It had done decent business for several years, but one day the owner, a misplaced Yankee named Derrick Delgado, decided he was tired of the unpredictable weather and moved farther south. Lud figured someone would buy it, at least the land it sat on, and turn it into a McDonald’s or one of those big new gas stations. Whoever made that kind of decision must have taken one look at Pine Haven and figured it wasn’t worth the price of brick.

Every year, the gas station got a little more run down, the type of person around it a little rougher. Two years ago, the Jackson boys busted the windows with rocks and moved on to the tall yellow Pump and Save sign at the street before Mitch pulled up. He put them all in cuffs, the oldest going on ten. No one cared about the gas station, but he sat them in a cell like hardened criminals while he called their parents. The next day, Lud helped him tack up plywood that had long since moldered and swelled to make the place look like the oldest building in town.

Pulling in, Lud drove over long tufts of grass poking through the pavement, the crunch of a decade’s worth of broken bottles under his tires. He parked where the pumps used to sit and walked around the building, figuring it the best place to stash a body.

The Pump and Save was different from the overpass across town, where teenagers drank and made out in their dewy-eyed version of rebellion. In the thirty feet of space hidden from the highway, small town values died among used condoms and broken syringes.

Lud walked backwards from the building to the edge of the asphalt. A piece of plywood had either fallen or been knocked from a window, the only way inside since Delgado padlocked a thick chain around the door handles. As Lud approached the door, he noticed the chain was gone.

The door opened easily, as if Lud could walk in and buy a cup of coffee. Inspecting the frame, he didn’t find any scratches or dents from a pry bar, but the only key was supposedly down in Florida. A tickle crossed his neck like a mosquito drifting over his skin. Just then, he didn’t feel great about being there alone. He imagined Mitch’s casket lowering into the grave, maybe at that exact moment. Drawing his sidearm, Lud stepped inside.

The old shelves left too many places to hide. Every step forward convinced Lud someone crouched around the next corner, waiting to brain him as they did Mitch. Stirred-up dust made it hard to breathe, a few minutes inside enough to give anyone asthma.

A three-foot-wide streak carved through years of accumulated grime, leading from the door past the first row of shelves. Lud followed it, leaving shoeprints in the dust like tracks in the snow. Beyond the shelves, a woman was lying in front of the pay counter.

Her bright yellow dress with scattered blue flowers dipped from the neckline to show a fair amount of cleavage, the fabric torn across her bloated stomach. Long dark hair matted a tangled pillow around her head. She was big, her curves rounded in a solid frame below a face Lud thought was pretty.

He didn’t recognize her, but that didn’t mean much anymore. Generations had come and gone since Lud pretended to know everyone in Pine Haven. Though she didn’t have a purse or wallet to identify her, she didn’t look like someone who’d step near this place, much less follow someone inside. That meant she was killed somewhere else and dumped like Curtis and Lonnie. According to the report on Lud’s desk that morning, Lonnie’s house contained so much blood evidence there was no doubt he was killed there.

Lud walked around the entire store to make sure he was alone and went back to squat beside the woman. From his angle, he saw down her torn dress to the bulge of her white bra and pinched the gap closed with one hand as if it mattered now what an old sheriff saw. The cloth was stiff and damp from rain, which struck him as odd. Someone dumping a body would have parked closer to the building to shorten the distance they needed to drag her. As wet as her clothes were, they might have come from the tree line. Or killed her outside.

A few drops of blood collected on the tile beside her matted hair. Lud leaned in as close as he cared to get, leaving two feet between them. Close enough to notice the knot above her ear.

Following his trail back outside, Lud shielded his eyes from the sun peeking through the thinning clouds. The day had grown so humid, he wished the rain would come back. At the corner of the building, he braced a hand on the brick wall and wiped his forehead with the other. His gut clenched, head swam, and then he threw up.

Lud stumbled to the cruiser and popped a breath mint as he rifled through his glove compartment for a napkin to wipe his mouth. He moved the cruiser behind the building and took the roll of police tape from the trunk, figuring he’d at least get something done before Raleigh took over. He peeled the end loose as Jake called over the radio.

“You asleep, Shelley?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You ain’t said a peep in an hour. That’s gotta be some record.”

“Hush. You know how to get a hold of me if you want to talk. I don’t have much to say today anyway. Sheriff’s out at the Pump and Save, and I’m guessing the funeral crowd is over at the Hafferty’s by now. You finish at the river?”

“I guess. I never found the driver and can’t make sense of these footprints. Looks like she flipped her car and did a little dance before vanishing into thin air. How long do you think Arkin will keep me around if I put that in my report?”

“He’s probably listening, if you want to ask him yourself.”

“Shit. You there, Sheriff?”

With a tired smile, Lud thumbed the call button on his radio. “Yep. There ain’t enough people in Pine Haven to start replacing deputies who hand me nonsense.”

“I’m not sure what else to do here other than call a wrecker before her car floats away.”

Leaning on his hood, Lud studied the tape in his hand, thinking how nice it would be to get to the river and find footprints that matched the feet of the woman inside. “How do you know that car belongs to a woman?”

“Found her purse on the bank with the wallet still in it. A South Carolina driver’s license says her name’s Amber Waitly.”

“Kind of heavy?”

“Kind of.”

“Brown hair?”

“You know her?”

Lud glanced at the back door. “I think we just met. You got tape in your car?”

“I think so.”

“Go ahead and mark the area. I’ll get there when I can.”

At the edge of the asphalt, Lud looked across the patch of ground to the woods. He didn’t see tire tracks so staked each corner of the pavement to tie off his tape as he walked toward the building. It almost took the whole roll before he finished and sat behind the wheel of his cruiser.

Taking out his phone, Lud searched the internet for the Hovington’s number and turned the radio down as he called it. He recognized Mrs. Finch’s warble when she answered.

“This is Sheriff Arkin. I was hoping to talk to one of your guests.”

“We got two. Which do you want?”

“Joe Richards.”

“The psychologist. I’ve been keeping an eye on him like you asked. He left for a few hours this morning, but I’ll see if he’s in his room.”

The old wires in Lud’s brain finally sparked: this was the same man Pete found snooping around Westwood Crossing yesterday.

A man’s voice came over the line. “This is Dr. Richards.”

“And this is Sheriff Arkin. I want to talk to you about the tip you called in earlier.”

The voice lowered as if sharing a secret. “Was she there?”

“She was. How did you know she would be?”

“I explained it to your dispatcher. I have a patient at Starks Prison who told me.”

“See, that’s where I get lost. A man behind bars knowing about a recent murder makes less sense to me than a visiting psychologist.”

“I know how it looks.”

“Do you?”

“Of course. Your deputy stopped me yesterday, and you’re calling me today. In a town this small, if someone crosses your path twice, they’ll likely do it a third time. But I need you to trust me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m not sure how my patient knew either, but I’m going to find out.”

“Why don’t you just give me his name and I’ll talk to him?” Lud asked.

“Because he’s delusional and unstable. I’ve made progress, but I don’t know what happens to that if the local sheriff shows up. He trusts me for some reason, so I might be your only chance.”

Lud huffed. The only other choice he saw was to go to the boarding house and put this man in handcuffs with a hope it scared him into giving up the patient’s name. But if his boy did clam up—

“Okay,” Lud said, “but you better keep me updated. I’ll expect a call tomorrow.”

“I’ll call your office around this time.”

“Fine.”

A burgundy Buick with government plates slowed on the highway and pulled into the parking lot. Agent Baker drove and still wore those ridiculous dark glasses and a suit that didn’t quite fit, the same oily smile flashing as he parked beside the cruiser. Agent Overton had traded his polo for a buttoned shirt that he still didn’t tuck in.

“One more thing.” Lud said.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t leave town until we get this squared away.”

Before the psychologist could protest, Lud ended the call and slipped the phone into his shirt pocket.

As Lud left the cruiser, Overton approached with a smile. “Nice perimeter.”

Baker chimed in with a short laugh. “A couple more crime scenes, you won’t need us anymore.”

A couple more and you won’t find anyone stupid enough to live here. Lud hid the thought behind a polite smile, shaking their hands as he led them to the back door.

As soon as they were inside, Baker went to the woman’s body, squatting beside it as Overton took pictures. He lifted her head with gloved hands so the camera could capture the knot above her ear. The side of her head was so swollen it rounded like a warped melon, gnats gathering to inspect the gash where her skin split. Baker’s focus betrayed him as a serious man, but a glance over at Lud brought his sharp, stupid smile back.

“I try not to make assumptions, but it looks like a serial killer.”

Lud approached. “Because she was killed somewhere else and moved like the others?”

“That and, counting your deputy, we’ve got three out of four victims with blunt trauma to the head. By the marks left behind, it appears to be the same weapon used on Lonnie Carlson.”

“You find anything that might tell you who it is?”

Baker considered the body before answering. “I’d say a decent-sized man, somebody who trusts their strength. Slow and deliberate, but not dumb. He’s smart and careful enough to leave these dump sites without a trace of personal evidence. Maybe OCD. Know anyone like that?”

Staring at the floor, Lud thought about it. At first, no one came to mind, at least no one who fiddled with doorknobs or washed their hands until they bled, but some were so superstitious they came close. Steve Bowen used to cross himself three times when he saw a black cat, and Myrtle Veller said the Lord’s Prayer before pulling away from any stop sign, but both had been dead fifteen years. Then, one name floated from the ether, a man both alive and so close to recent events he’d be their prime suspect if Lud said his name.

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Lud parked his cruiser outside Memorial Hill Cemetery an hour before Mitch Hafferty’s funeral. Turning his radio down, he stared through the windshield at the maple on top of the graveyard’s namesake.

The hill was as much a landmark as Founder’s Field or the Hovington House. Most of Pine Haven’s dead were buried there, making it a sort of sacred land. Lud never found a gravestone kicked over or any broken beer bottles or discarded cans on the concrete walkway winding through the rows of granite and marble. Either it was the one thing bored teenagers respected or superstition made them leave it alone.

There were as many origin stories for that hill as graves below it, each centered on a small farm that used to sit there, owned by a man named John Valance. Record books didn’t say much about him, but the Pine Haven Historical Society confirmed he served the Confederacy and went home alive when the war ended. A name on a fading piece of paper would have been his entire legacy if not for a wooden signpost he planted in the ground at the base of that maple. In its original spelling, the words My Mary, Fore I lay besid you, I’ll git my revege stayed in the ground until the early 1950s, when the historical society replaced it with a bronze plaque. The original sign sat in a glass case in the courthouse lobby, the word Justice on the marble floor in front of it.

Nobody knew what happened to Mary Valance or if John ever got his revenge. No newspapers mentioned either of them, and both were missing from the 1870 census. Some said Yankee blue coats didn’t get the message the war was over and raped and killed Mary. When John caught up to them past the Virginia border, he shot every single one and was hanged for his trouble.

Lud thought the ghost stories teenagers told were closer to the truth. John Valance went to get even and was gunned down before he could. Or maybe he went west and was bitten by a rattlesnake, dying alone in some desert. Life turned out that way more often than not.

Rain speckled the windshield, bringing Lud back to the present—to a town that never felt so small with someone killing his neighbors or so big trying to find out who was doing it.

Mourners filled the parking lot, gathering in clusters under dark umbrellas to make the slow walk to the grave. Lud watched them fade to distant shapes, then ran his eyes back over the procession. He counted seventy people before the hearse pulled up, the dark sedan carrying Vick and Tara Hafferty just behind it. With a deep breath, Lud took his hat from the passenger seat and got out.

The pallbearers met at the hearse and shared a nod, nobody saying much. Pete and Mack wore their uniforms, the others in dark suits: Mitch’s brothers, Mark and Kevin, and Bill Freedman, Mitch’s Sunday school teacher. As they slid the coffin out, the crowd parted to let Vick and his mother through.

Between the rain and his sweat, Lud was afraid he’d drop his corner of the coffin. Dread tightened his shoulders and neck until he reached the blue canopy and set the gleaming wooden box on the rack above the open grave. Despite being two steps from open air, he couldn’t breathe so left the graveside without a glance to Vick or Tara. He doubted they noticed.

In the back of the crowd, Lud found his wife Judy with her umbrella in one hand, the other holding Lita close. Their granddaughter wore a dark blue dress with white frills at the sleeves, a bow in her hair to match. She looked like her mother at that age, but Lud smiled anyway. With no room under the umbrella, he stood in the rain and let the water drip over the brim of his hat. That day, he didn’t mind so much.

Judy touched Lud’s arm. “Do you want to move closer?”

Lud shook his head. He’d seen enough funerals to know what the preacher said—a eulogy balanced with scripture and a couple prayers. Maybe it was the wrong way for a Christian to feel, but he wasn’t in the mood.

When everyone else bowed their heads for the first prayer, Lud stared at the ground. He couldn’t hear anyway, his mind too busy to come up with one of his own. The radio at his shoulder squawked ahead of Shelley’s voice, giving him time to turn the volume down as he walked among the headstones.

“Say that again, Shelley.”

“I just got a call from some guy at the Hovington who says he knows where we’ll find another body.”

“He give his name?”

“Joe Richards.”

It sounded familiar, but Lud couldn’t figure out why. He massaged his left eye to stave off a coming headache.

“Where?”

“The old Pump and Save.”

“He say how he knows?”

“A prisoner at Starks told him, but he wouldn’t give his name. Something about patient confidentiality.”

Lud’s fingers followed the pain to his temple. “Send Jake. If there’s a body, tell him to put up tape and wait for me.”

“Jake’s out at the river. A car drove off the bridge last night, and he’s looking for the driver.”

As his eyes wandered back toward the funeral, Lud wondered if God was testing or punishing him. Under the canopy, Vick pulled the flower off his lapel and set it on his father’s casket. His mother rose beside him, his arm around her as they made the long walk back to the parking lot.

Lud needed to go before they saw him and realized what his leaving meant. “I’m on my way now. Go ahead and call Raleigh.”

“Yes sir.” The radio went silent.

As Lud approached Judy, she read his face and pulled Lita tighter. “Be careful.”

By the time Lud reached his cruiser, the rain stopped.

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On the ride to the lobby, Joe leaned against the wall and rubbed his eyes. Outside, the rain tapered to a light drizzle, promising a break in the storm. He fought sleep the entire way to the Hovington, his window down to feel the air on his face. A few more steps would put him in bed, but Dan waited in his usual spot on the front porch, staring down the highway to the cemetery.

As Joe approached, Dan glanced at him. “You look about dead. I thought we’d watch the afternoon funeral, but I guess I’ll do that alone.”

“I’ll save you time. Funerals here are the same as anywhere else.”

“He was a deputy, wasn’t he? Doesn’t he get a twenty-one-gun salute?”

“Let me know how that goes. With any luck, I’ll sleep through dinner.”

“I’m sure you’ll find plenty of luck before you even make it to bed.”

With a puzzled glance, Joe went inside. In the lobby, Suzanne leaned in the doorway to the dining room and smiled over her shoulder. She whispered something Joe couldn’t hear, but the giggle that answered raised the hair on his arms. He was eighteen the first time he heard it across the room in freshman English. Twenty years later, Elaine’s laugh still made the center of him flutter.

As Joe crossed the lobby, Suzanne covered her mouth to stifle a laugh and stepped out of his way. At the head of the dining room table, his wife sat with her legs crossed and a cup of coffee in her hand. Elaine’s shirt was damp from the rain, her hair stringy and matted where she’d dried it with a towel now crumpled on the table in front of her. She stood before he reached her, his hand pulling her close by the small of her back.

After a long kiss, Joe touched his forehead to hers. “What are you doing here?”

“I kept thinking about you, how hard it must be to be back. You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. And the house was too quiet without Brad.”

“What about work?”

“They’ll manage.”

He kissed her again. “I love you.”

Elaine gave him a look he knew well, her eyes narrowed with a slight part in her lips. She rose on her toes to whisper in his ear. “I didn’t come all this way for you to tell me.”

Joe took her hand and dragged her toward the lobby.

Wide-eyed and blushing, Suzanne called after them before they reached the upper floor. “I’m leaving in a few minutes, if you need anything—”

“I don’t care.” Joe stomped up the stairs, Elaine laughing and covering her face as he fumbled his room key into the lock. He was that awkward kid again, three dates into a future together and ready to kick down his dorm room door. When the lock clicked, he pulled her inside. They stumbled to the bed, kissing. He unbuttoned her shirt as she worked his belt, his walk awkward when his pants dropped around his ankles.

Their marriage had never been sexually charged. They did it more than never, but it wasn’t the passion-fueled freak fest Joe imagined younger couples enjoyed. Their bridal shower copy of the Kama Sutra was still in mint condition, and they didn’t own any sex toys, but something in that moment took over. After, in a sated daze with her warmth against his side and fingers playing in his chest hair, the psychoanalyst in Joe made quick work of its source.

His stress over the last two days had risen like steam, his body knowing well enough the fastest release valve. It shut off all thoughts of Grady and the prison, his parents’ graves, and Pine Haven’s murders. For those few minutes, nothing but Elaine existed. Her soft kisses and subtle curve of her breasts. A sharp breath at his neck as he lowered his weight onto her. When it was over, the pressure gone in a mind-clearing pulse, she held him and breathed into his ear.

“Now, wasn’t that better than saying it?”

Joe grinned and closed his eyes. “I never doubted you.”

Elaine nudged him. “No, sir. I didn’t drive down here to watch you sleep.”

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. Sex and a nap was too much good at once. Forcing his eyes open, Joe met hers with a pained squint.

Elaine slumped. “You’re that tired?”

Joe rubbed his thumb across her lips as if it could erase the frown weighing at their corners. “Give me a couple hours and I’m all yours.”

“That means no patient notes.”

“Not while you’re awake.”

Nodding, Elaine offered her hand. Eyes trailing her body, Joe wondered who could say no. As they shook on it, his grip firmed and he pulled her on top of him. Rising at the waist to meet her, he prepared for round two when she pushed at his chest.

“You’re tired. Remember?”

Elaine left the bed to gather her clothes from their trail to the door. Propped on his side, Joe watched her dress.

“Sleep.” Her voice took the same tone she used with Brad.

“What are you going to do?”

Leaning one hand on the doorknob, Elaine counted the fingers of the other. “First, I’ll shower and get my stuff from the car. Then I’ll see if that nice man out front is better at keeping a girl company.”

“Careful. I don’t trust that look in his eyes.”

“Then make it a quick nap and rescue me.”

Elaine left the room, and Joe rolled back to his pillow. As he waited for sleep, he thought about Grady’s theater. The place where he went when Sagin took control resembled the one in his dream Monday night. Though with actors on a stage instead of the world on a screen, it was close enough to wonder. According to Sagin, there were no coincidences.

Half-asleep, Joe dreamed the rain against the window pattered in the background of Lana Rich’s dressing room. That sultry version of Elaine stood at her vanity and unzipped her dress, walking toward him as the fabric slipped from her shoulders to leave her in her bra and panties. Kissing him, her lips trailed across his cheek to whisper in his ear, but before she uttered a sound, the world rumbled. The dressing room door flung open into darkness. Beating wings approached in the void, almost reaching them before Joe surged awake.

Catching his breath, Joe leaned over the side of the bed to search for his watch. He got up and gathered his shirt and pants, but it wasn’t among them. On his knees, he found it under the bed, far enough in to keep him from seeing it while standing. According to its hands, he’d slept thirty minutes.

Sitting on the hardwood, Joe strapped the watch to his wrist. The air conditioning switched on with a click, the vent under the bed rattling loud enough to catch his attention.

Do those Hovington vents still rattle when the air comes on?

Joe peered beneath the bed, wondering if he’d fit. He sucked in his gut and wiggled under, praying Elaine didn’t pick that moment to come back. Dried sweat stuck his skin to the hardwood, slowing his crawl. When he reached the vent beneath the headboard, he used his fingernail as a screwdriver to loosen each bolt until the cover came off.

Dust bunnies fluttered among the shadows for as far as Joe could see. As he reached in, he imagined a family of rabid opossums beyond his fingertips, snarling as he probed their home. He ran his hand along the duct walls and almost gave up before his fingers brushed a solid object. It moved with a squeak, reviving the urge to jerk his hand back, but he reached farther in until he touched cool metal. Walking the object toward him, it rolled along the vent.

Decades of dust covered the object, giving Joe a chance to call it nothing. A tingle in his gut told him he could walk away or see what was under the soft brown clumps, but not both. As curiosity won, Joe grabbed the mound and wiped away the dirt to uncover the orange flames of a blue toy car.

Grady said Wolgiss had people helping him. One must have found Joe’s room and planted the car, maybe the same person who’d killed three people in two days.

It was harder to crawl out from under the bed, Joe thrashing like a caught fish until he managed it. He grabbed his phone and sat on the bed to search for the sheriff’s office number. After ten rings, a man answered.

Joe shut his eyes and cleared his throat. “This is Joe Richards, a guest at the Hovington House. I think I know where you’ll find the next body.”

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Grady told his story in a steady monotone, with only a short wince at his father’s death. Jotting that detail down, Joe then looked over his notes, the short phrases circled and connected by quick-scrawled arrows. Cramped in the bottom corner of the page, two words were underlined twice.

Pine Haven.

Clearing his throat, Joe returned his attention to Grady. “You said you came here in 1973 and buried the stone in a random field.”

“Yes.”

“Can you draw a map to it?”

“I don’t remember where I was.”

“From everything you’ve told me, you have an impressive memory. If this stone is so important, how could you forget where you put it?”

“Sagin blocked it from me. He said Wolgiss would have seen it in my mind. Then, he’d have the stone, and we wouldn’t be here talkin’.”

“Because the world would have ended,” Joe said.

Grady nodded.

“How would Wolgiss get to it if he’s stuck inside you?”

“He’s got help. People who work here do what he wants—kill for him and convince others to help too. They’ll bring the stone to him as soon as he knows where it is.”

Joe set his pen on the notepad. “They kill for him?”

“Four dead so far, but no one’s found the woman yet.”

“How do you know?”

“I see them when I close my eyes. The old drunk. The law man. The guard. Wolgiss makes me watch like he did in Creek Hollow. It’ll get worse. You need to warn the police.”

“Is that what you want me to do?”

Grady nodded again. “I don’t want nobody else wonderin’ where their loved ones are. Tell them to look in the old gas station across from the Road King.”

“They’ll ask how I know. I doubt they’ll care about confidentiality if it keeps them from solving four murders.”

“They won’t think I did this. I’m locked up tighter than anyone. Tell them I told you.”

“They’ll want to talk to you.”

“Good. I kinda want to talk to them too.”

Two days ago, Grady was too nervous to look at Joe, but now he wanted to sit across from a police officer. Joe didn’t trust the situation. He felt like a puppet, but Grady’s firmly set eyes told him it’d be pointless to ask why. “Anything else you want to talk about today?”

“If I could point you to the stone, would you dig it up, even after everything I told you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because a buried brick, even a plain red one, proves some part of your story. It could help me treat you.”

Grady met Joe’s eyes. “You still don’t believe me?”

“All that matters to me is what you believe.”

“This matters to me.”

“Then help me believe you.”

Grady shut his eyes tight, a look Joe saw on so many patients when he first started his work. Like children wishing away monsters in their closets. He never liked being that monster.

Opening his eyes, Grady asked George, “Can I go back to my cell now?”

George nodded to Sergeant Muñoz.

As Grady was escorted from the room, he looked back at Joe. “Do those Hovington vents still rattle when the air comes on?”

Before Joe could answer, Grady was gone.

“What does that mean?” George asked.

“I have no idea.” Joe listened to the rustling chains until the door at the end of the hallway silenced them with a slam. He turned off the recorder and slipped it into his bag.

George stood. “I hope you followed that better than I did.”

Packing his pen and notepad, Joe followed George to the door. “It’s a religious delusion. Two supernatural forces: one wanting to save us, the other to destroy us, and him as our only hope. To cope with a world that didn’t need him, he dreamed one that did. Trauma blurs the line between them.”

At the elevator, George mashed the up button. “Is that a diagnosis?”

“A theory.”

When the doors slid open, they stepped inside, George punching the button for the top floor.

“What about Pine Haven?” he asked.

“Delusions build foundations with facts, protecting themselves from contradictions by mixing with the real world. Grady knows Pine Haven is the name of this town, so he gave it significance by burying the stone here and making it where Sagin died. Coincidences don’t exist in his world, so that detail becomes crucial, predicting his transfer to this exact prison.”

“But how did he know about the Hovington and the murders?”

“COs talk. Prisoners listen. In a town this small, I’d find it harder to believe he hadn’t heard of those things. But the murdered woman is interesting. If her body hasn’t been found yet, she’s outside his confirmed reality. It risks proving him wrong.”

“So if she doesn’t turn up, you can prove it’s not real?”

Leaning forward, Joe jabbed the air with his finger. “When she doesn’t turn up, my job gets harder. Everything Sagin said can be applied to Grady’s delusion. If the past changed, the future would fall apart. The same happens when his reality is proven false. If the sheriff doesn’t find a dead woman at that gas station, it risks unraveling everything Grady’s believed for forty years.”

The elevator dinged, and the door slid open. George stepped out and blocked it with his hand. “So we’re not calling the sheriff?”

If a body was at that gas station, then keeping it from the authorities impeded a murder investigation. At the same time, Grady might shut down if proven wrong, losing progress. He was Joe’s top priority.

“Not yet.”

With a nod, George removed his hand to let the doors close.

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Despite its short length, Monday’s seventh chapter does a lot. In it, our father and son deputies Mitch and Vick Hafferty follow the only real lead in Curtis Markham’s murder—a handful of dandelions clutched in the victim’s fist.

The Eternal Antagonist

Time is an important element of both this novel and the series as a whole, “if only” a life motto for a majority of its characters. At the deer stand, the rain came too soon, washing away evidence that might have allowed Mitch to solve the murder. Coming up empty-handed at Founder’s Field, Mitch changes his mind and wishes it came earlier so he might find a footprint in the mud.

The mechanations of that constantly ticking clock affect far more than a murder investigation, its fingerprints more visible the further into the story we go. As it already stands, every character is fixated on their past. Seeing Suzanne’s convertible, Mitch spiralled back into a forgotten dream of the grandchildren she should have had with Vick. Vick himself regretted spending the night with a married woman, a mistake that might not be his rock bottom but nudges him closer to it.

Joe Richards is back in the town where he grew up, resurfacing memories of his unhappy childhood. A single game set the course of Eric Vanger’s adult life. To put a name to his mental disorder, Grady Perlson is telling Joe about his trauma-filled life. Look into every character you meet and you’ll find regret looming large over who they’ve become. We all have something we wish had gone differently, but in Pine Haven, that “if only” is palpable, as if it was something that could actually be achieved. In that is a hint to where it’s all heading.

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Grady went rigid, his jaw clenched. He knew the sound and where it came from. The bridge lurched but held as he ran across it to the trail. Ignoring the wheeze in his lungs and pain in his side, he sprinted to his yard and up the back steps to the kitchen door. It was locked, but he didn’t waste time wondering why as he bashed his fist through the glass to reach in and snap the deadbolt.

Flinging the table out of his way, Grady raced into the hall and then the living room. His daddy sat slumped in his armchair, his arms draped over the sides as they did those nights he fell asleep by the window. A red patch soaked the pocket of his t-shirt, a matching dot in the center of his forehead. Blood trickled down the bridge of his nose. With a trembling hand, Grady reached to touch him but stopped short.

“The stone knew, didn’t it? It could have warned me. It could have kept him alive.”

“I don’t think so.”

Grady flexed his arms, his face hardening. “You said it was powerful. You said it could do anything.”

“It would have changed too much.”

“Did you know?”

“Grady.”

“Answer me. Did you know my daddy was gonna die?”

“Yes.”

“Then why’d you help me save him? Why sober him up if this was how it was gonna end?”

“I thought you deserved to be happy for once in your life. After everything that’s happened—everything that’s going to happen—you’ve earned it. I couldn’t change it all, but the stone let me do enough to give you one thing you’ve always wanted. Your father’s love.”

Tears welled in Grady’s eyes. “You could have warned me.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. Worse, it would have put you in danger. I couldn’t allow that.”

“You used me. You ain’t no better than Wolgiss.”

Scowling, Grady stomped upstairs to peel the sheet off his daddy’s bed. He carried it to his body and draped it over him, a red patch soaking through the white.

“I’m sorry, Grady.”

“You don’t get to be sorry for this. You don’t get to be anything. I don’t want you taking over my body. I don’t want you talking to me. For all I care, you can rot inside my head. We ain’t friends no more.”

In the granted silence, Grady stared at the hints of a face beneath the sheet—the tip of his daddy’s nose and hard angle of his jaw. He cried for ten minutes before he went to the kitchen to call the police.

Perry and Tuck Marshall both disappeared from Creek Hollow that night. The revolver that killed Roger Perlson turned up two days later in the grass by the interstate, either thrown from a car or dropped while running. The police put out an alert, figuring they headed west and then down to Mexico. Grady didn’t wait around to find out if they caught them.

On the third day, the police let Grady back into his house. Wads of thick yellow tape reminded him of the streamers Henry draped from the oak on the morning of Job’s last birthday. Climbing the stairs, he rolled it into a tight spool he left on his little brother’s pillow. He walked from room to room to remember how it looked, knowing he’d never come back. In his daddy’s bedroom, he pressed his forehead to the window.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“Move forward like you always have.”

Though it didn’t sound like much of an answer, it made Grady feel better when he thought about it. This was just another bad thing that happened to him, not even the worst. He loved his daddy, but he got more time with him than his momma or Job. When they were gone, he didn’t mope. He went on without them.

Grady found a stash of money in a cigar box in the closet and used almost all of it to bury Roger. The headstone would be a giant, marble shield with an eagle on its face, a sword in one talon and lightning bolt in the other. It was the symbol of his Marine unit, a patch on the green jacket in his bedroom closet. Below his daddy’s name would read: And God, I know I’m one. He left the funeral home with a hundred dollars in his pocket.

Roger Perlson was buried a week after Perry Marshall killed him. A few men from the Orion factory came to the funeral, Mr. Downing one of them, though he kept his distance. When the service ended, they left Grady alone to watch two gravediggers shovel dirt into the grave.

That night, Grady bought a bus ticket for New Orleans and boarded with a single suitcase. He’d packed some clothes, a toy car, a lock-blade knife, and a black brick wrapped in an old muddy t-shirt. With the hard-shell case in his lap, he stared through the window as they left the bayou for a world of street lights and tall buildings.

At an Army recruitment office across the street from the bus station, Grady listened to a boy a little older than him give a speech about serving his country and fighting for freedom. Within an hour, he enlisted.

In basic training, he was the largest man in his squad, which made the drill sergeant single him out. Toes touching Grady’s, he craned his neck back to shout into his face. The insults were nothing new—Diane had prepared him well—but this man had a distinct talent.

“How much bull semen you swallow to get that big?”

“Back in Texas, we castrated bulls prettier than you.”

“Were you born this stupid or did your giant head smother your tiny brain?”

It took five minutes to break Grady, Sagin stepping in to keep him from dissolving into a blubbering mess. He remained in control until the barrack lights went out.

For two weeks, Sagin took over each morning, leaving Grady’s muscles screaming at night. They marched every day, regardless of the weather. If one man fell behind, the others made up for it with sit-ups and push-ups. Twice a week, they ran an obstacle course that did a better job maiming than training them. Crawling through mud and under a barb-wire canopy, Grady wondered what it was all for. Weeks passed, the aches carving deep lines in his muscles. The other recruits called him Frankenstein and joked that Charlie would have surrendered at first sight of him.

When Grady finished training, they put him on another bus for Fayetteville, North Carolina. It passed through several small towns and a couple big ones, Sagin stirring as they reached the downtown circle in one called Pine Haven. He urged Grady up, reminding him to grab his duffel bag from the overhead rack before he charged down the aisle to tell the driver to stop.

The bus left Grady south of the courthouse. Sagin didn’t take control but urged him west down the highway. At a steep driveway, he turned into the woods and walked up to the front porch of the biggest and prettiest house he’d ever seen. A sign called it the Hovington House. Inside, he rented a room with the last of his money.

In the room, Sagin told Grady to unpack his things. He arranged them in a row on the corner desk—Job’s Chevy on the left and the shirt-wrapped stone on the right. Setting the knife between them, Grady sat and waited, eventually falling asleep with his arms crossed on the desk. Sagin woke him two hours later. Slipping the knife into his pocket, he tucked the stone under his arm and went down to the front porch.

“There’s one more thing you need to do.”

Grady huffed. “One more thing.”

“This is important. I need you to trust me.”

Something in the whisper sounded off, a strain in Sagin’s voice.

“Okay.”

“Close your eyes and start walking.”

“Why?”

“Because where we’re going needs to be a secret even from you.”

Grady remembered his daddy sitting in his armchair with a hole in his head. That was where Sagin’s secrets led.

“Please, Grady.”

The voice weakened more with every word, fading toward an unthinkable silence. At the edge of the porch, Grady looked out over a town of strangers, panic growing at the thought of navigating it alone.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“There’s no time to explain. You need to go now.”

Grady closed his eyes and took a blind step off the porch. Sagin wrapped him like a second skin, tightening around each leg as it moved. Disoriented, Grady had no sense of where they were going, only that he walked for some time and then dropped to the ground to dig with his hands.

“You can open your eyes now.”

When Grady did, he stared into a hole too deep to reach the bottom. The shirt-wrapped stone sat to the right of the hole, but Grady couldn’t turn his head to see past it.

“We’re leaving it here?”

“You can’t take it to your brother. If Wolgiss gets it, this has all been for nothing.”

“Then why didn’t we just leave it in Creek Hollow?”

Sagin’s voice weakened to a rattle. “The stone has its own fate.”

“What’s happening to you?”

“Take out the knife.”

“Why?”

“There’s no time.”

Grady did as he was told, unfolding the blade to stare at its edge.

“Cut your hand.”

“What?”

“Please.”

With a deep breath, Grady gathered his nerve and dragged the blade across his palm. A slit opened, puckering before it bled. A trail of red ran down his hand to drip into the hole.

“Why ain’t you healing me?”

“This started the day we met. Everything I did for you—school, work, basic training—cost energy I never got back.”

Grady stared at his bleeding hand. “You’re dying?”

“I told you before: nothing lives forever.”

Eyes burning, Grady shook his head. “But I need you.”

“You don’t. I’ve served my purpose, getting you here to do all the things you’ve done before. You’ll beat him by making the choices you’ve always made. You just have to be yourself.”

“What about your plan?”

“You are my plan.”

Grady sobbed. “I’m sorry I said you weren’t my friend. I didn’t mean it. You’re all I have left. Use my body whenever you want. I promise. I’m sorry.”

“Put the stone in the hole and let me go.”

Though Grady wanted to cross his arms and refuse, he dropped the stained t-shirt into the hole and raked dirt over it. When the hole was filled, he curled up and cried.

“I’m sorry.”

But Sagin was gone.

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“Your face!” Tuck stammered.

Grady’s wounds closed as Henry’s did back when they played his game. He was like his brother now, the skin repairing as fast as it had broken. Tuck wasn’t innocent like Jonathan or the butchered couple, but as Sagin used his legs to stand, Grady feared for him.

“You had so many chances to leave him alone, but you couldn’t stand the fact fate pitied him.”

“Who?” Tuck stammered with the knife raised as if it would save him.

“You think you’ve suffered as much as him, but you haven’t. You’ve never had a piece of shit follow you after school to make your life worse. You’ve never had someone wait for you to be alone and then come to kill you.”

Tuck’s eyes widened, his jaw pumping to speak. Only one word came. “How?”

“You chose to be like your daddy. Everything you are is because of that choice. Not Grady. Not fate. You.”

“Aren’t you Grady?”

“Drop that knife or you’ll find out exactly who I am.”

Tuck considered the blade and tightened his grip to lunge. He aimed for Grady’s heart, but Sagin seized his wrist, wrenching it until a sharp, muffled pop made Tuck scream and drop the knife.

Sagin whipped him like a ragdoll and slammed him onto his back, hovering over him with a sharp grin that said he’d enjoy what came next. He crawled onto the stunned Tuck and drove his knuckles into his nose. Blood gushed from both nostrils, Tuck’s head lolling. The next swing caught his eye socket, then the other to match. A blow to his mouth busted his lower lip and made two teeth slant toward his tongue.

As Sagin reared back again, Grady couldn’t tell where the next blow would land but knew it would do more damage than the others. Unsure how to regain control, he shouted into the dark.

“Stop! Let him go.”

With his fist hovering in Tuck’s face, Sagin stood and backed away. Tuck breathed a blood-soaked rattle and strained to sit. He didn’t look like he knew where he was for so long Grady thought he had brain damage, but the haze faded with a sharp blink of his swollen eyes.

Scrambling to his feet, Tuck bolted up the hill. Sagin watched him disappear over the crest and then stared at the bloody pebbles he left behind.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You did it for me. I appreciate that and all, but even killin’ Tuck Marshall ain’t right. It would have made us as bad as Wolgiss.”

“What if the stone meant for him to die?”

“Then it can find some other way to kill him.”

With a grim smile, Sagin returned control to Grady. Going to where Tuck dropped his knife, Grady picked it up, confirming what he’d suspected. However Tuck got a hold of it, the knife used to be Henry’s.

“The stone.”

“It’s just Henry’s knife.” Grady folded the blade and stuck it in his pocket as he walked into the woods.

“There are no coincidences. Everything has a reason.”

“You gonna tell me this one?”

“You remember your brother the way he was, but the stone wants you to focus on what he is. That knife took innocent lives. The longer you delay finding him, the more people will die.”

“Why now? Hasn’t he been killing all this time?”

“The stone has its reasons, but this one’s easy to decipher. If your brother is in the Army, you’re now old enough to enlist and find him.”

Grady scanned for the leaf piles that held Arnaud’s traps. “If I’m supposed to join the Army, you’ve got some work ahead of you.”

“I’ll make sure you’re ready, but there’s something else you should know.”

“You finally gonna tell your secrets?”

An orange flare between the trees caught Grady’s eye. The moonlight framed the outline of Tracker’s shack. Unsure of how well the old Cajun could hear, Grady cut the conversation short.

“I done seen you, so come on out,” Tracker said. “I got a shotgun here if you need convincin’.”

Grady raised his hands and stepped from the trees.

“Better move slower. My finger gets twitchy.”

Grady crept to the short, rickety steps. Tracker’s silhouette reclined in a hammock in the corner of the porch, smoking a cigar that smelled like garbage. His hand rested on the stock of a shotgun beside him.

“It dangerous to walk dese woods alone at night. Dey traps all ‘round. Plenty gators to clean your bones. Why you risk dat and a mouth full of buckshot?”

“I’m just going home.”

“Where dat be?”

Grady pointed. “Past the old swamp oak.”

Squinting into the dark, Tracker sat up. “You one dem Perlson boys?”

“Grady.”

Tracker rolled out of the hammock, catching the shotgun before it fell. He propped it against the wall, his eyes fixed on Grady. Staggering forward, he squeezed Grady’s elbows.

“You got big! A foot and fitty pounds since I last seen you! How long dat be?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Four years at least. I know dat for a fact. Come sit here so I can see you better.”

The porch creaked as Tracker passed the lone chair for a rotten barrel with a lantern on it. He lit the lamp with his cigar and waited for Grady to sit. Angling the light to see him better, Tracker gawked and leaned against the warped railing. “It been at least four years, ‘cause dat’s de last time I seen your brudder.”

“You saw Henry?”

Tracker nodded as he puffed his cigar. “Heard him first. Over dat old bridge to your tree, sobbing like he lost everyding. I thought someding happened to you, so I went over to see if I could help. He had a knife in his hand and de Devil’s eyes, so I kept my distance. I asked what was wrong, and he said he didn’t know what he doing no more, dat life only gave him trouble. I thought he gone kill himself, so I said de one ding I knew in times like dat. ‘Let de wind blow you where it will, den figure out de rest when you get dere.’ Seemed to help him. Even got dat darkness out his face. He folded up dat knife and handed it to me. Told me to give it to you, but I lost it at de Hoodoo when I went for some of dat paid touch. Sorry to tell you dat.”

Grady pulled the knife from his pocket and held it so Tracker could see. “It found me anyway.”

Smiling, Tracker took one last draw from his cigar and dropped it to the porch, crushing it under his boot heel. “Dings have a habit of doing dat. Makes too much damn sense if you look close enough. Like your tree.”

“Why do you keep calling it mine?”

“Might be on my land, but it always been yours. Proved dat when your brudder left.”

“What do you mean?”

Tracker cocked his head as if waiting for a punchline, his smile fading when it didn’t come. “It fell. All dis time, I thought it outlive all of us.”

“Me too.” Grady slid the knife back into his pocket and stood. He told Tracker goodbye and left the porch. Before he reached the trees, the old man called to him again.

“If you as lost as you look, I tell you de same as your brudder. Let de wind carry you. You’ll end up where you supposed to be.”

Grady waved but didn’t look back. He picked his way past the traps to the docks, dreading his last steps around the bend to the island where he and Henry used to play. The moonlight angled a white strip across the water. It would have been real pretty with the old tree reaching its gnarled arms for the bright floating rock, but as Tracker said, it was gone.

Crossing the old bridge to the island, Grady realized no one had cut the tree down—it simply crumbled. Thick limbs he once climbed scattered the ground, some pinned beneath the trunk when it fell into the swamp. He picked one up and the soft, rotten wood fell apart in his hands. The black bark, once hard as scales, dissolved to dust between his fingers.

“Did I kill it?”

“Nothing lives forever.”

“You have.”

“Sometimes I feel like it.”

Grady stood where the tree once did, crickets chirping in the reeds and an occasional bullfrog croaking across the swamp. A breeze blew from the woods, rustling leaves to shush the world.

“Listen, Grady.”

Two loud pops echoed in the distance.

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The next day was graduation. Shaking away the morning fog, Grady stumbled to the bathroom and stood at the toilet with enough pressure in the thin yellow stream, he half-expected to chip porcelain off the bowl. When the voice came, it wasn’t the whisper he’d learned to live with but was just as familiar.

When you’re ready to find me, you know where I’ll be.

Grady’s back tensed as he resisted the urge to spin around and pee all over the floor.

“That you, Sagin?”

“No, but I heard it too. A memory. Was it Henry?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we have less time than I thought.”

“I said I ain’t going nowhere. I told my daddy I wouldn’t leave. I promised him.”

“Listen, Grady. You have to. Your destiny waits in North Carolina.”

“What the hell’s in North Carolina?” Grady barked the question louder than he intended. Slapping his hands over his mouth, he watched the door and listened for creaking floorboards.

“You have to trust me.”

“I don’t. Not anymore. You can keep all your secrets, but I never said I’d leave my daddy or kill my brother. If you’d have been straight with me, I’d have told you that won’t happening.”

“The stone has a way of getting what it wants.”

“I don’t care. You want me to leave, you’re gonna have to force me.”

“You know I won’t do that.”

“Then I guess we’re staying.”

A rough knock at the door preceded his daddy’s voice. “You all right in there, boy? I heard you talking.”

“Just to myself. I’m workin’ out some nerves. I ain’t ever been on a stage before.”

His daddy chuckled. “Me neither. I’m sure you’ll do fine. Breakfast is on the stove when you’re ready.”

Heavy footsteps clomped down the stairs as Grady went to the mirror. Staring into his eyes, he pointed at himself. The reflection pointed back. When Sagin didn’t take over, Grady figured he got the message.

The spread almost didn’t fit the table—plates of biscuits and eggs, sausage, and bacon piled in a six-inch pyramid. Roger leaned on the counter with a rag over his shoulder, smiling as big as the day he found out he’d be a daddy for the third time.

Grady sat down and got to work, stacking bacon on sausage and adding some egg. He shoved half the biscuit in his mouth and looked back to where his daddy watched.

“You gonna eat?” Grady asked with his mouth full.

“I might. Right now, I’m fine watching.”

“Where’d you get all this stuff?”

“After I stood at that liquor store a while, I figured I’d do something to thank you for getting me to where I could look at those bottles and shake my head. I went to the Nice Price and bought enough groceries I couldn’t afford to be tempted a second time.”

“Was that the last of our money?”

“Nah, I got some saved in a box in my closet. Mr. Downing promised two thousand dollars severance for each of us from the good folks at Orion. That’ll float us until we figure out what comes next. Maybe I’ll go to the diner and see if they need a couple of cooks.”

Roger smiled as Grady took down his third biscuit, his bites slower as he lost steam. When Grady was done, he started on what remained, leaving enough for another decent breakfast the next morning. Grady helped clean and then they went into the living room to take turns dozing and staring out the window, neither saying much.

Grady had to be at school by five to practice walking across the stage. It didn’t seem like something that needed rehearsing, but if anyone could screw it up, he would. He went upstairs at four to his daddy’s closet to look for something dressier than t-shirt and jeans.

The only suit hanging from the bar was the one his daddy wore when he married Grady’s momma and again when they buried her. He wore it when he tried to replace her and, though Grady was in the whirlwind at the time, probably to Job’s funeral. It marked every milestone of their family, carrying many ghosts. Without much choice, Grady slipped it on.

On his way downstairs, Grady expected his daddy to get mad when he saw his clothes. It had been years since Roger Perlson’s face got all red and trembling, but he winced for it at the landing. When his daddy looked up, a flash of recognition evolved into a smile.

“I should have given you that suit a long time ago. It looks good on you.”

“I didn’t have nowhere to wear it.”

“You will. You’ll meet a girl one day who’ll want you to dress up for her. You’ll need it when you get married and when she drags you to church every Sunday. You’ll wear a hole in that thing.”

Grady looked at his feet, embarrassed. None of it sounded unpleasant. “You coming tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for nothing.”

Grady walked through town like he did almost every day for the past four years, stopping at the alley that led to the Hoodoo’s porch. Tuck sat in his usual spot, his legs propped on the railing and head lolled at an uncomfortable angle. He lurched with a snort and looked around, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. Snatching the bottle at his feet, he brought it to his lips but didn’t drink. With widening eyes, he stared down the alley to where Grady stood and rocked onto his feet to stumble inside. Grady didn’t wait for him to come back.

By the time Grady got to school, his daddy’s suit was soaked through with sweat. He was the first one there and took off his jacket as he leaned against the front door and waited. A group of girls came and lingered in the parking lot with short glances at him like he’d do something bad to them while no one else was around. They perked up when Mike Douchet showed up and walked them to the door, giving Grady a short nod as he passed. Grady smiled, but neither said a word.

When the rest of the graduating class arrived, they sat at the front of the auditorium and waited for the principal to call their names so they could prove they learned how to walk across the stage. It was their last test before they were handed a piece of paper that proved they were smart, one Grady thought he could manage without Sagin’s help. He smiled at the thought and waited for the whisper, but it didn’t come.

At six, families filled the seats halfway back. The room was roped off to separate them from the students. Grady looked for his daddy, but the crowd made it hard. He imagined him in the same place where they sat when Henry graduated. Peering past the bright lights when it was his turn to cross the stage, Grady found a silhouette that resembled him, but when he went there afterward, no one was waiting.

Outside, he guessed his daddy waited in the lingering crowd between the school and parking lot, but as families got in their cars to leave, he was once again alone. With slumped shoulders, he slouched to the train tracks, looking down the rails to the Orion factory. Cars parked at the nearby diner, the same families piling inside to celebrate. He considered all the lights leading toward home but turned away to walk in the dark.

“It’s quicker through town.” Something touched Sagin’s voice, something Grady had never heard before. If he didn’t know better, he’d have called it fear.

“I don’t want to go that way. If you want me to leave, let me at least look at what I’m leaving.”

“There’s nothing here for you anymore.”

Two hours ago, Grady would have said his daddy was something, but now he wasn’t sure. As nice as Roger treated him that morning, it didn’t make sense to skip his graduation. Grady couldn’t get mad until he found out why, but he needed to see some other things first, to remember the way Henry was before deciding what came next. He followed the tracks they used to walk together, down toward Tracker’s and the tree by the swamp.

As he walked down the center of the tracks, the black silhouette of the trestle and deep forest shadows made Grady wonder if coming that way was a mistake. Trying to navigate old bear traps in the dark was stupid, but his only other option was to go all the way back to school and past the dead factory into downtown Creek Hollow. He’d cross the alley at the Hoodoo, where Tuck Marshall might wait for him. With his eyes set among the trees, he headed down the slope.

After a few steps, a scuff of pebbles skittered down behind him. Grady turned his head as the arcing swing of a bottle met his cheek and shattered. Falling to his knees, he rolled the final few feet to the bottom of the hill and tried to crawl away without a glance back to his attacker.

He was sure who it would be.

Tuck Marshall growled as he stalked Grady. “I saw you watchin’ me, freak. Starin’ from your corner as if you’re anything better. Must have been nice to walk that stage, your schoolin’ handed to you like everything else in your life.”

“Give me control.”

Grady struggled to stand. “I ain’t never had nothin’ handed to me. I lost it all.”

Tuck kicked the small of Grady’s spine, sending him sprawling back to the ground. “What did you lose I didn’t lose first? You think you’re the only one whose momma died giving birth? Mine went to ground pushing me out. Your brother died? I was four when Derek went to sleep and never woke up. No one stuck up for me when my daddy swung his belt, so don’t talk to me about losing.”

“Listen, Grady. He’s here to kill you.”

Grady rose again, slower this time. “I never did nothin’ to you. I just wanted you to leave me alone.”

“I will.”

Grady’s breath rattled but caught short with a metallic click he knew well.

“Your brother ain’t here to save you no more.”

Grabbing a handful of Grady’s hair, Tuck wrenched his head back. The knife blade flashed in the moonlight, carving a hot, wet streak across Grady’s cheek. He cried out and tried to cover the wound, but Tuck slashed the backs of his fingers.

“I wanna see every drop you got in you.” Tuck pressed the knife to Grady’s unwounded cheek, its point dipping into the skin. With one quick push, it’d go through, maybe skewering the other cheek to match.

“You have to fight. Him. Your brother. Wolgiss. Show them all you won’t curl up and die.”

“I can’t,” Grady said.

With a chuckle, Tuck pushed the knife deeper. “Sure you can. It’ll be easy. In fact, I’ll do all the work for you.”

“The stone chose you for a reason. It saw something no one else could. You’re better than them. Better than me. Open your eyes and see it.”

Grady whimpered. “I don’t want to hurt nobody.”

Tuck pulled the knife away. “Who the fuck you talkin’ to?”

“You won’t do this alone.”

“Okay.”

The shift came as quickly as the word, heavy dark pooling into Grady’s eyes as he was thrown into the void. He struggled for his bearings, finding the screen in time to watch Tuck’s sadistic smile fade.

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After 4 months ($20), paid subscribers will be comped full access and considered preorders for the paperback version when it is released (date to be announced; subscriptions are nonrefundable). An annual subscription ($30) will be considered a preorder for the hardback version.