The lights in the house were off when Bo pulled up the gravel driveway to what was once his cousin’s farm off Highway 64. Bo had sent several texts and tried to call Booker T. numerous times since arriving back in Pulaski yesterday afternoon, and finally, about thirty minutes earlier, Bo had received a cryptic text to meet here. Bo had texted back, asking whether Booker T. had permission to be on the land in light of the recent foreclosure, but Booker T. hadn’t responded.

He’s mad at me, Bo thought, figuring that his cousin had every right to be pissed off. I disappeared for over a year without one word.

As with Ellie Michaels, the last time Bo had seen Booker T. was at Jazz’s funeral. They had shared a hug, and Booker T., like every other person at the ceremony, had told Bo how sorry he was.

Since then, which was over sixteen months ago, they hadn’t seen or talked with each other. Booker T. had reached out several times with calls that Bo had let ring without answering and texts that were also ignored. At some point, he’d quit trying.

Bo parked in front of the dark barn and gazed at the one-story rancher that, until the foreclosure, had been his cousin’s home for the past four years. The house and farm had been the crowning achievement of his cousin’s farming career, and Bo felt a pang of sadness and guilt as he examined the property now, remembering how Booker T.’s enormous son, Jarvis, who was already collecting football scholarship offers in the ninth grade, had played basketball with T. J. on the goal attached to the barn. Squinting in that direction, Bo saw that the goal was now without a net and was bent down as if someone had hung on it too long after dunking.

Bo glanced at the clock on the dash of the Sequoia: 9:30 p.m. His first full day back practicing law had been long, exhausting, and fairly productive. With the help of Lona, he’d gotten the phones, the power, and the water all turned on that afternoon. Plus she knew an IT guy who had come out and had looked at the computers. “They’re old as Methuselah but should still work well enough for word processing and internet searches.” Bo had spent the rest of the day reviewing the witness statements provided by Frannie Storm the night before, surfing the internet for any information on Michael Zannick, and dictating his notice of appearance, request for discovery, and motion for an expedited preliminary hearing. Lona had typed up the pleadings that afternoon on the lobby computer; she wasn’t nearly as fast as Ellie had been, but she worked her ass off and had the one thing that the defense of General Helen Lewis desperately needed.

Passion.