Chapter 1

MIKE

There wasn't much to do in Singer's Ridge on a Friday night. Most of the local kids went to the next town or even as far as Nashville for a good time. I remembered Friday nights as a teen, drinking beer out in the woods behind my friend's farm. We all dreamed of getting away, of joining the Army or moving to the city, anything to banish the small-town blues.

I was back in Singer's Ridge, not for a vacation or a high school reunion, but because my life had been put on hold. It was Friday night. I was faced with the dilemma that all rural folks have to deal with: how to expend energy without fancy concerts or upscale dining. The Lucky Lady was pretty much the only bar in town if you wanted live music and good food. The same regulars turned up week after week, but they brought bands in from out of town. With nothing else to do and nowhere I wanted to go, I drifted there like a tumbleweed on the wind.

"Hey, Clint," I said as I settled myself at the bar.

"Mike," the bartender returned the greeting, a little cold. I couldn't blame him. Everyone in town thought I was a drug dealer. Could be because I was tried and convicted in a court of law, but that didn't make it true.

"A pint of whatever's on tap," I ordered.

Clint drew a pint of wheat ale and handed it over, not offering to run me a tab. He waited patiently while I fished a five out of my pocket. These tiny jabs were never-ending. It seemed once a person was labeled a criminal, that's all anyone ever saw. Just because I had been to prison didn't mean I was going to take my beer and make a run for it. Where would I go? Everyone in town knew me, and without the Lucky Lady to entertain me on Friday nights, I would be miserable.

I had given up trying to explain myself to anyone. Unless I chose to leave town, I would have to put up with their suspicious eyes and the way they treated me differently from everyone else. The whole time I was locked up, I had been aching to get out, to get back to my "normal" life. Now here I was, anything but normal, a pariah in my own hometown.

"Mike?" A familiar voice cut through my internal bellyaching. I swiveled in my seat to see Porter, the last person I ever wanted to talk to.

"Hello," I said, drowning my discomfort in a swallow of beer.

"Mike, it's been so long!" Porter gushed, his eyes wide and watery. "How you been?"

"Fine," I grumbled.

He stumbled up to the bar, leaning against it for balance. "Hey, Millie and I are gonna go out to the lake later tonight. Why don't you come?"

"No, thanks." Millie was Porter's on-again-off-again friend with benefits. She had two kids and lived in a trailer park, though I couldn't judge seeing as how I lived with my parents. I had never liked her and always felt that she was dragging Porter down. That is until Porter showed his true colors and proved himself to be just as much of a headache as Millie.

"Man." Porter ran a hand over his mouth to conceal his next words. "We got somma the good stuff."

I set my beer down, controlling myself so as not to make a scene. "I just did six months in prison for you."

"Shh," he insisted, more worried about the truth than about illicit drug use. "Nobody knows."

I leaned close. "I'm not trying to tell anyone. But I'm also not interested in getting high with you."

Porter grabbed my beer and took a swallow. "You've changed."

"I never wanted to get high with you," I insisted. Thankfully, the music was so loud no one could hear our conversation.

"Yeah, but you didn't use to be such a dick about it," Porter slurred.

"I'm a dick?" I said incredulously.

"That's what I said." He bobbed his head as if his neck were suddenly boneless.

"I took the rap for you, and you didn't even say thank you." I ground out the accusation through clenched teeth.

"Well, thank you," Porter spat back at me, clearly sarcastic.

"You need to sober up," I said. "Get a real job, marry Millie, and stop sneaking around at the lake like a stupid teenager."

"When did you become such an old man?" Porter sneered.

I sighed. Staying here was only going to get me riled up. I didn't need another conviction on my rap sheet for starting a bar fight. I left my half-finished beer on the bar and walked out.

Ilived in an apartment over the garage at my parents' place. They lived in a two-story home behind the lumberyard they co-owned and had started from the ground up twenty years ago. Before my long, sordid history with the law, my dad had been grooming me to take over the place. He taught me how to do the books, introduced me to all the regular customers, and helped me learn how to cut lumber to individual specifications.

It wasn't bad work. Most of the time, you could get lost in the rows and rows of wood, helping people find what they needed, trimming it for them, and loading it onto trucks. It was manual labor, with a bit of customer service thrown in. I was good at it. Even after I did my time, the customers responded well to my charms. I asked them about their farms, about their harvests and their families. They hardly ever brought up my criminal record, and even then, it was mostly to commiserate and say how much they disapproved of the law.

I couldn't let my parents catch me chatting up the customers too much, though. They had a puritanical focus on work—at least my mom did. Anytime I wasn't hauling or cutting lumber, she eyed me suspiciously. Things had never been the same between us after I went away. I had hoped that she would be the one person on my side, but she proved that town gossip was more important to her than her son. I spent my days ignoring her, ignoring my past, and trying to figure out a way to escape.

It wasn't going to happen tonight, though. I had killed my only option for a good time and had nothing better to do than watch television in my room. There was a set of outdoor steps that ran from the driveway to my apartment, and I had just mounted the first stair when I heard a shrill voice.

"Michael?" My mother held the kitchen door open, peering out into the twilight.

I stepped around so she could see me. "Yes?"

She motioned me inside, shutting the door and retreating to the kitchen before I had a chance to comply. I sighed. I really didn't want to talk to her; I wasn't in the mood. I felt like I owed my parents a huge debt, giving me a place to live and a job, which, after a drug conviction, could be hard to come by. I knew they cared, and I didn't want to seem like a spoiled teenager, but sometimes the attitude was more than I could take. I held my breath, pulled off my hat, and stepped inside.

My mom's kitchen was small and butter yellow. It had been renovated in the 1970s to what had then been a modern color scheme. They hadn't touched it since, and through the years it had sunk deeper and deeper into the past. My mom looked like she belonged there too, with her calf-length skirt and white apron. I kissed her obligingly on the cheek, maneuvering past ancient appliances to find my dad reading a newspaper at the table. I pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Where were you?" my mom asked.

"The Lucky Lady," I said, throwing my hat onto the table.

"Care for some dinner?" Dad asked, peeking out over his sports section. "Pot roast."

"Sure." I shrugged. My mom's cooking was fine; I just wasn't very hungry.

Mom went to a cabinet and pulled out something that wasn't a plate. It was a cardboard box with the drug store logo on it. She set it down in front of me with a commanding air. I picked it up, reading the text that was stamped into its generic packaging. Drug test, good for cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methamphetamines, and nine other illegal substances.

"What?" I said, setting the box down.

"Take it," Mom said, gesturing toward the bathroom. "Go pee in the cup."

"All I had was a beer," I protested.

"That's all you say you had," Mom argued. "But you went to jail for drugs."

That hurt. More than any bartender or drunk ex-friend, hearing this same rhetoric from my mom really hit home. How could she raise me for eighteen years, get to know me as a young man, and believe that I would really sell drugs? Shouldn't she have some kind of sixth sense where I was concerned? Shouldn't she know that I had taken the fall for someone else, that I was really a stand-up guy?

"What if I refuse?" I said tersely.

"You want to live in our house. You live by our rules," Mom said.

"I am not on drugs," I snapped.

"Take the test!" Mom yelled.

"Son." Dad put his paper down. "Just take the test. Make your mother happy."

I grabbed the box from the table and stalked into the bathroom. I was so angry. It was hard to get my pants down. I ripped the cardboard open and unscrewed the collection cup. Luckily that half a beer from the bar was sitting on my bladder, so I could do my duty. I screwed the cap back on, left the box with all its testing instruments on top of the toilet, and stormed out.

On the way past, I saw my mother straighten. She thought she was doing what was right. She had no idea how to handle a drug-addicted child, and somebody had probably told her that testing was the answer. I read it in an instant, and it did nothing to ease the betrayal I was feeling. I saw my mom getting her hair done, discussing my "criminal career" with her girlfriends. The image almost made me want to be exactly who everyone thought I was already. I wouldn't do that, of course. I wanted to keep my head down, finish out my probation, and get the hell out of Singer's Ridge as fast as possible. I broke free of the kitchen, out into the night, and up the stairs to my own space.

I had a key that kept even my parents out of my apartment. It was the one privacy they had given me. I stepped inside and locked the door behind me. I wasn't afraid of burglars, or Porter, or of any other ghosts from my past. I just didn't want my mom walking in, disturbing whatever small amount of peace I could find in this world.

It was a studio apartment, with one largish room and a bathroom in the back. I had a cabinet pushed up against one wall with a hot plate and a microwave. There was a mini fridge to complete the kitchenette, allowing me to have a few small meals on my own. The bed was in the center of the room, against one sloping wall. It was a real bed, with a wooden frame and one of those mail-order mattresses. I hadn't wanted to sleep like a squatter on the floor, so one of the first things I had done out of prison was hit up the thrift store for a bed frame. My dad had offered me the lumber if I wanted to make it myself, but it was only $20 at the Resale Shoppe, and it was much less work to buy than to build.

A desk from that same thrift store was planted between the bed and the door. On it, a cheap laptop sat, my window to the world. I played a few video games, watched some internet TV, and kept up with the news. I kept my eye on the job market as well, just in case anything turned up with few requirements and no criminal background check. I had my online banking too—not any fancy package, but the standard service they offered with a checking account.

I sat down, pulled up my bank's website and entered my password. I had $1,200 in my account. As much as my parents pissed me off, they weren't charging me rent. They weren't charging me for food or electricity or internet, so all of the money I earned at the lumberyard went directly into my account. Any clothing, gas, car payments, and insurance were all on me. Still, I had managed to save more than enough for a deposit on a new place. If I could just work my way up to a deposit and first month's rent, I would be golden.

Just one more paycheck, I told myself. One more paycheck and I would start to investigate cabins for rent. I knew there were a few up in the mountains, just far enough out of town to escape the drama. I could put a deposit down and move all my things out of my parents' house. I would still need more funds if I was going to get out of Singer's Ridge altogether, but a cabin in the woods would be a step in the right direction. At least it would get me away from these insulting drug tests.

I sighed, closing down the banking app and calling up YouTube. I watched sports highlights until the sun went down and fell asleep way too early for a Friday night.