Page 116 of The Witch’s Orchard

“Died in a meth lab fire three days ago,” I say.

“And whose fault is that?” he throws back.

“But with Lucy gone. If Deena—”

He grimaces and says, “It couldn’t be her.”

“Why not?”

“Because the night of the Fall Festival, the night Lucy was taken? She was with me.”

“Where were you?”

“At my house.”

“Your—”

“My house. My wife and I are separated. It’s not public knowledge but… she’s gone to stay with her mom in Florida for a few weeks and—”

I realize I’m staring at him, and I force myself to blink. An affair? With Deena Drake? I try to picture them together and realize it’s not so improbable after all. Deena is the kind of woman who makes loneliness look elegant without being needy. Tragic without seeming desperate. And him? I guess I can see the rugged sadness that would have attracted her to him.

“You and Deena are seeing each other,” I say out loud. Just to confirm it.

He nods.

“And you were together that night. The whole night?”

“Until I got the call about Lucy being taken. So, you have to understand, it wasn’t her. It couldn’t be.”

“Great.”

I put my now-empty coffee mug on the table in front of me and massage my temples. I realize I’ve developed the same tunnel vision as everyone else in this town. Hyper-focusing on a story about a witch and, consequently, the women most likely to play the part. My frustration is almost equivalent to my pain, and I find myself wishing the FBI would hurry up and get here. Not that they did much good before.

“You feel like you’re chasing your own tail,” Jacobs says with a softness I’ve not heard from him before, and I can understand even better what Deena must see in him.

I groan and make myself stand. He gets to his feet too, obviously receiving the message that I want to be alone.

“Whoever took those girls is almost certainly still in town,” I say.“They’re almost certainly the person who shot me this morning. And, yes, I may have gotten myself too involved in this thing and I may be mostly chasing my own tail. But I have promises to keep.”

“And miles to go before you sleep,” he says, so softly I almost don’t hear him.

I notice again the dark circles under his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks. And I remember that I share them. What had begun as a way for me to make enough money to get my watch out of hock, a way for me to put a nice mountain kid’s mind to rest with the knowledge that he’d done the best he could, a way for me to visit Appalachia without actually going home, had turned into something more. Something deeper.

“Stay out of trouble,” he says, and leaves.

I take my mug to the sink and rinse it out before heading to the bathroom and standing in the shower, breathing the steam until the water starts to go cold. I get out and wrap a towel around my head, then slap some gauze on my side and my shin. I dress and slide my gun into the holster and pour myself a tall glass of tepid water and drink it all down. I find the bottle of whiskey that Greg Andrews brought over and I drink some of that too. I dress and then go back to bathroom and use the tiny hair dryer Max has provided to take the rest of the damp out of my hair.

I check my gun one more time, pull on my jacket and my bag with a wince, and open my door to find Mandy Hoyle standing on the porch. She’s sporting a newish black eye, and the purple makes the ice blue of her iris almost glow. It’s a hard reminder that even though it seems like eons have passed since the last time I saw her, it’s only been a couple of days. Plenty of time for Tommy to give her a new shiner before borrowing her car on the day the factory exploded.

“Mandy…”

She sniffs and says, “I wanted to give this back to you…”

She opens a big tote bag that’s hanging at her hip, wrestles something out of it, and holds it toward me. It’s Max’s casebook.

THIRTY-EIGHT

ISTAND ASIDE AND LETher in and, once again, I’m stunned by how slight she is. How fragile-seeming and otherworldly. And I’m reminded of the opposite when she turns again to face me. How resilient she is, how strong.