Jim Bell and the state police had looked into why Culbeau and his friends would attack Rhyme and the deputies. An investigator from Raleigh had found tens of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in their houses. “More than moonshine money,” the detective had said. Then echoed Mary Beth’s thought: “That cabin must’ve been near a marijuana farm—those three were probably working it with the men who attacked Mary Beth. Garrett must’ve stumbled on their operation.”

Now, a day after the terrible events at the ’shiners’ cabin, Rhyme sat in the Storm Arrow—drivable despite the stigmata of a bullet hole—in the improvised lab, waiting for the new aide to arrive. Morose, he was brooding about Sachs’s fate when a shadow appeared in the doorway.

He looked up and saw Mary Beth McConnell. She stepped into the room. “Mr. Rhyme.”

He noted how pretty she was, what confident eyes she had, what a ready smile. He understood how Garrett could have become ensnared by her. “How’s your head?” Nodding at the bandage on her temple.

“I’ll have a pretty spectacular scar. Won’t be wearing my hair pulled back too much, I don’t think. But no serious damage.”

Like everyone else, Rhyme had been relieved to learn that Garrett hadn’t in fact raped Mary Beth. He’d been telling the truth about the bloody tissue: Garrett had startled her in the root cellar of the cabin and she’d stood quickly, hitting her head on a low beam. He’d been visibly aroused, true, but that was due only to a sixteen-year-old’s hormones, and Garrett hadn’t touched her other than to carry her carefully upstairs, clean the wound and bandage it. He’d apologized profusely that she’d been hurt.

The girl now said to Rhyme, “I just wanted to say thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if it hadn’t been for you. I’m sorry about your friend, that policewoman. But if it wasn’t for her I’d be dead now. I’m sure of it. Those men were going to … well, you can figure that out. Thank her for me.”

“I will,” Rhyme told her. “Would you mind answering something?”

“What?”

“I know you gave a statement to Jim Bell but I only know what happened at Blackwater Landing from the evidence. And some of that wasn’t clear. Could you tell me?”

“Sure …I was down by the river, dusting off some of the relics I’d found, and I looked up and there was Garrett. I was upset. I didn’t want to be bothered. Whenever he saw me he just came right up and started talking like we were best friends.