“I WANT eyes on Page,” Quinn was saying to a couple of his deputies as Darren walked into the tiny office of the Marion County Sheriff back in Jefferson, his first time inside. The whole outfit wasn’t much larger than the suite he was occupying at the Cardinal Hotel. There was a white woman in her seventies sitting behind a reception desk. She had a jar of strawberry candies set out, as if this were a real estate office or a pediatrics practice and not a place for the sifting through and sorting of criminals, a workspace that was directly attached to the county jail. The receptionist, chestnut- and-gray hair teased and sprayed into a perfect dome, took one look at Darren and said, “The rest of ’em is back there.”

“The rest” included Greg Heglund, wearing the same black suit from last night, and another federal agent, slightly older than him and dressed as stiffly in a black suit and black tie. The two had their heads together as they trailed Sheriff Quinn and his deputies into the hallway. As Darren approached, Quinn, who’d cooled toward him considerably in the past twenty-four hours, gave him a terse nod and said, “Thomason’s all yours.” They were moving with such clarity of purpose that when one of the deputies offered to escort Darren to the interrogation room, where Gil Thomason was waiting, Darren actually hung back to try to get a word with Greg, whom he’d never seen with another federal agent, never seen walk and talk in the clipped and stiff way that he did now.

Greg was telling Quinn, “We’ll work to get a warrant to search Mr. Page’s home on our end. If this is what we think this is, the Bureau is ready to put in the time and resources to bring about a federal indictment.”

“What’s going on?” Darren asked his friend, who, in the presence of the local sheriff, made a show of giving Quinn the floor and fairly ignoring Darren.

“Mr. Thomason has signed an affidavit detailing acts of harassment by Mr. Page against him and Marnie King and threatening violence against the boy, Levi King. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of this kid for four days, and it’s time to call this what it is. Agent Heglund here is looking to head up the homicide investigation for the FBI, and we’ll assist in any way we can.”

Greg finally looked at him, and Darren saw something sheepish in his expression; the direction of the case seemed to have shaved years of fraternal affection and closeness between the two men down to something so thin Darren could see straight through what was left of it, could feel cold air breeze through the new holes in their relationship. “Leroy Page is our number-one suspect.”

So you got your hate crime.