Darren looked up, slowing as he realized he’d inched too close to the back of the semi in front of him. He wondered just how these reports of Levi being missing had found their way to Bill King in lockup. The letter had been written Sunday—or at least, that’s when it had been put in the mail system at Telford Unit, where Bill King had served six years of a twenty-year sentence. In the letter, he admitted to being a less than Christian influence on the world and admitted to being a shitty father. The word shitty had then been scratched out and replaced with bad. But as the governor knew by now, Bill wrote—again in an odd, overly familiar tone—he was paying his debt to society and was in the process of surrendering his life to God and his faith. It would kill him to think that the government—in the form of local law enforcement—would punish his child for something Bill was already making restitution for. He hoped to leave prison soon—a word he underlined—to start a new life with his son, who was a victim not only of Bill’s bad choices but also of the man his ex-wife had living in her house, a low-life who he feared had harmed Levi either directly or through utter neglect. His ex, Marnie, and the boyfriend, Gil, had some bad dudes hanging around their house. He should know. I used to be one of those bad dudes. He went on to urge the governor to warn the sheriff against taking anything he heard out of his ex-wife’s mouth at face value, the lies she would tell on him and his family. He believed his son was in danger and that every second counted. I’m begging you, sir. Find my boy.

Darren folded the letter and set it inside the case file next to him.

It sat like a stone in his gut, the letter did.