Chapter 31

31

August 2000

Agent Santos knocked on Randolph's motel room door just before dawn on the morning of Sunday, August 13. She and Agent Randolph were staying at the Burden Inn, a low-rise motor lodge that was as grim as its name. It was clean at least.

He answered, ready for the day, wearing his suit jacket and tie.

Santos stepped into the room and was met with stale, hot air. The room was like an oven. "Shit," Santos hissed. "Is your air conditioner not working."

"No," Randolph said, but he wasn't even breaking a sweat.

"I got a message to call the medical examiner at the state lab. I'm hoping she's got some results for us." Santos sat at a small desk and reached for the phone while Randolph tried to coax the air conditioner into operation.

"Yes, this is Camila Santos. Dr. Foster, please," she said. "I'm returning her call."

The air conditioner shook and rattled but whatever Randolph did to it seemed to be working. Semicool air breezed across her forehead. Santos sat up when she heard a voice on the other side of the line and Randolph looked on as she listened and jotted a few notes.

"You're sure?" Santos asked, setting down the pen. "Why would someone do that?" At the response, she gave a little chuckle. "No, I think that's why they pay you the big bucks. Thanks for letting us know—we'll add this to the list of things that don't make sense about this case."

Santos hung up the phone and looked up at Randolph who was watching her expectantly.

"The Doyles were shot with more than one gun," Santos said, getting to her feet.

"We did find two types of shell casings at the scene, so that's no surprise," Randolph said. "So we've got two shooters and two guns."

"Or one shooter, two guns," Santos suggested. "Where the Doyles were shot, that's what's interesting," Santos explained. "William Doyle was shot in the throat with a 9 mm and again in the exact same spot with a shotgun. Same with Lynne Doyle, except in the chest."

"Maybe to conceal the type of firearm used," Randolph mused. "We know Ethan Doyle had access to a shotgun, did he have a handgun too?" Randolph asked. "But they had to know that eventually we'd find out what kind of weapons were used. Seems pretty calculated for a sixteen-year-old."

"I agree," Santos said, "but it's possible. If we're looking at a Bonnie and Clyde crime scene, maybe Ethan and Becky both shot the Doyles. Kind of like a pact—I'll do it if you do it kind of thing."

"Maybe, but if that's not the case, why?" Randolph asked.

Santos thought about this a minute. "If I killed someone with my 9 mm, it might be beneficial if someone thought a shotgun did the deed. It makes a bigger hole, does more damage. It would buy me some time at least."

"Shotgun beats 9 mm," Randolph said, heading to the door.

"Every single time," Santos agreed.

Farmwork didn't end with death. Matthew Ellis needed to care for the animals at his daughter and son-in-law's farm. Though Caroline and Matthew were hesitant to let Josie come along, she begged to. She didn't want to go anywhere near the house but wanted to visit the goats and see if Roscoe had come home.

Though it was early, and the sun was just rising, the heat was going to be as unrelenting as the day before. Temperatures were forecast to hit a hundred and four degrees with the heat index.

They made the short drive to the house without seeing any other vehicles. No volunteer searchers had yet arrived, and only one deputy was stationed at the top of the lane.

When Matthew slowed his truck to pull into the drive, the deputy waved at him to keep moving. "Hey," he said, "you can't come in here."

In the passenger's seat, Caroline straightened her spine. "This is my daughter's house," she said through the open window. "I want to talk to who's in charge."

"Yes, of course," the deputy apologized. "I'm sorry for your loss. Go on through. You can pull right into the drive. Another deputy will meet you down there."

Matthew parked in front of the house and they stepped from the truck. Josie looked up at the house. Homes were supposed to be safe havens, meant to protect. It was supposed to be a shelter from the elements, a fortress to keep out evil, and her home had betrayed Josie in the worst possible way.

"We'll go and tend to the animals," Matthew said. "Are you sure you want to go in the house?" he asked Caroline.

"I'll be fine," she said stoically. "I'm just going to get a few things for Josie."

Matthew and Josie watched as Caroline and the deputy made their way into the house.

Josie imagined her grandmother having to walk through the house, up the stairs, past the room where her daughter died, then having to step across the bloodstained carpet in her room. Josie didn't know how she could do it, knowing what had happened to them. Josie vowed to never step foot in that house ever again.

From behind them came the sound of footsteps. They turned to see Margo Allen coming toward them.

Matthew was surprised. After what had happened the day before, he wasn't expecting Margo to come back to the house, but he understood it. This was where her daughter was last seen. When she dropped Becky off, she had been healthy, happy, safe. And now she was gone.

He reached out his hand to her, but she let it hang in the air.

Despite the heat, Margo wore an oversized sweatshirt and jeans. Her eyes were puffy and her skin mottled from crying. Josie wondered if she looked like that. As if one wrong word, one wrong look would shatter her into a million pieces.

"I just wanted to talk to Josie for a minute," Margo said, her lips trembling. "Will that be okay? If we just talk for a minute?"

"I don't know." Matthew hesitated, looking around for someone to tell him what to do.

"I just want to know what happened," Margo said. "The police won't tell me anything." She turned to Josie, took her hand in her own. Josie wanted to pull free, but Margo held tight. "I just want to know how you were able to get away and Becky wasn't."

Josie looked to her grandfather. "Now, Mrs. Allen," he began.

Margo focused her attention on Josie. "No, no, it's okay. I'm glad you're safe. You got outside, right? They said you were outside, but where was Becky? Was she in the house?" Margo's voice rose. "Did you leave her in the house with him or did she get out too? I'm just not sure why they won't tell me anything. But you'll tell me, won't you? You'll tell me what happened."

"I'm so sorry about Becky," Matthew said. "Everyone's doing all they can to help find her."

"Not everyone," Margo said shrilly. "Not me. They said I shouldn't. They said it would be better if I stayed home and waited. But I can't wait. I need to know what happened."

Matthew looked around desperately for someone to help him comfort the poor woman, but there was no one.

"They think that maybe Becky had a crush on Ethan," Margo said, squeezing Josie's hand even more tightly. "Do you think he might have taken her?"

"No!" Josie exclaimed. "He wouldn't," she said, trying to wrench her hand free.

"She's only thirteen," Margo said plaintively. "Why would he be interested in a thirteen-year-old? She's just a baby," Margo said, her face pale and desperate with grief.

"Hey, now," Matthew said sharply. "Ethan didn't do anything. He's missing too. Let her go," he said, peeling Margo's fingers from Josie's. Margo finally released them, leaving behind half-moon indentations on Josie's skin.

"I just want to know where my daughter is!" Margo cried out. "We're getting calls," she said, tears streaming down her face. "Did you know that? We're getting calls from someone saying he's Ethan and that he has Becky. Do you know what that's like? Do you?"

"My grandson would never do that," Matthew said, his voice choked with emotion. "It's someone else. Now, I have to ask you to leave. I'm sorry, but you shouldn't be here."

The raised voices carried, and the deputy and Caroline came hurrying from the house. "Ma'am," the deputy said, "Step over here and we'll talk."

"I want to know where my daughter is," Margo begged. "Please." Her eyes searched Josie's. "Please, they won't tell us anything. Please, Josie, you're Becky's best friend, don't you want to help her?"

Josie couldn't answer. Caroline held her arms out as if trying to be a barrier between Josie and Margo. The deputy gently tried to lead Margo away.

Margo stepped around Caroline and gripped the wrist of her injured arm. Josie cried out in pain. "Your brother did this, didn't he?" Margo said between clenched teeth. "Why? Why would he take my baby?"

The deputy stepped in then and pried Margo's fingers from Josie's wrist. "Stop. You're hurting her," he said in a low, firm voice.

"I just want to talk to Josie for a minute. Please," Margo said. "I need her to tell me what happened."

The deputy who was posted at the top of the lane came trotting toward them. "Ma'am, you can't be here." He stepped between Margo and Josie while the other deputy whisked Josie quickly away. The next thing she knew, she was sitting in the back of a deputy's vehicle parked next to the tent.

"You'll be fine in here," the deputy said, turning on the car and cranking the air-conditioning so that lukewarm air puffed from the vents. "She doesn't mean anything by it," he said. "She just wants to find their daughter."

Josie knew this was true. She wanted to find Becky and her brother too, despite the suspicions that kept creeping into her thoughts.

Josie watched as the deputies spoke with Margo and her grandmother, their voices growing louder, more frustrated.

Finally, Margo threw her hand up in the air and rushed toward the deputy's car.

"Josie, where is Becky?" she called out as she tried unsuccessfully to wrench open the car door. She pressed her hands against the window. "Open the door, Josie," she ordered.

"Where. Is. My. Daughter!" Margo pounded out each word and the glass quivered beneath her fist. Josie slid to the car floor and covered her head with her arms.

"Ma'am, come away from the car," the deputy said. There was quiet for a moment, then a wounded shriek that sent a spasm of dread down Josie's spine.

I want to die, Josie thought as Margo Allen's cries grew fainter. But if she couldn't die, this was where she belonged, on the floor of a deputy's car, her face pressed to the floor mat, gritty with dirt from criminals and drunks and bad people.

Deputy Levi Robbins tapped his steering wheel impatiently. He was agitated. He couldn't shake the feeling that Brock Cutter knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on.

It was looking more and more like Ethan Doyle killed his parents and took the Allen girl with him. Or maybe he killed her too, dumped her body, and took off. The evidence was mounting against him: the tension with his family, the alleged harassment of the ex-girlfriend, the shotgun found in the field. And now he learned that the Allen family was receiving phone calls from someone claiming to be Ethan Doyle.

And as the case against Ethan was growing, so was his suspicion of Cutter. He was with Ethan Doyle the day of the murders, was near the scene of the crime soon after, and was trying to cover his own ass by lying to law enforcement.

He didn't have high hopes of finding him at home. Brock wouldn't be eager to talk now that he'd been found to be lying about his whereabouts the night of the murders.

He was so tired. Dirt tired, as his grandpa used to say. If he was smart, he would go home and get a few hours of sleep, but with every second that passed, chances of finding Becky Allen alive were getting less likely.

On his drive to the Cutter house, he passed three roadblocks and what looked like a pair of search dogs and their handler. The state police were pulling out all the stops. Excitement bloomed in Levi's belly. He was onto something with Brock Cutter; he knew it.

The Cutters lived a mile from the Doyle farm and Levi knew there was bad blood between the two families. He had even been called out to deal with a few of their disagreements over the years: a fertilizer spill, damaged crops, a few missing animals. Nothing ever came of the reports, just more resentment. This was one of the reasons that Levi was surprised that Brock and Ethan were supposedly friends. This wouldn't have gone over well with the parents.

Levi drove down the Cutter lane and parked in front of the sprawling rust-colored brick ranch home surrounded by three hundred acres of corn and soybeans. Beef cattle grazed in a far-off field.

Before Levi even stepped from the car, Deb Cutter was at the front door. "Hello," she called out. "Is everything okay?"

"All's well, ma'am," Levi said, keeping his voice light, conversational. "You heard about what happened over at the Doyle farm the other night?"

"Of course, everyone's heard about that," Deb answered, twisting a dishrag in her hands. "Another deputy was out here yesterday. I told them I thought I heard the shots."

"What time was that?" Levi asked.

"Around midnight or a bit later," Deb said. "I didn't realize what it was until I heard the news. Terrible, just terrible."

"It is," Levi agreed. "And that's why I'm here. I've been sent out to talk to Ethan Doyle's friends. See if they had any insights as to where he might be."

"Brock and Ethan are not friends," Deb said sourly. "We told those two boys to stay away from each other. Nothing good ever came out of those two boys being in the same space with one another."

"I understand, ma'am, but you know boys." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Sometimes they don't do what we know is best for them, right?"

Deb gave a little smile as if she knew exactly what Levi was talking about. "Maybe come back later, when my husband is home," she suggested.

"Sure, but the thing is," Levi said, running a hand through his hair. "We're running out of time. The longer it takes to find those two kids, the less likely we're going to be able to. And as a mom, I think if the shoe was on the other foot, and Brock had gone missing, you'd sure appreciate any and all the help someone could give."

Deb considered this. "Brock's not home, but I can have him call you when I see him."

"Any spots you can think of that he might be right now? Any bit of information can help. Brock probably might not even be aware that he knows something." Levi waited while Deb Cutter mulled this over, then added, "After two days, chances are we won't find Ethan and Becky alive."

Deb shook her head at the tragedy of it all. She couldn't imagine losing her son. Brock was wild, but he always came home. What if one day he didn't? She would be heartsick. Terrified. "You might try the old Richter farm. Randy's setting up a hog confinement over there. Brock's been helping out."

"Thank you, Mrs. Cutter," Levi said, "and if you can think of anything else, don't hesitate to call."

"Of course," Deb said. "I'll do anything I can to help."

Levi climbed back into his car and cranked the air. The Richter farm was only a few miles away, but he felt like he was going on a wild-goose chase. He would talk to the Cutter kid even if he had to chase him across all of Blake County.

The old Richter place was exactly how it sounded. Broken down and desolate. The farmhouse was crumbling and all that remained of most of the outbuildings were piles of barn boards. It smelled even worse. A combination of decomposed swine fecal matter and urine, creating a thick stink that made Levi's eyes water.

Levi stepped from the car and examined the landscape. No vehicles were parked nearby, and except for the snuffle and grunt of the hogs locked away in the confine, the place appeared to be deserted.

Levi made his way around the house. The gray paint had faded, bleached by the sun and scoured by the elements. It was uninhabitable, the windows and doors covered with plywood, the guts shucked down to the studs. Levi remembered hearing something about a farm auction after the death of Leland Richter, the eighty-six-year-old man who insisted on staying in his home until his death a few months ago. Randy Cutter must have had the winning bid, though it didn't look like he won much of anything.

A flash of movement caught his attention, and Levi eyed the long metal building that held the pigs. Something or someone had moved around the corner and out of sight.

Jesus, now he'd have to go check out the confine. Hogs gave him the willies. They could be mean sons of bitches with their tiny black eyes and flat, snuffling snouts. They ate just about anything you put in front of them, including flesh.

Levi strode toward the confine and when he turned the corner Brock Cutter was sitting in the bed of his truck, taking a swig from a bottle in a brown paper bag.

"Hey, Brock," Levi called out. "I've been looking for you." In surprise, Cutter fumbled the bottle and it fell to the ground, the dry soil quickly sucking up the liquid.

"Jesus, you scared me," Cutter said, scrambling from the back of the truck.

"I scared you, huh?" Levi asked as he approached Cutter. "Let me tell you who is probably scared out of her mind right now—Becky Allen."

"I don't know anything about that," Cutter said, kicking at a clod of dirt.

"You sure about that, Brock?" Levi asked, inching closer, forcing Cutter to move backward. "Didn't your truck have a cover on it the last time I saw you? When was that? Oh, yeah, the night William and Lynne Doyle were murdered and Ethan Doyle and Becky Allen disappeared."

"I wasn't there. I don't know what happened," Cutter said, cocking his chin defiantly.

"But you were nearby," Levi said, poking a finger at Cutter's chest. "I pulled you over, remember? You were driving like a madman and sweating like a pig when I stopped you." Levi gave a little chuckle at his own joke. "You told me some bullshit about being at a movie with your cousin. And you had a cover over the bed of your truck. Why'd you take it off?"

"I just did," Cutter said. "And it's none of your business. I can do whatever I want. It's my truck."

"Looks pretty clean," Levi said, eyeing the truck up and down. "Looks like it's been recently scrubbed out. What'd you do that for, Brock?" he asked. "Trying to get rid of some evidence, maybe?"

"No!" Cutter protested. "I keep my truck clean. I like it clean."

"And the cover?" Levi pushed.

"My dad wants me to move some of these barn boards." Cutter gestured toward a pile of lumber. "People pay money for crap like that. I needed to take the cover off so I could load the truck."

"What do you think we'd find if we got a forensics team out here to check things out?" Levi asked.

"Nothing! You won't find anything," Cutter said, his face red with heat and indignation. He tried to move past Levi, who sidestepped right along with him.

"You're probably right." Levi sighed. "If I wanted to get rid of evidence, I'd probably toss it in with the hogs." Levi reached over Cutter's shoulder and pounded on the confinement building. Startled by the sound, inside the pigs squealed and snorted and jostled for position. "Let's go take a look." Levi grabbed Cutter by the elbow and frog-marched him to the doors of the hog house.

"Hey, hey!" Cutter cried. "You can't do this—let me go."

"I tried to be nice to you, Brock. You were speeding, probably drunk or high, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt the other night because I grew up with your cousin, who happens to be a nice guy. You, on the other hand, are a little shit.

"Then the next time I see you, you lie to me and say you hadn't seen Ethan or Josie or Becky at all the day of the murders. Come to find out that you had seen them and proceeded to feel up a thirteen-year-old girl."

"I nev..." Cutter began, but Levi shook him into silence.

"Are you calling Josie Doyle a liar, Brock?" Levi asked. He knew he was on the edge of losing control, but he was so tired and time was running out. They had search dogs and roadblocks and hundreds of people looking for Ethan Doyle and Becky Allen and had come up with nothing.

Levi would bet his badge that Cutter knew something, probably more than something. He probably knew a lot, and neither of them was leaving this godforsaken cesspool of pig shit until Levi knew what it was.

Levi yanked the door to the hog barn open and shoved Cutter inside. The smell was overwhelming and Levi swallowed back the urge to gag. "Hogs eat everything you put in front of them, but I bet you already know that, don't you?"

"Let me go, man, you're crazy," Cutter tried to squirm away, but Levi held tight.

"Now, Brock, if you have any information about what happened to the Doyles and where Ethan and Becky Allen are at, you need to tell me right now."

"Fuck you," Cutter spat.

In one swift move, Levi kicked Cutter's feet out from beneath him so that he fell to the ground, his fingers landing just inches from the hogs rooting along the edges of their pen.

Cutter tried to pull his hand back but, Levi lowered the heel of his shoe atop Cutter's wrist, pinning it into place. Levi watched as the hogs' fleshy, leathery snouts snuffled at Cutter's fingers, their sharp canines grazing across his knuckles.

"Okay, okay!" Cutter cried out. "Ethan had a thing for that Allen kid. He was all over her that day."

Levi removed his foot from Cutter's wrist and pulled him up by the collar of his shirt.

"You can't do that shit," Cutter exclaimed, his eyes wide. "You're not supposed to do that!"

"What else?" Levi asked, ignoring Cutter's protests.

"Ethan hated his parents. Hated them. Said he wished they were dead," Cutter said, sliding his arm across his dripping nose.

"So Ethan said he wanted his parents dead?" Levi asked. "He told you that?"

Cutter nodded. "He couldn't stand it in that house. He couldn't wait to be rid of them. He told me."

"You better not be lying to me, Brock," Levi said as he pulled him from the hog barn.

"I'm not. I promise," Cutter insisted.

"When was the last time you saw Ethan, Josie, and Becky?" Levi asked.

"I don't know, after dinner. Around six or so. We went shooting," Cutter said.

"Shooting?" Levi asked. This was the first he heard of this.

"Yeah, just at targets, though. It was nothing. We shot a few rounds and I went home."

"But you were driving around after midnight, why?" Levi asked.

"I don't know, I was just bored," Cutter said. Levi grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and started dragging him back toward the hog barn. "Okay, okay," Cutter said, twisting away from his grasp. "After Ethan's dad made him walk home for not handing over the shotgun, I met up with him. We drove around, went to Burden because Ethan wanted to talk to that old girlfriend of his."

"Kara Turner?" Levi clarified.

"Yeah. We stopped to see Kara and her dad was pissed. Then we drove around for a while, shot a few more shells, then I dropped him off at the top of the lane and left."

"What time was this?" Levi asked as they moved into the shade of a gnarled crab apple tree. The fallen ones squished beneath their feet, emitting a smell more like rotten cabbage than apples.

Cutter gnawed at his lip. "I don't know, around eleven, I guess. I'm not sure."

"I stopped you at about one, Brock," Levi reminded him. "What were you doing for the next two hours?"

Cutter's shoulders sagged. He knew he was caught. Levi crossed his arms and waited.

"I wasn't ready to go home yet, so I drove around some more and then parked." Cutter reached up and plucked a crab apple from the limb above him, rolled it around in his fingers. "I smoked a little bit. Listened to music." Levi didn't ask him what he was smoking.

"Where'd you park?" Levi asked, swiping the apple from Cutter's fingers.

"I don't know, some gravel road," Cutter said. "Can I go now?"

"No," Levi said shortly. "You can tell me what you saw while you were sitting on that gravel road. What you saw that made you tear down the road at ninety miles an hour."

"I didn't see anything, I swear," Cutter insisted. Levi stared him down. "I heard the shots, okay," Cutter said, his voice thick with emotion. "A bunch of them. And I thought, he did it, he really did it . Then I sat there for a long time, trying to tell myself that I was wrong, but then I heard more shots and got scared and left. I drove around some more completely freaked out and then you stopped me."

"Okay, good," Levi said, clapping Cutter on the shoulder. "Now, don't you feel better telling me the truth?" Cutter looked like he didn't but nodded.

"Now what?" Cutter asked. "Can I go now?"

"Sorry," Levi said, tossing the apple to the ground. "Now you get to tell me the whole story all over again. From the beginning."

Josie heard the click of the car door opening and peeked up from her spot on the floor to see a deputy and her grandfather. "It's safe to come out now. She's gone."

Josie didn't want to get out of the car. The world outside was too hard, too painful. She turned her head away.

"Come on, now, Shoo," he said wearily. "You're too big for me to carry you. Get on up and walk."

Josie had always thought of her grandfather as old, but at that moment, the man standing before her looked ancient. His skin was pulled tight against his skull and purple veins mapped his forehead. His eyes were red rimmed and the skin beneath deeply creviced.

Josie stepped from the car, looked around for any sign of Becky's parents. "The sheriff took her away," Matthew explained.

Josie's eyes widened. "They took her to jail?" she asked in disbelief.

"No, no," Matthew said, putting an arm around his granddaughter and leading her past the tent and toward the house. "They took her to a quiet place where they could talk. She's pretty upset, Shoo. Their little girl is missing. Don't be too hard on her."

"But they think Ethan killed Mom and Dad and took Becky," Josie cried, unable to stave back the tears.

"People don't think straight when they're scared," Matthew explained. Josie leaned into his thin frame as they walked. "And you're probably going to hear people say a lot of bad things about Ethan. They're looking for someone to blame and Ethan's that person right now. But we know better, don't we? We know Ethan couldn't hurt anyone, right?"

"Right," Josie sniffled. But she wasn't sure if she believed it. She saw the look on Ethan's face after he fired the gun into the air. She heard the anger in his voice when he was arguing with her father. "They're going to take Ethan to jail when they find him, aren't they?"

"We don't know anything for sure," Matthew said. "We just have to be patient until all this gets sorted out. And whatever happens, we'll be okay."

Josie wanted to believe her grandfather.

Ignoring the spasms of pain in her arm, Josie ran across the yard to the barn, eager to see the goats. Once inside, she looked up at the rustic beams that ran the length of the ceiling like the ribs of a great, benevolent beast and breathed in the scent of the fresh straw her grandfather must have spread out for the goats in the feed bunks, several eight-foot long, three-foot deep trenches that ran down the center of the barn.

Out of the corner of her eye, Josie saw a figure step into the barn. At first, she thought it was her grandfather coming to collect her, but this person was too tall and broad shouldered, too sure-footed to be Matthew Ellis. As he came closer, Josie could see it was Randy Cutter, Brock's father.

Randy didn't seem to know that Josie was sitting just a few yards away from him. There was something cold, calculating in the expression on Randy Cutter's face. Something that made her want to stay hidden, unseen even in her own barn.

Josie eyed the distance from the pen to the barn door. It wasn't far, but with her injured arm, she wouldn't be able to run very fast. She had no specific reason to be afraid of Randy, but she knew her parents didn't like him.

Josie thought of Agent Santos's question about whether her parents had any conflicts with anyone. Josie's father wasn't a great fan of Randy Cutter or his father, a blustering, red-faced man who was slowly gobbling up all the farmland that came for sale. He won't stop until he gets a thousand acres, William observed.

But Randy Cutter hadn't been able to get his hands on the farmland that William and Lynne Doyle had their hearts set on though he tried mightily.

The feud, if that was what you could call it, lasted for years and bled into their day-to-day lives. There were fences that William Doyle was sure Randy Cutter had damaged and calls to the sheriff about wayward cattle. And there was Ethan's friendship with Randy's son, Brock. That didn't sit well with either family.

Randy stood in the center of the barn and slowly turned in a circle, his eyes scanning the great expanse. He shouldn't be here , Josie thought. People didn't just walk into another person's barn. Not without permission. He continued his slow spin until he was facing Josie. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then he looked down as if embarrassed for getting caught.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you. I was looking for your grandpa," Randy said, pulling his red McDonough Feed and Seed cap from his head and kneading it between his large fingers.

"Josie," came Matthew's raspy voice. "Time to go." Then seeing Randy, his face changed, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Can I help you?" he asked Randy.

"No, no," Randy said in a rush. "I was just stopping in to see if there was anything I can do to help out. See if you needed any help with chores and such. I'm so sorry about what happened. Man," he shook his head, "I just can't imagine."

After Matthew sent Randy Cutter on his way, Josie stayed close to her grandfather as they did the chores. He milked the nannies while Josie watered and fed the goats. Flies buzzed about Josie's head as she scooped grain into the feed bunks and then added fresh hay atop the loose hay that was already there.

Josie got to the final bunker and started pouring in the grain when a putrid odor filled her nose. She covered her face with her hand. Goats had a strong scent, especially the billy goats, but that wasn't what she smelled.

It was a distinctive odor. Animals were always dying on the farm. Whether it be a goat, chicken, or a nighttime visitor like a possum or raccoon, animals died, and their stink was unmistakable. Josie knew that she couldn't let the goats feed from bunks that contained a carcass. She was carefully pawing through the three feet of hay that lined the bottom of the bunk in search of the animal when she saw it. The deep indigo of denim. Josie paused. It was so out of place, so foreign a sight, it took a moment for her to register what she was seeing.

Josie tugged on the fabric, but it resisted. She brushed away more hay and more denim appeared. A shudder crept up her spine as the smell grew stronger. Josie knew she should stop and get her grandfather, but still, she swept aside the hay, slowly working her way up the length of the bunk until the dark blue turned pale, not much lighter than the hay it was sitting in.

Still not sure what she was seeing, Josie leaned in more closely to get a better look. It was a hand, palm facing upward. Cupped as if ready to receive something, a coin or communion. Then Josie saw them. The scars. He had gotten them when he fell into a barbwire fence when he was fourteen. Tore the flesh clean across his palm in a ragged X.

It was Ethan.