Folks had been carving coal out of the Appalachian Mountains for decades, and rich seams of it ran through the mountains just north of Ashland. Coal mining was dangerous, dirty, hard work, not for the claustrophobic or faint of heart. But it paid well enough for generations of men and women to risk life and limb digging the fossil fuel out of the ground. For some, mining was the only job the members of their family had ever known. For others, the mines were the final resting places of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters. Dark, silent tombs no machinery and no light would ever be able to penetrate again.

Click-click. Click-click. The computer sounded once more, and a new screen popped up, overwriting the info we’d been looking at.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Finn grinned. “I flagged Violet Fox’s credit card, which she just used to make a purchase at the campus bookstore.”

“What did she buy?”

Finn stared at the monitor. “Two iced teas, two candy bars, and a copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.”

“Two drinks? Sounds like she has a study date with somebody.” I got up off the sofa. “Let’s go.”

“To the college?” Finn asked. “What if she leaves before we get there?”

I pointed to a clock on the wall. “It’s not even four thirty yet. The bookstore is inside the student center, and the building doesn’t close until six. Violet will probably stay put until then. ”

“You’re the expert when it comes to the college,” Finn said. “Seeing as how you spend so much of your free time there reading books by dead white guys and getting busy with the young studs in your classes.”

“That’s right,” I said. “And your jealousy is unbecoming. Now, get your lazy ass off the sofa. It’s time for you to show me just how fast that Aston Martin of yours can go.”

———

“This is pointless,” Finn said. “She’s not coming back here tonight.”

We’d arrived at the college just after five and had walked through the student center, looking for Violet Fox. I knew the center well, along with the rest of campus, since I’d been auditing classes at Ashland Community College for years. Cake decorating, yoga, charcoal drawing, watercolor painting. I’d taken all those and more, as part of my cover as an eternal college student and cook and waitress at the Pork Pit.

This semester, I’d signed up for a course in classic literature, hence the fact I was currently reading The Odyssey.

I’d always liked learning new things and saw no reason to stop taking classes just because I wasn’t killing people anymore. Besides, you just never knew when a new skill might come in handy. Especially given my past.