Page 113 of The Witch’s Orchard

“You sure I can’t give you a ride to the hospital?” the EMT says.

“I’m sure.”

“Well, get some of Susan McKinney’s cough tincture,” she says. “Some elderberry wine wouldn’t hurt either. And lots of rest.”

“Sure,” I say.

“I mean it,” she says.

“Okay,” I say.

She shakes her head again, then snaps up her EMT kit and leaves.

Once she’s gone, Sheriff Jacobs takes a seat in the chair nearest the door. His arms are wiry and taut and covered in freckles. I’d not noticed the freckles before, and I feel strangely amused by them now. I really do need a nap.

“Are the FBI agents coming?” I ask, looking out the window past his head.

“They should be here in a couple hours. Takes a while over the mountain roads.”

I nod.

“You could’ve been killed,” he says.

I nod.

“And you’re just going to keep at it, aren’t you?”

I meet his eyes.

“Yes.”

Jacobs rasps his hands together, sighs, looks at the floor. We sit like this for a while, with me watching him and him watching the floor.

“It’s all happening again,” he says, echoing the words I’ve heard over and over since Lucy was kidnapped. I wait for him to continue, too exhausted to ask questions.

“The year those girls were taken,” he says eventually. “A lot of rumors flew around. You know how many fights I broke up? How many people—lifelong friends—started pointing fingers at each other? It was ugly. An ugly you hate to see.”

He sucks in another big breath like this story is using up all his oxygen and it’s the only way he can keep going.

“When Olivia was taken, the FBI sent a team. Big-city types. They looked around here—looked at us—like we were scum. Like we weren’t nothing to them. Just a waste of their time. They found out Kathleen worked at the hospital and they started questioning her about methamphetamines, opiates. Whether she was part of some racket. Whether she and Arnold were in over their heads to some drug runner. Whether they themselves were users.”

Jacobs clicks his tongue against his teeth, shakes his head.

“And I didn’t even know how to tell the FBI to stop. I’d just taken over—in the middle of everything—because the sheriff before me, Donald Kerridge, had a heart attack and died after Olivia went missing. I was just doing the best I could, trying to handle everything at once, and the FBI walked all over me. There was nothing I could do about it. I’d never wanted to be sheriff. I was happy as I was.”

I watch him as he struggles with these admissions, this airing of grief and grievances, and stay silent.

“They went out and took one look at the Hoyles—their home, Tommy’s record, Mandy’s bruises—and decided Tommy must be involved somehow. They pulled up Dwight’s and Elaine’s rap sheets and decided they were probably in on it. They were working up some hillbilly mafia tale like you wouldn’t believe. And the whole time, these little girls are gone who knows where. The main one. The team leader? Agent Rachel James. She had her eye on some big bust. Wanted to make a name for herself. They brought dogs. They walked the church grounds and the picnic area. They questioned everyone’s families. Dug out any dirt they could find. And then, one night, Olivia turns up right there on Kathleen and Arnold’s back porch. Safe and sound.”

My shock is starting to wear off, I realize. My palms are sweating. My heart is thudding. I’m beginning to feel alive again.

“God, it was such a relief. Such a relief to have her back. But…”

Jacobs goes on looking at the floorboards and not at me. His voice has been getting thinner, and he clears his throat like the problem is just allergies and not his heart swelling up with feeling.

“Olivia’s barely been home half an hour when Agent James corners her. Rushes the whole family to the station for evidence collection. Separates them. Kathleen and Arnold are so relieved that Olivia’s back, so stunned by everything moving so fast, that they don’t even think to question it. They just obey Agent James. Olivia’s the only person who knows who the kidnapper is. The only person who can say… But shecan’tsay.”

He clears his throat again. Takes another big breath. Keeps going.