“I really would have.”
She laughed.
Kaila came to the table with refills for their coffee. Amy smiled and asked, “So, what do you do around here for your off time?”
“Well, I used to ride. I had a barrel horse—we were good together. I raced with my gelding, Beau, in Davie, up at the dude ranch, Kissimmee, wherever. But...well, I had to sell him. My folks passed away in debt.”
“I’m so sorry,” Amy said.
Kaila shrugged. “It’s okay. I sold Beau to a friend in Kissimmee. When I make the money, I’ll buy him back. I’m going to go to college. I’ll start with junior college, but I’ll get there.”
“That’s great,” Hunter said.
“But now?” Amy asked.
Kaila laughed. “I go home and study! I’m going to get my bachelor’s degree in media arts, and I study everything I can get my hands on.”
Hunter had his phone out; he gave Amy an imperceptible nod.
He’d found her address online; they’d stop in on her later.
They both thanked her again; no, neither wanted ketchup for their hash browns.
Hunter glanced at his watch again.
“Let’s stop by the motel before we head back to see Colby. I want to see if I can get someone into the prison. I want to know about the fellow who apparently managed to hang himself before he could testify against Ethan Morrison.”
“We could go ourselves,” Amy suggested.
“The prison is too far north. I don’t want to leave yet. Gut feeling. Someone is going to give us something.” He grinned. “I’ll talk to your office—they know that system best. I do trust FDLE officers, you know.”
She made a face at him.
He laughed.
They ate, and though they weren’t in a hurry, they both ate quickly.
“You don’t mind me getting the bill?” Hunter asked her.
“Hell no. A fed is in charge—put it on a federal bill,” she said.
He nodded and paid Kaila with his card. Amy noted he left the girl a generous tip. She would have done the same.
Back on the road, he had her drive again; he was putting through a call.
The FDLE agent he was seeking was going to have to call him back, but he would do so shortly. By the time they reached the motel, his phone buzzed.
Amy opened the door to her room, and Hunter followed her in. She heard him speaking to an agent named Carl Winter. And then he listened. And listened. Finally, he thanked the man, ended the call and looked at Amy.
“Well?” she prompted.
“I don’t think there’s a lawman in the state who didn’t think that witness’s suicide was a murder. But there was no way to prove it. It happened during a shift change, and the witness, one Samuel Hornby, was out in the yard, but in a corner. And, of course, no one saw anything. He hanged himself from a fence—with strips ripped off his uniform.”
“Right. Okay,” Amy said, “you want gut feeling? He was murdered. And you want more gut feeling? Ethan Morrison is involved in this somehow.”
“And so is someone local,” Hunter said.
“On to Colby now?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll call Dr. Carver on the way. I want to see if any of the toxicology has come back.”
Before he could make his call, his phone rang. He stood dead still as he listened to the caller, his face darkening and furrowing into a frown.
“Hunter?”
“We’re not going to see Colby now,” he said, and looked at her, meeting her eyes. “We have another victim.”
“Where?”
“Here. Right here,” he said quietly.
7
Fall 1993
Sam
Seconds ticked by. Seconds that were like hours. Every noise in the quiet woods felt like a thunderclap. His own panicky heartbeat seemed loud.
Sam wondered how he had been so blind, so willing to believe. So desperate that there had to be a better world, where a man cared for those around him and the sick and the elderly. Where color and ethnicity, sex and sexual orientation, all were equal.
How?
They had slid into it all slowly. And he was in love. Jessie had been so determined to leave behind everything she had learned during her upbringing.
She’d been pregnant with Cameron, and she and Sam both wanted marriage immediately. When she’d told her parents, they’d demanded she rid herself of the baby—and Sam. She had been raised to so much more. She had the best education. She had them behind her. She could rule the business world.
Maybe they weren’t cruel people—maybe they’d really believed the world they could give Jessie was worth all they asked of her.
And maybe, for some, living life among the elite was something of a religion.
But Jessie, with her generous heart and loving personality, didn’t buy any of it.
Despite all that, it hadn’t been easy for her. She hadn’t finished with the elite education; her pregnancy started to interfere, and she figured she’d have to drop out when the baby was born, anyway. Sam had to work endless hours, which was all right—after those endless hours, he was with Jessie.
But it was somewhere in that time of working, struggling and knowing she could never go home that Jessie became close with an older man she’d met at the park. His name was Robbie, and he referred to himself as Brother Robbie. He told Jess he liked to come to the park, but he lived out in the valley, far from the insanity he sometimes watched in the heart of the city.
Jessie had thought he’d needed help, that he sat on his bench, hungry, but too proud to ask for any kind of handout. She would make sandwiches, go to the park with those sandwiches and convince him she had gotten carried away, and just had too much to eat herself.
He was often there with a gray-haired, middle-aged woman who seemed to be the epitome of kindness. She called herself Sister Sarah.
After Cameron was born, Sarah was a frequent visitor to Sam and Jessie’s little studio apartment. She wanted to help; people all needed help, she told them cheerfully. Then Brother Robbie would come along, as well, and as time passed, they talked about their home out in the valley, a place where everyone worked for the benefit of all.
Robbie talked about God, and the way some truly served Him.
Sam and Jessie had both grown up in traditional religions; they had always had faith.
And slowly, slowly, they had been shown the wonder of the community where Sister Sarah and Brother Robbie lived.