Chapters (110)
- Cover
- ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- PROLOGUE
- I
- II
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- PART FOUR
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Excerpt from LOST RIVER
- LITTLE PARIS
- DILLON
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Marco thought on it. “To me it does, to other folks, too, I think. I guess we’ll see.” He kicked at the ground with a scuffed boot. He didn’t look Chris in the eye. “You think you’re going to lose, don’t you?”
Chris tossed his hammer into the back with the signs and clapped his deputy on the shoulder, shaking him out of it. “Well, I think it’s going to be damn close, and let’s leave it at that.”
Chris didn’t want to tell him that losing might not be a bad thing at all.
—
THEY WERE ABOUT TO GET INTO CHRIS’S TRUCK when Marco asked him about the baby.
“How’s the little one? Keeping you up at night?”
Chris laughed, thinking about his son: John Thomas, nicknamed Jack. The baby had been the center of his world for the past three months. Chris was just about to answer when he saw something over Marco’s shoulder: a truck, approaching fast, using up both sides of the highway. Its blue and red wigwags flickering furiously, brighter than the morning sun.
Its emergency sirens would catch up soon.
“Well, he’s keeping someone up at night, but it’s not me . . .” He let the sentence go, as Marco turned to see what had stolen his attention. The deputy leaned forward, squinting, and asked, “Who is that? Dale, Till?”
At this angle, head-on, Chris couldn’t tell which of his deputies it was, either. He realized that all this time standing outside his truck messing with the sign, he and Marco had been ignoring the truck radio, and both his handheld and his cell phone were still in the center console where he’d left them. Someone must have been trying to raise him, and when they couldn’t, Miss Maisie had sent out a posse to track him down. She knew he was out here on Route 72 by the school.
It was supposed to have taken only a few minutes.
“What’s going on?” Marco asked.
Please not the baby . . . not Mel.
The first wave of the sirens finally reached them, a long echoing wail that Chris hated. He’d hated it for as long as he’d been deputy and then sheriff, and it was one of many things he wouldn’t miss when Bethel Turner won the election.
He wouldn’t miss it at all.
“Trouble, I guess,” Chris said, taking a long breath and opening his door to get his phone, to check his messages. “Looks like trouble.”
Because that’s what that wail meant.
And it always was.
FOUR
The whole house smelled like dog and baby.
Melissa Bristow could remember when she’d first come to Murfee and how she thought the whole place smelled like cows and shit. She’d hated that smell, hated the town, but that was then—a lifetime ago—and this was now.