They were in the room that overlooked a small ornamental pond, her favorite in the house. One whole wall was perfect glass, with a sweeping view of the bright green slope down to the pond that was ringed with cattails and daylilies and geraniums and sword grass. Beyond the pond was a deeper, darker green of old, leafy trees, and there was a shaded stone bench that they sometimes sat on when he came to visit, but only for a half hour at a time—even on a cooler day like today—because she’d lost so many sweat glands in the fire, and her body did a poor job of controlling her temperature. A hard workout could lead to a heatstroke, so most times they met in this room—bright and beautiful and clean but always colder than the world outside—and just watched that other world together through the glass.

Morgan Emerson’s parents had originally relocated to Atlanta so they could get her into the Joseph M. Still Burn Center at Doctors Hospital, in Augusta. It was one of the best in the country, and after the fire that had consumed her in Murfee, she’d needed months of in-patient care at the burn center. When that was done, and they had to move her from Still back home, they decided to stay on in Augusta, and looked for a place in historic Summerville that everyone called “The Hill.” Morgan’s father was ex-military and knew certain people, and they’d helped him find the house, which wasn’t even on the market at the time, and took care of all the arrangements. For a couple of months, a private security firm supplied a twenty-four-hour protective detail on Randall Emerson’s daughter, and more than once, when Garrison had arrived to see her, he’d pass a dark SUV or a limousine leaving the residence, the smoked, bulletproof windows hiding the person inside.

Each visit was the same.

Garrison and Randall Emerson shook hands, shared a silent glass of Glenmorangie Signet in the kitchen, and then his wife, Marjorie, walked Garrison just as silently back to their daughter.

—

HE TOLD HER ABOUT THE EVENTS AT THE FAR SIX, and the surprising phone message he got from Deputy America Reynosa, explaining how she and the sheriff needed his help—that her uncle Fox Uno was hiding out with them, but that men were coming for him and he wouldn’t be there much longer. She wasn’t sure how much time they had left. She talked about Danny Ford hiding somewhere in the desert, dressed in army fatigues, and voices on phones, and a little girl named Zita. It had all sounded so strange, so unexpected, he almost wrote it off as a bad joke. But the real concern in the deputy’s whispered voice, and the very last thing she’d said before the message ended, made him a believer.