Chapter 7

Louis picked up the money and then glanced at Gus Walters. "Saw you talking to that dude who just left. What were you saying?"

Gus shrugged. "He just heard me talking about my boy, asked if he was okay, and how sad it was about the wreck and a dead body being found."

Louis stilled. He already knew through the family that they had purposefully not made mention of this in any of the papers for a reason.

"And…?" Louis asked.

"Oh, I just said she wasn't dead when they found her."

Louis's skin crawled. "What did he say?"

"Something about it being a miracle, then he finished eating and left."

"Oh, yeah, a real miracle," Louis said. "Give me a nod if you want a refill."

"I'm good. I'm gonna quit with the one and get on home," Gus said, and put some money on the bar. "My best to Rachel and Lili."

"Thanks," Louis said. He took the bills to the register, paid them with the money that had been left, put the change in the tip jar, then glanced up at the security cameras to see which ones were aimed at the far end of the bar.

A couple of minutes later, the next shift arrived, readying for the evening rush, and Louis clocked out, then went to the back room and called the police station, asking to speak to Sonny Warren. As soon as Sonny answered, Louis began to explain.

"Chief, it may be nothing, and it may be something, but I just had a stranger at the bar who fed me a line and then began questioning me about Pope Mountain, and people getting lost up there, and how scary it would be to get eaten by a wild animal. I got busy, and then Gus Walters came in and sat down beside him at the bar. I'm taking Gus's order, and he tells me about his oldest boy taking a shortcut across Cameron's land and falling on some glass from that wreck and having to have stitches. I walk off. See the dude head-to-head with Gus, then he pays and leaves. I ask Gus what they were talking about. Gus told him about the driver's body being found in the woods and now the man knows the driver is alive. As soon as he found that out, he left."

Sonny's skin crawled. "Tell me he's on your security footage."

"There were two cameras aimed in that direction," Louis said.

"I'm sending an officer down there right now. Tell Waylon Parker to make me copies, and thanks," Sonny said.

"Sure thing," Louis said. "I just clocked out. I'll help him find the guy on the footage before I leave."

As soon as they ended the call, Louis headed straight for the manager's office, knocked, then walked in and told him what they needed and why. Minutes later, they were in the back room of his office going through the most recent footage from those two cameras.

"There! That's him walking in," Louis said. "And that's him walking all the way past all those empty stools to the one at the far end. The chief is going to want everything he's on, okay? And if you can find him driving up or driving away, it would help them identify what he was driving as well."

"Got it!" Waylon said, and sat down at the computer as Louis walked out.

When the officer arrived and asked for the manager, Waylon came out carrying a flash drive. "This is what Sonny wanted," he said.

"Thanks," the officer said. He dropped the drive into an evidence bag and left.

Waylon wondered what was going on, and then shook it off. Anything to do with criminal activity made him nervous.

As soon as the flash drive landed on Sonny's desk, he quickly plugged it into his computer and started watching. Almost immediately, he thought the man looked familiar. He cropped a headshot and ran it through the database.

It didn't take long for facial recognition to make him.

"Holy shit," Sonny muttered. "That's Carl Henley's boy."

Henley was a well-to-do businessman in Bowling Green, but long suspected to be involved in the drug trade, although they'd never been able to pin anything on him.

Sonny saved the footage, then emailed it to Sheriff Woodley with a long detailed message, then sent the screenshot of Henley's face to the guard on duty at the hospital with a warning, then sent the same thing to hospital security, with a warning not to let that man in the hospital or give him any indication that Carey Eggers was even there.

This was a worst-case scenario evolving before their eyes, and the moment Rance Woodley got the message and saw the footage, he sent it straight to Detective Gardner.

***

Junior was on his Bluetooth, talking to his daddy as he headed out of Jubilee.

"Daddy, it's me. I'm headed back," Junior said.

"What did you find out?" Carl asked.

"The woman's not dead. Some people found her and she's in the hospital in Jubilee. I don't know details."

There was a long silence.

Junior got antsy. "Daddy? You still there?"

"Yes. I'll tend to it from here. Just get on home."

"On the way," Junior said, disconnected, then burped. The jalape?os on his nachos were playing hell. His belly was starting to burn, and so was Carl's, but for a different reason.

Carl picked up the phone to call Gunny, then stopped.

The worst that could happen was Gunny being identified and picked up for the murder. If that happened, it put Carl in jeopardy, because Gunny could link him. What he needed to do was get rid of Gunny and let the woman alone. He needed to think about this. Whatever happened to Gunny needed to look like an accident.

***

Gunny felt the walls closing in. He didn't know where the woman was, but she surely had to be dead. But the longer he sat, the more uncertain he became. He knew his DNA was going to be on Billy, because he hadn't gone in there to fight with anyone, let alone kill them, so he hadn't gloved up. He could explain away his DNA being there because he and Eggers were acquaintances. He could even sell the story that they'd had an argument, but nothing he would have ever killed him for.

He'd already removed his prints from the gun and the remaining ammo before he took them back to Henley. And the truck he'd been driving for the past month was not his. It belonged to Junior Henley. He'd won it from him in a poker game, but Junior had only given him the keys and never signed over the title. It seemed like a good time to return the truck to its legal owner—after he had it wiped clean of his prints. Then everything connected to the Eggers murder would be on Henley premises. Henley had called him dumbass, then called him boy. Henley had, by God, threatened him. He didn't take that shit from anybody.

Gunny's knee was mostly healed, but a little stiff. He winced as he stood up, glanced around the apartment, and knew it was time to disappear. All he needed to take were his clothes and his money stash. The furniture was used when he bought it, so he took a deep breath and headed for the bedroom, thinking, There's no time like the present .

He got his money first, put it inside the lining of the duffel bag, rolled up the clothing he was taking, and packed it in the bag, then proceeded to shave himself bald and shave his facial whiskers into a vandyke beard. He owned two pairs of shoes. One pair was blood-splattered, so he put them in the bottom of a garbage bag, then stuffed the garbage from his kitchen in on top of it, emptied all of the disposable food from the fridge into a box, and carried it all out to the dumpster.

Then he carried his things to the truck and drove to the bus station, rented a locker, and stashed his belongings until he had time to get back, and headed for a car wash with a pair of gloves in the seat beside him.

The sun was going down when he finished cleaning the truck, both inside and out. He got back in, still wearing the gloves, and drove the truck to the alley behind Henley's estate and parked it, threw the keys beneath the mat, locked the truck, and took off walking.

His knee was throbbing, and as soon as he was far enough away, he called a cab to take him to the bus station. After his arrival, he retrieved his belongings, bought a ticket to Miami, Florida, and some food to tide him over on the ride, then sat down to wait. It was just over an hour and a half before that bus departed.

When it finally arrived, Gunny loaded his suitcase. When he boarded the bus, he went all the way to the back, chose a seat in the dark in the far corner, and settled in. Less than fifteen people boarded with him and scattered about the bus to suit themselves. It had been years since Gunny had been on a bus, and he wasn't talking to anybody. He didn't want to be remembered. He wasn't here to make friends.

Once the bus was on the road, and Bowling Green was behind him, he pulled out his burner phone and made a call to the Bowling Green PD.

As soon as the call was answered, he started talking.

"I got a message for the cop in charge of Billy Eggers's murder, so either record this or start writing. Billy Eggers was a friend. DNA don't prove anything except me and Billy had a fight, and it wouldn't have been the first time. It don't prove who shot him. The gun that killed him belongs to Carl Henley. The truck the shooter drove belongs to his son, and I ain't goin' down for their deeds."

Gunny hung up, even as the person on the line was trying to talk to him. He'd just leveled the playing field. It was time for the Henley duo to sit in the hot seat and see how they liked it.

***

When Detective Gardner received the email and the security footage of Trapper's Bar from Sheriff Woodley, he was shocked, but after hearing the phone call they got from Lonny Pryor, he realized Pryor's phone call might be on the level, and all of this had just blown a great big hole in their theory. In all the years they'd been trying to find something to link Carl and Junior Henley to illegal activities, this might be the first break they'd been given.

After running info through the DMV, the description Carey Eggers had given of the truck the shooter was driving turned out to be a match for Junior Henley's truck. And after some online research, they had found photos of Junior standing beside that truck, with the rebel flag in plain sight.

Then Gardner began checking gun registrations and learned Carl Henley owned a number of guns, one of which was a Beretta M9, an older model from the 1990s. Casings from that gun would match the type of one found beneath a chair near Eggers's body and another found near where Carey Eggers was shot.

Knowing he was skating on thin ice, Gardner wrote up a search warrant for Henley's home. And a warrant to search Junior's truck for DNA, using the security footage from Trapper's Bar and Grill as proof that Junior Henley was fishing for information about Carey Eggers. The warrant pointed out that the only way Junior would have known to ask about her welfare was that he already knew what had happened to her and Billy and was trying to find out if the witness to Billy's murder was still alive.

***

Lilah Perry brought doughnuts to work, and after taking one for herself, left the rest of them in the PD break room. She knew the officers were already in the morning briefing, but they'd find the doughnuts. They never lasted past noon.

She sat down at her desk with the doughnut and a cup of coffee and booted up her computer terminal. There were always files to be entered and records to update, and after finishing her sweet, she wiped her hands and got to work.

It wasn't long before she came across a report from an ambulance run up on Pope Mountain that brought in a young woman who'd been shot in the back. She grimaced, thinking about the brutality of humanity, and then noticed the date. It was the night of the big rainstorm. The same night Lonny had shown up at her house with his injured knee. Then she shrugged it off. One thing had nothing to do with another. One of the officers even commented about having some roof damage from the wind, and the clerk where she bought groceries mentioned the wind broke a limb off in their backyard and fell on their roof. It had been a bad night for a lot of people, and with that thought, she went back to work.

***

Conway, Arkansas: July 5

Seven-year-old Ava Dalton learned a long time ago how to shrink herself up as tiny as a mouse by staying silent in the background of her mother's life. Today Ava was wishing she'd learned how to become invisible, too, because Corina had been raving and throwing things for an hour, all because Miss Mattie dropped dead.

"Most inconsiderate bitch I ever knew!" Corina shouted, and threw a shoe across the room. "I finally get the best gig of my life and now this!"

Ava wanted to slip into the bathroom and close the door, but she was afraid to call attention to herself because she was the problem in Corina's life.

She had known all her life that Corina never wanted to be a mother, and yet, here they were. Before Miss Mattie dropped dead, Corina used to dump her at Mattie's house for days, sometimes weeks, before she'd show up again. And when Mattie was unavailable, like the times when she was in the hospital for her asthma, Corina would call everyone she knew until someone said yes, and that's where Ava would be.

Ava didn't have a home, and everything she owned fit in a single garbage bag. Corina had given birth to her as a ploy to get child support and more welfare money, but then the father bailed on her, and all she had left was a kid she didn't want. Ava wasn't sure what was going to happen to her now, but it didn't look good, and she was as scared as she'd ever been, watching Corina going through her call list.

Corina was pretty frantic, too, but in a whole other way and for a whole other reason. She needed a place to dump the kid, but nobody was taking her calls. Maybe she'd overplayed her poor-single-mother hand once too often. She turned, glaring at the tiny blond huddled in the corner.

"Why me, God!" she screamed. "Why me?" and threw the other shoe.

She was at her wits' end when someone knocked on her door. She ran, flung it open, and in grand drama fashion, threw her hand up in the air. "Junie! Am I glad to see you! I thought you and Pete were on vacation!"

Junie Sumner strolled in with an unlit cigarette in one hand and her cell phone in the other, wearing the remains of a healing sunburn beneath a skin-tight white tank top and cutoff jean shorts.

"We just got back, and you will not believe who we saw!"

All of a sudden, Ava was forgotten as Corina and her drinking buddy cozied up to the kitchen table.

"Tell me," Corina said.

"I'll do one better. I'm gonna show you," Junie said, and pulled up the photos from their trip, scrolled through them until she found the ones she was looking for, and slid the phone across the table. "Who does that look like to you?"

Corina frowned, tapped the photos to enlarge the images, and then gasped. "You are fucking kidding me!"

"No. Swear to God," Junie said. "Right there, big as Dallas, Aaron and Wiley Wallace, both in police uniforms. At first I thought they was just look-alikes 'cause their names was different. They wasn't goin' by Wallace. Pete went up and said hi, and sure enough it was them, but they're goin' by the last name Pope. Apparently, it was their mother's name before she was married. Can't blame them none. Who would want to claim kin to Clyde Wallace, right?"

Corina frowned. "Where was it you said you went?"

"Jubilee, Kentucky, to see Reagan Bullard in concert. Pete loves his music."

"They're both cops now?" Corina asked.

"Obviously, girl. Look at their uniforms," Junie said.

"Did you ask them anything or, like, talk to them?" Corina asked.

"Not really, and they didn't look pleased to see us, either. Anyway…I just wanted to show you. Figured you might be interested, considering…well…you know…" she said, and glanced at the little girl in the corner.

Corina started her pitch. "Junie, Miss Mattie dropped dead this morning. I don't have anybody to watch the kid, and I got the gig of my life! I'm going to be working on a cruise ship sailing back and forth along the Mexican coast."

"Great news! You'll find someone," Junie said. "I gotta go. Still need to unpack."

Corina turned on the whine. "I need help bad. I don't suppose you'd be…?"

Junie shook her head. "No, I got my own job."

"Pete doesn't work. He could keep her," Corina said.

Junie frowned. "Pete doesn't do kids. That's why we don't have any," she said. Then she got up, blew Corina a kiss, and walked out.

"I don't do kids, either," Corina muttered, but Junie had already shut the door. She sat for a few minutes, thinking, then got up and poured herself a shot of whiskey, tilted her head, and downed it in one gulp. When she looked up again, the kid was gone. She heard the bathroom door close and then threw the glass against the wall.

She stared out the window, and then it hit her! She did have another option. But she was going to have to take Ava with her on the trip to make it happen. She began throwing all of Ava's clothes into a trash bag.

***

Corina had left Conway late in the evening and driven through the night with Ava in the back seat, using her bag of clothes for a pillow.

Ava didn't ask for anything. Not food or water, or even admitting when she needed to pee. She just held it until Corina had to stop for herself and ate whatever Corina gave her, which was usually the leftovers from what she didn't finish. She didn't know where they were going or what Corina was going to do with her when they got there, but she was scared.

It was just after 8:00 a.m. when Corina drove past the city limits sign in Jubilee, Kentucky. She was primed for war and absolutely certain her luck was about to change. She pulled into a gas station to refuel, then took herself and Ava to the toilet, washed up, and gave Ava a hairbrush.

"Get those damn tangles out of your hair. You look like some homeless kid," Corina snapped.

Ava didn't argue. She just brushed her hair, then waited for food to be the next item on the agenda, but that didn't happen. Instead, Corina asked for directions to the police station, and then they got back in the car and drove away.

Corina was pleasantly surprised by the charm of the tourist attraction, but she wasn't here for pleasure. She had business to attend to, so when they pulled up in front of the police station and parked, she grabbed Ava by the arm and stormed into the station, heading straight to the front desk.

"I need to speak to Aaron Pope!" she said.

Desk Sergeant Walter Winter glanced up. "He's in a meeting. Just have a seat."

Corina glared. "I didn't come all this way to wait!"

"Is he expecting you?" Winter asked.

"No, but—"

Winter's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then have a seat, ma'am."

Corina snorted beneath her breath, yanked Ava's arm hard enough that the little girl winced, and then sat down to wait.

Fifteen minutes went by, and Corina was getting angrier by the minute. Finally, she stood and stomped back to the desk.

"I demand to speak to your police chief! I want to file a grievance against Aaron Pope!"

Winter stood up. "Lady, you don't demand anything here. Sit down."

Corina stomped back to her seat and then slapped Ava's leg.

"Sit up straight!" she hissed.

It was the unnecessary abuse of the child that made Sergeant Winter get up and go into the briefing room just as the meeting was breaking up.

"Chief! We have a problem out front. There's some woman with a kid, and she's waiting to talk to you. Said she wants to file a grievance against Aaron."

Wiley was on his way out the door and pivoted when he heard that. "What the hell? Who is she?" he asked.

Aaron was frowning, wondering who he'd come in contact with in the last few days who could have taken offense at anything he might have done. "Did she give a name?"

Winter shook his head. "I didn't ask. The little girl with her is covered in bruises. I watched her yank the kid's arm so hard she almost pulled her off her feet, and just now, she slapped her leg so hard I heard it from where I was sitting."

Chief Sonny Warren's face turned red. "Bring her and the child into my office. Now."

"Yes, sir," Winter said, and hurried back toward the lobby.

"Aaron, with me," Sonny said.

"I'm coming, too," Wiley said.

"Whatever," Sonny said, and headed for his office.

A few moments later, Winter escorted the woman and child into the police chief's office.

Sonny glanced at the woman, but didn't recognize her. "Thank you, Sergeant Winter. Please close the door on your way out," Sonny said, then focused on the woman. "I'm Chief Warren. You asked to speak to me. Please have a seat and state your name."

Corina blinked. This sounded too much like interrogation.

"My name is…"

But it was Wiley who took a step forward. "Her name is Corina Dalton. She's the hook…I mean, cook from Melvin's Diner in Conway, Arkansas."

Corina glared. Wiley Pope wasn't her target, and she didn't want anything to do with him. He was just enough like Clyde to make her nervous.

"Yes, I'm Corina Dalton."

Sonny was eyeing the woman, but Wiley was looking at the little girl beside her and realized how terrified she was.

"And who is the child with you?" Sonny asked.

Corina pointed. "She's Aaron Pope's child. Her name is Ava!"

Aaron was stunned. "I'm sorry, but I don't know this woman and have never seen her until this moment."

"You're lying! You just want to get out of paying child support! You went and changed your name and skipped out of Conway when she was just a baby, and I didn't know where you went until the other day!"

Wiley snorted. "Now, that's a lie."

"It's no such thing!" Corina shouted and pulled an envelope from the depths of her tote bag. "And this here proves it. It's Ava's DNA test I had run when she was a baby to claim child support."

Aaron looked lost. "Wiley. What the hell's going on? Do you know who…?"

"I know exactly who she is. And there's a real good possibility that DNA test will prove we're related to that little girl, but not as a father. We're likely her brothers. Corina Dalton was one of Clyde Wallace's side pieces for at least four years before he wound up in prison."

Corina gasped. "How do you—"

Wiley's eyes narrowed. "How do I know? Because I saw you two together all over Conway, that's how. Our DNA is on file here. Compare it, Chief!"

Corina paled. This wasn't going as planned.

"So, what kind of scam are you trying to pull here, lady?" Sonny asked.

Corina glanced at Ava, and when she did, Wiley saw sheer terror on the little girl's face, and in that moment saw a tiny, unwanted child—a victim, just as they had been. Only Corina was her monster, just as Clyde had been theirs, and if she was truly Clyde Wallace's child, then she was their sister.

Corina and Aaron and Sonny Warren were arguing, but it was Wiley who knelt down beside Ava. When he started to put a hand on her shoulder, she flinched as if bracing herself for the blow.

"I'm Wiley. What's your name?" he asked.

She glanced at Corina, and then whispered, "Ava."

"Where do you and Mama live?"

"Mostly, Corina leaves me with people like Miss Mattie, but she dropped dead, and now there's no one."

Wiley blinked. She didn't even call her Mama. He looked up at Aaron, and then Sonny. "Ava looks hungry. Okay if I take her to the break room for a doughnut and milk?"

Sonny looked at Corina. "Is it all right with you if—"

"I don't care where you take her," she said. "I need to get this straightened out. I got a job waiting."

Wiley's skin crawled. Jesus wept. What the hell has been happening to this child? He held out his hand. "Want a doughnut?"

She glanced at Corina again, and then got up and followed him up the hall without touching him. As soon as they were in the break room, she crawled up in a chair and watched him take a doughnut out of a box, put it on a paper plate, and get a carton of milk from a dispenser. He opened the milk, popped in a straw, and then sat down on the other side of the table.

"Dig in, Ava."

She ate like she was starving, biting off big bites, barely chewing before swallowing, as if afraid the doughnut would be taken out of her hands before she was through. Watching her eat like this hurt Wiley's heart. He took a picture of her while she wasn't looking and sent it to his mother with a brief text.

Pretty sure this is our half sister. Corina Dalton just sailed into the PD this morning from Conway, trying to claim Aaron as the father to scam money, and I know you know who she is. The child is covered in bruises and scared spitless of her mother. She's so tiny. And she's breakin' my heart. I'm about to go to war for her, Mom. Will you hate me if I do?

He hit Send and waited. Within a minute, he got a response.

God in heaven. No, I won't hate you. What can you do?

He texted back.

Corina doesn't want her. I do. Her name is Ava. I will never sleep again knowing she's somewhere in the world without us.

He waited. Shirley Pope responded again.

See if she'll sign papers to terminate her parental rights. We'll go from there. If this child has been abused all her life, she won't be easy to raise.

He sent one last text.

We were abused all our lives, but we had you. Until today, she had no one. Now she has four brothers. I need to know she's fed and safe at night. She's too quiet. I don't want her to be afraid again. I can't be her daddy, but I can stand in for one. I'm going to give Corina Dalton a deal she won't pass up. Thanks for understanding.

Wiley put the phone back in his pocket, and when Ava glanced up at him, he winked. The thought went through his head that this might complicate matters with Linette, but he'd never be able to live with himself if he let this child go.

When he winked, Ava looked startled and ducked her head, and then a few moments later looked up again. He was still smiling. Maybe he wasn't going to yell.

"That's a pretty good doughnut, isn't it? It came from a bakery here in town. Our aunt Annie owns and runs it. She's a really good baker. We have lots of family here. Do you have family back in Conway?"

She shook her head.

"Not anyone?" Wiley asked.

She ducked her head.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Corina only likes men. I'm a mistake."

The smile slid off Wiley's so fast that Ava froze. She was waiting for an explosion of rage that never came.

"Nobody is a mistake," Wiley said. "If you had a wish, where would you wish to live forever?"

Her eyes widened and, for the first time, welled with tears. "Where nobody yelled. Where I had a bed and a pillow."

Now Wiley's eyes were full of tears. "And who would you live with in this wonderful place?"

"With someone who wanted me."

"What if I wanted you?" Wiley asked.

Ava's lips parted, but all she could do was stare.

"I know we don't know each other yet, but I might be your brother, and if I am, then so are Aaron, and Sean, and B.J., my other brothers. You could live with me, and we would learn to be friends, and then maybe one day you would learn to love me…to love all of us."

"Do you have a wife?" Ava asked.

He thought of Linette. "Almost."

"Does she live with you?"

"Not all the time. But she stays at my house a lot. You would like her. She's a nurse at the hospital in Jubilee."

"Then who would take care of me when you're not there?"

"Who takes care of you now?" he asked.

"Miss Mattie, only she dropped dead. Other people do sometimes, but I stay quiet so they forget that I'm there."

"Well, that's not happening anymore," Wiley muttered. "You'd be in school part of the day, and I'll find you the best babysitter in the world for when I'm at work, and it would be your home forever."

Her eyes got wider. "With a bed and a pillow? I've never had a bed and a pillow."

"Yes, and so much more, and I'll read you bedtime stories and cook your favorite foods and—"

"Do you yell?" she whispered.

He shook his head. "Never. I promise."

She sighed. "Corina's going to work on a big boat."

Awesome. "Are you finished with your milk?"

She nodded.

"Let's wash the sticky off your face and hands and go back now, okay?"

While she was washing, she glanced up at Wiley.

"Are you a giant?"

"No, just a really tall man."

She nodded, satisfied with that answer. "If I lived with you, what would I call you?"

"Well, I'm your brother, and my name is Wiley."

"I can't call you Daddy, can I?"

His heart broke a little bit more. "Your daddy and my daddy are the same man, so I don't think that would work."

"A girl at my school has a big brother. She calls him Bubba."

Wiley was watching every nuance of her expressions. "Would you like to call me that?"

She looked doubtful. "What if Corina won't let me stay?"

"Don't worry, sugar. I've got this," Wiley said, and this time when he held out his hand, she took it.