“Can I play here?”
“No, son. Now, this is important. No one else knows this is here. Just Mr. Bill and me. And now you. It’s a secret. We’re going to cover the top soon, so you’ll have to dig it out. Memorize where it is, okay?”
I nod, then ask, “Why does it have to be a secret?”
He looks at me for a solid three seconds. “Because most bad guys have no idea they’re bad,” he says. “This factory is doing good for the town and for us. But that magic we’re making… sometimes it’s more like a dragon. Sometimes I worry it’ll burn this whole town to the ground.”
AMA Chapter 12 | 6:45 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
JONATHON’S CHILDHOOD STORY FILLED THE cave made by the stack of trees, painting the black of night with darkness of a different kind.
“The big explosion happened a month later. I can still hear the sirens.” Jonathon closed his eyes. “Just as loud in my mind as they were that day. I was at school. Fifth grade. Ms. Terry’s class. She dropped the piece of chalk, and we all looked out the classroom window like we might see something. I don’t know what we expected. Smoke or flames. I remember every cloud in the sky looked like it had wings and a tail.”
“Was your dad there?” Ama asked. She’d heard mention of the Evansbrite plant during her brief tenure in Tarson, seen files slide across senior partners’ desks and into the shredder. In her lap, her fingertips fluttered against the ends of the cables, but it was no use. Every move pulled them tighter. Still, she couldn’t stop trying.
“He was a mechanic there to start, but he was the kind of person everyone turned to in a room. Bit by bit, he had a hand in most things that happened in the factory.” Jonathon’s eyes opened, but they were fixated on something far away. He blinked, and they cleared. “Ms. Terry had us hide under our desks for a few minutes. Then the principal came room to room and told us all to go home. The buses came early, but I walked past my bus, down the road, and into Tarson Woods.”
“You went to the factory.” Ama abandoned her wrists, shifted her position onto one hip, drawing her knees up to block Jonathon’s view of her hands, and felt along the ground for anything sharp. Her fingers lit upon a skinny stick, but the wood was soft with moisture and rot.
“Everyone was standing outside the fence, looking at the building. There were a few people in those big hazmat-type suits. At the time I wondered if they were some kind of armor, like they were going in to slay the magic gone wrong.” He looked Ama square in the face. “But no one else went in that day.”
“And your dad?” She had to keep him talking, keep him distracted, hoping it would be enough to throw off whatever plan he was on just enough to make him reconsider.
“You never met him or you’d know. My dad was never one to run from a monster.”
“He was still inside?”
“The explosion had destroyed the elevator that went to the basement, and there were no stairs. He was inside the processor. He had gone inside to try to disconnect everything because the control panel shorted out. They didn’t get him out until the next morning.”
“Was he still alive?”
“Technically. They cleared an entire floor of the hospital. We weren’t allowed to see him, and the doctors who went in wore lead aprons. My mother and I sat in the hallway in plastic chairs and slept on gurneys in the maternity ward that night. Mother would hear newborn babies cry, and she would sob and scream. They sedated her more than once, but even then, tears would leak out of her eyes.”
Jonathon cleared his throat, and the boyish roundness of recollection evaporated from his face, replaced with edges and shadows. “A doctor and a man in a black suit came up to us to tell us there would be no saving him. That they had no idea how he was still alive. His vitals were erratic and off the charts. They wanted to run tests, not to keep him alive but to research. My mother was horrified. She slapped the man in the suit across the face and meant to strike him again, but he caught her by the wrist and said, ‘This is all going to be very, very expensive for someone. If you let us test him, we will cover his medical bills. If you don’t, I am afraid the costs of all his care will fall on you.’ ”
“That can’t be legal,” Ama said.
“The factory representative said that they’d ordered an evacuation but my father refused to leave and disobeyed direct orders to try to stop the leak. Apparently, that decision alleviated the company of all responsibility for his care. That’s what you’d say if it were your case, isn’t it? That’s what you do. You find loopholes in laws and agreements and slide a guilty person right through it.” His eyes darkened under the hood of his brow.
“I…” Ama paused and clamped her mouth shut, reconsidering. Lying to this man would not serve her well. “I am good at what I do, yes. I can twist technicalities and mine doubt from a thousand-foot cave of evidence, yes. But I honed my craft. I sharpened my tools so I would be ready to defend a wrongly accused defendant.”
Jonathon leaned back, watching her. “Tell me,” he said. “Have you ever met one of those?”
MARTIN Chapter 13 | 6:50 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
MARTIN’S DIRECT PHONE LINE RANG, startling him and bringing his thoughts back inside the station walls. His mind had been attempting to turn what few pieces he had into pieces that fit into something… anything. He hadn’t noticed how dark it’d become outside. He glanced at his watch before reaching for the phone. It was a quarter to seven.
“Tarson PD, Detective Locklear speaking,” Martin said.
“It’s Briggs. Captain wants you to come to the trailhead parking lot,” Briggs said, his voice serious. “And to bring more flashlights and batteries.”
Martin dropped the phone in its cradle and stood. Reluctance spread through him as he peered out the window. Fog surrounded the building, and what trees were still visible glistened with clinging rainwater. Searching for this woman wasn’t going to be easy. She was probably lost, and lost wasn’t a crime scene. Maybe he should call the captain and remind him. He was close to something in the Hazel Rae Stevens case. He could feel it. Although maybe it was the anniversary more so than an actual break.
He shook the remnants of her case from his brain, shouldered on his coat, gathered flashlights and batteries, and headed for his car.
White fog curtained anything beyond the hood of his car from sight, and the drive to the trailhead took twice as long as it should have. The blue lights from the other officers’ cars finally appeared, acting like a beacon. He relaxed, releasing his grip on the steering wheel, and rolled into the parking lot. The captain headed for his car the moment he pulled in.
“What do we know?” Martin asked as he opened his door.
“We don’t know shit,” Captain replied.
“Okay.” Martin paused. “So where should I start?”
“Did you bring the flashlights?” Captain held out his hand.
“In a box in the back seat.” Martin pointed behind him.
“Well, congrats on a job well done. Go home. We’ll see you in the morning,” Captain said, retrieving the box from Martin’s car.