Chapter 11

11

Faith Mitchell stared at the clock on the wall.

5:54 in the morning.

Exhaustion had slammed into her body like a tank that was on fire. She had been fueled by a sense of urgency as she'd battled her way through horrendous traffic to get here, but all of that had come to a screeching halt inside the waiting room of the Dillon County Sheriff's Office.

The front door had been unlocked, but no one was at reception. No one had answered her knock on the locked glass partition or appeared when she rang the bell. No cruisers were parked in the empty lot. No one was answering the phone.

For the millionth time, she looked at her watch, which was twenty-two seconds ahead of the clock on the wall. Faith stood on the chair to move the second hand forward. If someone was watching her through the security camera in the corner, she hoped that they would call the police.

No such luck.

Douglas "Biscuits" Hartshorne had told Faith to meet him at the station, but that had been twenty-three minutes ago. He hadn't returned multiple calls and texts. Will's phone was either out of range or his battery had died. Sara's went straight to voicemail. No one was answering the phone at the McAlpine Family Lodge. According to their website, the only way into the place was to hike up a mountain, which sounded like a punishment that was meted out to the Von Trapp children before Maria showed up with her guitar.

All that Faith could do was pace back and forth across the room. She wasn't actually sure what her job was at the moment. Her one phone call with Will had been staticky because of the torrential downpour, but he'd given her enough information to know that a bad thing had happened because of a bad guy. Faith had listened to the audio files he'd texted her during the never-ending drive up to the mountains, and from what Faith could tell, it sounded like Will had pretty much wrapped up the case.

The first recording was like backstory for the worst episode of Full House ever. Delilah had offered the rundown on Mercy McAlpine's shitty relations, from her abusive father to her cold mother to her weird brother to her brother's even weirder friend. Then there was the gross stuff about Dave and Mercy, which wasn't exactly incest but wasn't exactly not incest. Then Sheriff Biscuits had ambled in after the commercial break expressing zero fucks about a brutally murdered woman and her missing teenaged son. The only pertinent information Faith had learned from the entire conversation was Will's very thorough rundown of how exactly he'd come across the body of Mercy McAlpine. And ended up with a knife in his hand for his trouble.

The second recording was like an episode of 24, but as if Jack Bauer was actually required to follow the Constitution he had sworn to protect. It started with Will reading Dave McAlpine his Miranda Rights, then Dave admitting to strangling his wife earlier in the day, then a stand-off that led to a scuffle wherein—if Faith knew her partner—Will had kicked Dave so hard in the nuts that the man had projectile vomited.

A warning on this last part would've been nice. Faith had heard it in Dolby digital surround sound from the speakers inside her Mini. She'd been stuck in traffic in the middle of nowhere in the pitch dark in the pissing rain and had to open her door so that she could dry heave onto the pavement.

She looked at the clock again.

5:55.

One more minute down. There couldn't be that many more to go. She dug around in her purse for some trail mix. Her head was aching like she had a low-grade hangover, which made sense considering a handful of hours ago, she had been blissfully living the life of a woman who was not expected to participate in any form of adulting.

In fact, Faith had been enjoying a cold beer in the shower when her phone had made a funny noise. The triple chirping was like a bird perched on her bathroom basin. Her first thought was that her twenty-two-year-old son was too old to be messing with her ringtones. Her second thought put her into a full-on sweat even though she was standing under a stream of water. Her two-year-old daughter had figured out how to change the phone settings. Faith's digital life would never be safe again. A virtual walk of shame flashed in front of her eyes: the selfies, the sexting, the random dick pics that she had absolutely solicited. Faith had nearly dropped her shower beer as she'd bolted out from behind the curtain.

The text was so alien that she had stared at the screen like she had never seen words before.

EMERGENCY SOS REPORT

Crime

INFORMATION SENT

Emergency Questionnaire

Current Location

Lather, rinse, repeat: her first thought was of Jeremy, who was on an ill-advised road trip to Washington DC, if ill-advised meant his mother did not want him doing it. Her second thought was of Emma, who was on her first sleepover with a close friend. Which was why Faith's heart was in her throat as she'd scrolled past the response from the satellite relay. Of all the things she had been expecting to read, from a mass shooting to a catastrophic accident to a terrorist attack, what she'd read was so unexpected that she wondered if it was some kind of phishing scam.

GBI special agent Will Trent requesting immediate assistance with murder investigation.

Faith had actually looked at herself in the mirror to check if she was having another crazy work dream. Two days ago, she had danced her ass off at Will and Sara's wedding. They were supposed to be on their honeymoon. There shouldn't be a murder, let alone an investigation, let alone a satellite text for assistance. Faith was so out of it that she had literally jumped when her phone had started to ring. Then she was perturbed that the Caller ID showed her boss, exactly who you wanted to talk to when you were staring at your naked self in your bathroom mirror with a beer in your hand at quarter past one in the morning.

Amanda hadn't bothered with an I'm sorry to bother you on your week off like a normal human being who cared about other human beings. All she had given Faith was an order—

"I want you out the door in ten minutes."

Faith had opened her mouth to respond, but Amanda had already ended the call. There was nothing to do but wash the soap off her body and frantically search for some work clothes in the Mount Everest of dirty laundry piled around her washing machine.

And here she was five hours later doing fuck all.

Faith looked at the clock again. She'd shaved off another minute.

She thought of all the things she could be doing right now. Laundry, for one, because her shirt was gamey. Drinking another shower beer. Rearranging her spice cabinet while she listened to NSYNC as loud as she wanted. Playing Grand Theft Auto without having to explain her indiscriminate killing. Not worrying whether Emma was scared about sleeping in a different bed. Not worrying that Emma was loving sleeping in a different bed. Not worrying that Jeremy was on a road trip to tour Quantico in hopes of joining the FBI. Not worrying that the FBI agent who was driving him there happened to be the man Faith was sleeping with, and that they'd been going at it hot and heavy for eight months and Faith still couldn't bring herself to call him anything other than the man she was sleeping with.

And that was just her problems for the right now. Faith had planned on using her week-long holiday to give her sainted mother a break from babysitting Emma. And to remind her daughter that she actually had a mother. Faith had overscheduled the time like she was cramming for a test, booking an afternoon tea at the Four Seasons, signing up for face-painting lessons and pottery painting lessons, buying tickets to the Center for the Puppetry arts, downloading a kid's audio tour of the botanical gardens, looking into trapeze lessons, trying to find—

Her phone started to ring.

"Thank God," Faith shouted into the empty room. This was not a good time to be trapped with her own thoughts. "Mitchell."

"Why are you at the sheriff's office?" Amanda demanded.

Faith suppressed a curse. She wasn't happy that Amanda could track her phone. "The sheriff told me to meet him at the station."

"He's at the hospital with the suspect." Amanda's tone of voice indicated this was a well-known fact. "It's directly across the street. Why are you dawdling?"

Yet again Faith opened her mouth to respond just as Amanda ended the call.

She grabbed her purse and left the cramped waiting room. Pink clouds tinted the sky. Twilight had finally broken. The street lights were powering down. She took a deep breath of morning air as she picked her way across the railroad tracks that bisected the small downtown area. The city of Ridgeville was not much to write home about. A one-story, 1950s strip mall stretched from one end of the block to the other and was filled with tourist-trappy businesses like antique shops and candle stores.

Ridgeville Medical was two stories of cinder block and glass, the tallest building as far as the eye could see. The parking lot was filled with pick-up trucks and cars that were older than Faith's son. She spotted the sheriff's cruiser by the front door.

"Faith."

"Fuck!" Faith jumped so hard she almost dropped her purse. Amanda had come out of nowhere.

"Watch your language," Amanda said. "It's not professional."

Faith guessed this was her origin story for saying fuck the rest of her life.

"What took you so long?"

"I was trapped behind an accident for two hours. How did you get past?"

"How did you not?"

Amanda's phone buzzed. She showed Faith the top of her head as she looked down at the screen. Her perfectly coifed salt and pepper hair was spiraled into its usual helmet. There was nary a wrinkle on her skirt and matching blazer. Her thumbs were a blur as she responded to a text that would be one of the thousands she received today. Amanda was a deputy director at the GBI, responsible for hundreds of employees, fifteen regional offices, six drug enforcement offices, and over a half dozen specialized units that were active in all 159 of Georgia's counties.

Which begged the question from Faith, "What are you doing here? You know I can handle this."

Amanda's phone went into her jacket pocket. "The sheriff's name is Douglas Hartshorne. His father was on the job for fifty years until a stroke forced him into retirement four years ago. Junior ran unopposed for the office. He seems to have inherited his father's dislike of the agency. I was given a hard no when I offered to take over the case."

"They call him Biscuits," Faith supplied. "Which is good, because I keep wanting to say Douglath like Mr. Dink."

"Do I look like a person who would enjoy that reference?"

Amanda looked like a person who was walking into the hospital. Faith followed her into the waiting room, which was packed with misery. All of the chairs were filled. People were leaning against the walls as they silently prayed for their names to be called. Faith had a flashback to her own early morning jaunts to the emergency department with her children. Jeremy had been the type of baby who could scream his way into a high fever. Fortunately, Emma had come along around the time Will had met Sara. There was something to be said for having a pediatrician as a close friend.

Which reminded Faith, "Where's Sara?"

"She's in lockstep with Will, as usual."

Not exactly an answer, but Faith was over trying to poke that bear. Plus, Amanda was already opening the door to the back, despite the sign that warned STAFF ONLY.

They were met with even more misery. Patients were parked on gurneys along the hallway, but Faith didn't see any nurses or doctors. They were probably behind the closed-off curtained areas that served as rooms. She could hear Amanda's kitten heels stabbing the laminate tiles over the staccato of heart monitors and respirators. Faith silently tried to puzzle out why Amanda had driven two hours at oh-dark-thirty to come to a podunk town for an already-solved murder case that was well below her paygrade. Hell, it was even below Faith's paltry paygrade. The GBI only stepped in after an investigation went sideways, and even then, their services had to be requested. Biscuits had made it clear he wasn't interested.

Amanda stopped at the empty nurses' station and tapped the bell. The ring barely registered over the sounds of moaning and machinery.

Faith asked, "Why are you really here?"

Amanda was on her phone again. "Will is supposed to be on his honeymoon. I'm not going to let this job suck the life out of him."

Faith suppressed a whiny what about me? Amanda had always had a stealthy connection to Will. She'd been working patrol with the Atlanta Police Department when she'd found baby Will in a trash can. Until recently, he'd had no idea that Amanda's invisible hand had been guiding him his entire life. Faith was dying to know more than the bullet points, but neither one of them were given to sharing deep, dark secrets, and Sara was annoyingly loyal to her husband.

Amanda looked up from her phone. "Do you like Dave for the murder?"

Faith hadn't considered the question because it seemed so obvious. "He admitted to strangling Mercy. He didn't offer an alibi. The aunt documented a long history of domestic violence. He was hiding in the woods. He resisted arrest. If you can call ten seconds of machismo and thirty seconds of vomiting resisting."

"The family seems strangely unaffected by the loss."

Faith guessed that meant Amanda had listened to Will's audio files, too. Faith had spent so much time listening to them in the car that she'd practically memorized some of Delilah's observations. "The aunt says there's a solid money motivation. She described Mercy's brother as serial-killer-collecting-women's-panties-reclusive. She called her own brother an abusive asshole. She said her sister-in-law was a cold fish. And that Bitty threatened to put a knife in Mercy's back a few hours before she had a knife broken off in her back."

"Delilah also said something about the exhibitionists in cottage five."

Faith had wanted to know more about that part, too, but only because she was as nosey as Delilah. "Chuck sounds like he'd be interesting to talk to. He's close to the brother. He might know some secrets. Then there's the rich assholes who were trying to buy the lodge."

"We'll never get to them. They'll have lawyers on top of lawyers," Amanda said. "How many guests are staying at the lodge?"

"I'm not sure. The website says they don't allow more than twenty total guests at a time. If you like being outside and sweating, the place looks fantastic. I couldn't find out how much it costs, but I'm assuming eleventy billion dollars. Will must've spent an entire year's pay on that place."

"Another reason to keep him out of this," Amanda said. "I want you to handle the interview with Dave. He was transported here by ambulance. Sara wanted to rule out testicular torsion."

Faith knew it wasn't funny, but she found it a little funny. "What code should I use for that in the report? Eighty-eight?"

Amanda walked straight past Faith. She had spotted Sara at the end of the hallway. Once again, Faith found herself skipping to catch up. Sara was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and cargo pants. Her hair was piled onto the top of her head. She looked exhausted as she squeezed Faith's arm.

"Faith, I'm so sorry you got pulled into this. I know you had your whole week planned out with Emma."

"She'll be fine," Amanda said, because toddlers were super chill about unexpected changes. "Where's Will?"

"Getting cleaned up in the bathroom. I had him soak his hand in a dilute Betadine solution before he was stitched up. The blade missed the nerves, but I'm still worried about infection."

Amanda asked, "And Dave?"

"His epididymis took the brunt of the blow. That's a coiled tube attached to the posterior side of the testicles that sperm travels through during the ejaculatory process."

Amanda looked annoyed. She hated medical speak. "Dr. Linton, in plain terms."

"His balls are bruised in the back. He'll need to rest, elevate and ice, but he should be fine in a week."

Since Faith was going to be interviewing Dave, she asked, "Is he on any pain medication?"

"His doctor gave him Tylenol. It's not my call, but I would've prescribed Tramadol, a round of ibuprofen for the swelling, and something for the nausea. The spermatic cord loops from the testicles through the inguinal canal into the abdomen, then back behind the bladder to attach to the urethra at the prostate gland, and finally the urethra goes out to the penis. Which is a long way of saying that Dave experienced a horrific trauma. Then again—" She shrugged. "That's what he gets for threatening Will with a butterfly knife."

Faith smelled another criminal charge. "Where's the knife?"

"Will gave it to the sheriff." Sara knew what she was thinking. "The blade is under twelve inches, so it's legal."

Amanda said, "Not if he was carrying it concealed with the purpose of using it for offense."

Faith countered, "That's only a misdemeanor, but if we can tie it back to the murder—"

"Dr. Linton," Amanda interrupted. "Where is Dave now?"

"He was admitted overnight for observation. The sheriff's in the room with him. I should add that Dave was wearing a shirt that had a bloody handprint on the front. The sheriff is logging the clothes and personal items into evidence. He should also be taking photos of the scratches on Dave's torso and neck. The local coroner's name is Nadine Moushey. She's already put in an official request for the GBI to handle Mercy's autopsy." Sara looked at her watch. "Nadine should be retrieving Mercy's body from the cottage soon. She told me to meet her downstairs in the morgue at eight."

Amanda said, "I've alerted the SAC overseeing region eight that she needs to oversee transporting the body to headquarters."

"Are you saying I should step back?"

"Is your input entirely necessary?"

"Do you mean, should a board-certified medical examiner who saw the victim in situ offer her expert opinion during a preliminary physical exam?"

"You've developed the habit of asking questions rather than giving answers."

"Have I?"

Amanda's expression was unreadable. She was technically Sara's boss, but Sara had always treated her more as a colleague. And now because of Will, Amanda was in some ways Sara's mother-in-law, but also not.

Faith broke the stand-off. "Is there anything else we should know?"

Sara said, "There was a backpack at the crime scene. Delilah identified it as belonging to Mercy. Fortunately, the nylon was coated with a fire-resistant chemical. The contents could be interesting. Mercy packed some toiletries and clothes, plus a notebook."

Faith's second wind stirred. "What kind of notebook?"

"Composition, something a kid would take to school."

"Did you read it?"

"The pages were soaked, so it'll have to go to the lab for processing. I'm more interested in where Mercy was going. It was the middle of the night. She'd had a very public blow-up with her son earlier in the evening. Why was she leaving? Where was she going? How did she end up at the lake? Nadine pointed out that there were plenty of empty cottages if Mercy needed a break from her family."

"How many?" Faith asked.

"The number is irrelevant," Amanda said. "Focus on getting a confession out of Dave. That's how we wrap this up quickly. Correct, Dr. Linton?"

"The Dave part, at least." Sara looked at her watch again. "Delilah should be outside by now. We're going to look for Jon."

Amanda asked, "Does that seem like a good way to spend your honeymoon?"

"Yes."

Amanda kept her eyes on Sara for a moment longer, then turned and walked away. "Faith?"

Faith guessed that was her cue that they were leaving. She pumped her fist in solidarity with Sara before jogging to catch up again. She told Amanda, "You have to know Sara's not going to let a teenager who just lost his mother disappear off the grid."

"Jeremy was self-sufficient by the age of sixteen."

Jeremy had eaten so much cheese at the age of sixteen that Faith had been forced to seek medical intervention. "Teenage boys aren't as resilient as you think."

Amanda bypassed the elevators and took the stairs. Her mouth was set in a tight line. Faith wondered if she was thinking about Will at that age, but then she reminded herself there was no use trying to get inside Amanda's head. She tried to focus her brain on interviewing Dave instead.

During the two hours she'd been parked on the interstate, Faith had taken the time to look up David Harold McAlpine's criminal record. His juvenile file was sealed, but there were plenty of charges on his adult sheet, all of them the types of crimes you'd expect from an addict who beats his wife. Dave had been in and out of jail for various offenses, from bar fights to stealing cars to boosting baby formula to drunk driving to domestic violence. Very few of the charges had stuck, which was curious, but unsurprising.

Like Amanda, like Faith's own mother, Faith had started her career as a beat cop with the Atlanta Police Department. She knew how to read between the lines of a rap sheet. The explanation behind the repeated failures to prosecute DV charges successfully was obvious—Mercy had refused to testify. The curious lack of serious consequences on the other offenses pointed to a man who indiscriminately snitched on his fellow inmates in order to get his ass out of jail or keep himself from going to Big Boy prison.

That's where the unsurprising part came in. A lot of men who beat on their wives were remarkably petty cowards.

Amanda pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. Faith joined her a few seconds later. The hallway lights were dimmed. There was no one manning the nurses' station across from the elevator. Faith saw a board on the wall that listed patient names and nurse assignments. There were ten rooms, all full, but only one nurse.

"Dave McAlpine," Faith read. "Room eight. What are the odds?"

They both turned when the elevator doors opened. Will was wearing a button-down plaid shirt and a pair of scrubs that were too short for his long legs. Faith could see his black socks peeking out of the tops of his boots. He was cradling his bandaged right hand to his chest. There were tiny scrapes on his neck and face.

Amanda gave him her usual warm welcome. "Why are you dressed like a surgeon in a Ska band?"

Will said, "Dave vomited all over my pants."

"Yeah he did." Faith saved the high-five for later. "Sara told us you smashed his balls into his bladder."

Amanda gave a short sigh. "I'll go inform the sheriff that he will welcome our assistance on this investigation."

"Good luck," Will said. "He's been adamant about keeping the case."

"I imagine he's also adamant about not wanting every business in his county scrutinized for undocumented workers and child labor violations."

Faith watched Amanda walk away, which was the theme of her morning. She told Will, "I'm handling the interrogation. Anything I should know?"

"I placed him under arrest for assault and resisting. Biscuits agreed not to say anything about the murder, so as far as I know, Dave doesn't know we found the body. His biggest concern is he thinks I saw him strangle Mercy on the trail yesterday."

"Dude thinks you'd just stand there while he strangled a woman?" Faith liked a gullible suspect. "Sounds like I might be home in time to drive Emma to Clown Camp."

"I wouldn't count on it," Will said. "Don't underestimate Dave. He puts on a stupid hillbilly act, but he's manipulative, cunning, and cruel."

Faith was having a hard time getting a read off what Will was trying to tell her. "His sheet is littered with idiot crimes. The worst sentence he ever got was half a nickel in county lock-up for grand theft auto. The judge gave him work-release."

"He's a snitch."

"Exactly. Snitches don't tend to be criminal masterminds, and he's gotten caught a lot of times for somebody you're calling cunning. What am I missing?"

"That I know him." Will looked down at his bandaged hand. "Dave was at the children's home when I was there. He ran away when he was thirteen. He came up here. There's an old campground. It's a long story, but Dave will probably bring it up that we have a history, so you should be ready for it."

Faith felt like her eyebrows were going to disappear into her scalp. Now it was making sense. "What else?"

"He used to bully me," Will said. "Nothing physical, but he was an asshole. We called him the Jackal."

Faith couldn't imagine Will being bullied. Setting aside that he was a giant, there was the age difference. "Dave's four years younger than you. How did that work?"

"He's not four years younger than me. Where did you get that?"

"His criminal sheet. His birthday's all over the place."

Will shook his head with something like disgust. "He's two years younger than me. The McAlpines must've aged him down."

"What does that mean?"

"It's not as easy to do now because everything's digitized, but back then, not every kid showed up with a valid birth certificate. Foster parents could petition the court to change a kid's age. If the kid was shitty, they'd age him up so he'd be out of the system sooner. If he was easy, or if he was receiving enhanced benefits, then they would age him down so the money kept rolling in."

Faith felt sick to her stomach. "What's an enhanced benefit?"

"More problems, more money. Maybe the kid's got emotional issues or he's experienced sexual assault and needs therapy, which means you've got to drive him to appointments and maybe he's more of a handful at home, so the state gives you more money for your trouble."

"Jesus Christ." Faith couldn't keep the catch out of her voice. She had no idea whether any of this had happened to Will. Just the thought of it made her incredibly sad. "So Dave was a troubled kid?"

"He was sexually assaulted by a PE teacher in elementary school. It lasted a few years." Will shrugged it off, but the violation was horrifying. "He'll try to use it for pity. Let him talk, but just be aware that he knows what it's like to be helpless, and he grew up to be the type of man who beat his wife for years and eventually raped and murdered her."

Faith could hear the anger in his voice. He really hated this guy. "Does Amanda know that you know Dave?"

Will's jaw clenched, which was his way of saying yes. It also went a long way toward explaining why Amanda had driven two hours to get here. And why she wanted Will as far away from this case as possible.

For Faith's part, she had more questions. "Dave's a grown man. Why did he stay up here with the McAlpines if they exploited his troubled childhood for money?"

Will shrugged again. "Before he ran away, Dave had a suicide attempt that landed him a psych hold. Once you're in a facility, it's hard to get out. On the facility side, there's a money incentive to keep the kid in treatment. On the kid side, you feel really angry and suicidal because you're locked down in a psych ward, which kind of wags the dog. They kept Dave locked up for six months. He was back at the home less than a week before he bolted. The McAlpines had their problems, but I can see where he felt like they saved him. He definitely would've been sent back to Atlanta without the adoption."

Faith stored all of this away in her heart so she could cry about it later. "A thirteen-year-old boy knows he's not eleven. The judge would've asked him."

"I told you he's sneaky," Will said. "Dave was always lying about stupid things. Stealing people's stuff or breaking it because he was jealous you had something he didn't. He was one of those kids who always kept a running tally. Like, you got an extra handful of tater tots at lunch so I should get an extra handful at dinner."

Faith knew the type. She also knew how hard it was for Will to talk about his childhood. "Tater tots are delicious."

"I'm really hungry."

Faith rooted around in her purse for a candy bar. "I take it you want something with nuts?"

Will grinned as she handed him a Snickers bar. "By the way, Sara wasn't a hundred percent on Dave being the murderer."

This was new information. "Okay. But you are?"

"I absolutely am. But Sara's gut is usually pretty good. So." Will ripped open the wrapper with his teeth. "The last witness to see Mercy before she died had her outside cottage seven around 10:30."

Faith found her notebook and pen. "Talk me through the timeline."

Will had already shoved half the Snickers bar into his mouth. He chewed twice, then swallowed, then said, "Sara and I were at the lake. I looked at my watch before I got in. It was 11:06. I'd guess it was around 11:30 that we heard the first scream."

"More like a howl?"

"Correct," Will said. "We couldn't tell which direction it came from, but we thought probably the compound. That's where the house and most of the cottages are. Sara and I walked together for a bit, then we split up so I could take a more direct route. I ran through the forest. Then I stopped because I thought it was stupid, right? We heard a howl in the mountains and we ran into the woods. I decided to go find Sara. That's when I heard the second scream. I'd ballpark the time between the howl and the first scream at around ten minutes."

Faith started writing again. "Mercy screamed a word—help."

"Right. Then she screamed please. There was a much shorter gap between the second and third scream, maybe a second or two. But it was clear they both came from the direction of the bachelor cottages by the lake."

"Bachelor cottages." Faith noted the name. "Is that where you were swimming?"

"No, we were at the opposite end. It's called the Shallows. The lake is really big. You need to get the map. The Shallows is on one end and the bachelor cottages are on the other. The compound is high above both, so basically I went up one side of a hill, then down the other side."

Faith really needed to see that map. "How long after the second and third scream did it take you to reach Mercy?"

Will shook his head and shrugged. "It's hard to say. I was amped up, surrounded by trees in the middle of the night, trying not to face plant. I wasn't paying attention to time. Maybe another ten minutes?"

"How long does it take to get from the compound to the bachelor cottages?"

"We took one of the trails down with the coroner to show her the crime scene. That was about twenty minutes, but we were walking as a group and sticking to the path." He shrugged again. "Maybe ten minutes?"

"You're just going to say everything took ten minutes?"

Will shrugged a third time, but told her, "Sara looked at my watch when she pronounced Mercy dead. It was exactly midnight."

Faith wrote that down. "So, ballpark, there was roughly twenty minutes between the howl at the compound and when you found Mercy in the water, but Mercy needed ten of those minutes to get from the howl point to the scream point where she died."

"Ten minutes is plenty of time to murder a woman, then set a cottage on fire. Especially if you had it all planned out in advance," Will said. "Then you stroll back around the lake to the old campsite and wait for the local sheriff to botch the investigation."

"Are you sure the howler was the screamer?"

Will thought about it. "Yes. Same tone of voice. Also, who else would it be?"

"We're going to end up running around this entire property with stopwatches, aren't we?"

"Accurate."

He looked a hell of a lot happier about that than Faith was. "So why does Sara think Dave's not our guy?"

"The last time I laid eyes on Dave was around three in the afternoon. Sara talked to Mercy roughly four hours later. She saw bruising on Mercy's neck. Mercy said it was Dave who strangled her. But she seemed more concerned about her family coming after her, I guess over blocking the sale of the lodge. Mercy wasn't worried about Dave. In fact, she said that everybody on the mountain wanted her dead."

"Guests included?"

Will shrugged.

"I mean—" Faith tried not to get ahead of herself. She had always wanted to work a real-life locked-room mystery. "You've got a limited number of suspects trapped in a remote location. That's some Scooby Doo shit."

"There were six family members at dinner—Papa and Bitty, Mercy and Christopher, Delilah and I guess you can throw in Chuck. Jon showed up before the first course, drunk off his ass and yelling at Mercy. Then there were the guests. Me and Sara, Landry and Gordon, Drew and Keisha, Frank and Monica. Also the investors—Sydney and Max. We were all packed in around a long dinner table."

Faith looked up from her notebook. "Were there candelabras on the table?"

He nodded. "And a chef and a bartender and two waiters."

"And Then There Were None."

He shoved the last of the Snickers into his mouth. "Heads-up."

Amanda was walking back toward them, the sheriff straggling behind her. Biscuits looked exactly how Faith had imagined when she'd heard his voice on the recording. A bit round, at least a decade older than her and several IQ points shorter. She could tell from the look on his pasty face that he'd reached the third stage of dealing with Amanda, skipping over anger and acceptance and going straight to sulking.

"Special Agent Faith Mitchell," Amanda introduced. "This is Sheriff Douglas Hartshorne. He's graciously agreed to let us take over the investigation."

Biscuits didn't look gracious. He looked pissed off. He told Faith, "I'm gonna be in the room when you talk to Dave."

Faith didn't want the company, but she gathered from Amanda's silence that she didn't have a choice. "Sheriff, has the suspect said anything about the crime?"

Biscuits shook his head. "He ain't talking."

"Did he ask for a lawyer?"

"Nope, and he's not gonna give you anything and it's not like we even need it. We already got the evidence to put him away. Blood on his shirt. Scratch marks. History of violence. Dave likes to use knives. Always carries one in his back pocket."

Faith asked, "Does he usually carry anything other than the butterfly knife?"

Biscuits clearly didn't like the question. "This is a local matter, oughta be handled locally."

Faith smiled. "Would you like to join me in room eight?"

Biscuits made a grand sweep with his arm in an after you gesture. He trailed Faith down the hall so closely that she could smell his sweat and aftershave.

He said, "Look, sweetheart, I know you're just following orders, but you need to understand something."

Faith stopped, turning to face him. "What's that?"

"You GBI agents, you go from the classroom to the conference room. You don't know what it's like to do street-level policing. This kind of murder, it's a real cop's bread and butter. I could'a told you twenty years ago one of 'em would'a ended up dead and the other would'a ended up in the back of a squad car."

Faith pretended like she hadn't spent ten years of her life on patrol before earning her slot on the Atlanta homicide squad. "Educate me."

"The McAlpines, they're a good family, but Mercy was always a handful. In and out of trouble. Drinking and drugging. Sleeping around. Girl was pregnant by the time she was fifteen."

Faith had been pregnant at fifteen, but she said, "Wow."

"Wow is right. Pretty much ruined Dave's life," Biscuits said. "Poor guy never managed to right himself after Jon was born. In and out of jail. Always getting into scrapes. Dave was battling his own demons even before Mercy got knocked up. Had a rough time of it in foster care. Got sexually assaulted by a teacher. It's a goddam miracle he ain't blown his brains out."

"Sounds like it," Faith said. "Should we go talk to him about the murder?"

She didn't wait for his answer. Faith pushed open the door to a short vestibule. Bathroom on the right. Sink and cabinet on the left. The lights were dimmed. She could hear the soft murmur of a television. The air was filled with the stale scent of a habitual smoker. A set of clothes was piled into the sink bowl. She saw an empty paper bag marked EVIDENCE on the counter. The sheriff had gone so far as to take out a pair of gloves, but he hadn't actually bagged and tagged the suspect's personal items: a pack of cigarettes, a bulging Velcro wallet, a tube of Chapstick and an Android phone.

Dave McAlpine muted the television when Faith turned up the lights. He didn't look worried about being under arrest or having two cops in his hospital room. He was reclining in bed with one arm over his head. His left wrist was handcuffed to the bed railing. His hospital gown had slipped off his shoulder. His lower half was covered by a sheet, but he must've been sitting on a pillow because his pelvis was rotated up like Magic Mike taking center stage.

If Biscuits looked exactly how she'd imagined from Will's recording, Dave McAlpine was the exact opposite. Faith had somehow framed him in her head as somewhere between Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes and Wyle E. Coyote. In person, Dave was handsome, but in a bedraggled, high-school-prom-king-gone-to-seed kind of way. He'd probably slept with every other woman in town and had a $20,000 gaming set-up inside his rented trailer. Which was to say, exactly Faith's type.

"Who's this?" Dave asked Biscuits.

"Special Agent Faith Mitchell." Faith flipped open her wallet to show him her credentials. "I'm with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. I'm here to—"

"You're prettier in person." He nodded toward Faith's work photo. "I like your hair longer."

"He's right." Biscuits had craned his neck to look at the picture.

Faith flipped the wallet closed as she resisted the urge to shave her head. "Mr. McAlpine, I know my partner has already read you your rights."

"Shit, did Trashcan tell you we go way back?"

Faith chewed the tip of her tongue. She'd heard Will called this name before. The nastiness didn't lessen with repetition.

She said, "Special Agent Trent told me you were both at the children's home together."

Dave stuck his tongue into his cheek as he studied her. "Why's the GBI care about this anyway?"

Faith put the question back on him. "Tell me what this is."

He gave a husky, smoker's laugh. "Have you talked to Mercy yet? Cause there's no way in hell she dimed me out."

Faith let him lead the conversation. "You admitted to strangling her."

"Prove it," he said. "Trashcan's a shit witness. He's always had it out for me. Wait till my lawyer gets him on the stand."

Faith leaned against the wall. "Tell me about Mercy."

"What about her?"

"She was fifteen when she got pregnant. How old were you?"

Dave's eyes cut to Biscuits, then back to Faith. "Eighteen. Check my birth certificate."

"Which one?" Faith asked, because that math wasn't mathing. Dave had been twenty when he impregnated a fifteen-year-old, which meant that he'd committed statutory rape. "You know that everything is digitized now, right? All the old records are in the cloud."

Dave nervously scratched his chest. The gown slipped farther down his shoulder. Faith could see deep gouges where he'd been scratched.

Dave said, "Biscuits, go fetch that nurse for me. Tell her I need some goddam pain medication. My balls are on fucking fire."

Biscuits seemed confused. "I thought you wanted me to stay."

"Well, now I don't."

Biscuits huffed out his exasperation before taking his leave.

Faith waited for the door to close. "Must be nice having the local sheriff on a leash."

"Sure is." Dave reached under the bed sheet. He hissed air between his teeth as he pulled out an icepack and dropped it on the bedside table. "What are you looking for, darlin?"

"You tell me."

"I got no idea what happened last night." He pushed up the shoulder of his gown. "You let me outta here, I can ask around. I know a lot of people. Whatever went down that's big enough for the GBI to be interested—I figure that should be worth something."

"What would it be worth?"

"Well, one, taking this fucking handcuff off my wrist." He made the chain rattle against the bedrail. "And two, maybe you parting with some money. I figure a thousand to start. More if I can bring you a big arrest."

Faith asked, "What about Mercy?"

"Shit," he said. "Mercy doesn't know about anything that happens outside the lodge, and she's not going to talk to you anyway."

Faith noted the improvement in his grammar. The stupid hillbilly was gone. "It's hard for a woman to talk when she's been strangled."

"Is that what this is about?" he asked. "Is Mercy in the hospital?"

"Why would she be at the hospital?"

He sucked his teeth. "That's why you're here? Trashcan threw a shit fit after seeing me on the trail? Cause what happened was, I left Mercy exactly where she landed. That was around three in the afternoon. Talk to Trashcan. He can confirm it."

"What happened after you strangled Mercy?"

"Nothing," he said. "She was fine. Even told me to go fuck myself. That's how she talks to me. Always trying to push my buttons. But I left her alone. I didn't go back. So whatever happened to Mercy after that, she did it to herself."

"What do you think happened to her?"

"Hell, I don't know. Maybe she fell when she was walking back to the trail. She's done that before. Tripped and fell face-down in the woods. Caught her neck on a log so hard that she bruised her esophagus. Took a few hours for it to swell up, but she ended up driving herself to the emergency room saying she couldn't breathe. Ask the doctors. They'll have a record."

Faith's only surprise was that he couldn't come up with a better story. "When did this happen?"

"A while back. Jon was still little. It was right before I divorced her. Mercy will tell you herself she was overreacting. She could breathe fine. She just worked herself up into a panic. The doctors said she had some swelling in her throat. Like I said, she fell really hard on that log. It was an accident. Had nothing to do with me." Dave shrugged. "If the same thing happened again, that's on Mercy. Talk to her. I'm sure she'll tell you the same thing."

Faith was confused. Will had warned her not to underestimate Dave, but this was neither cunning nor clever. "Tell me where you went after you left Mercy on the trail."

"Bitty didn't have time to drive me back into town. I hiked down to the old campsite and got my drink on."

Faith silently weighed her options. This was getting them nowhere. She had to change tactics. "Mercy's dead."

"Shit," he laughed. "Right."

"I'm not lying," Faith assured him. "She's dead."

He held her gaze for a good long moment before looking away. Faith watched tears flood into his eyes. His hand went to his mouth.

"Dave?"

"Wh—" the word got tangled up in his throat. "When?"

"Around midnight last night."

"Did she—" Dave gulped. "Did she suffocate?"

Faith studied his profile. This was the cunning part. He was really good at this.

Dave asked, "Did she know that it was happening? That she was dying?"

"Yes," Faith said. "What did you do to her, Dave?"

"I—" His voice caught. "I strangled her. It was my fault. I choked her out too hard. She was gonna pass out, and I thought I pulled myself back in time but—Jesus. Oh, Jesus."

Faith pulled some tissues from the box and handed them over.

Dave blew his nose. "Did … did she suffer?"

Faith crossed her arms. "She knew what was happening."

"Oh, fuck! Fuck! What's wrong with me?" Dave put his head in his hand. The handcuff rattled against the railing as he cried. "Mercy Mac. What did I do to you? She was terrified of suffocating. Since we were kids, she always had these dreams where she couldn't breathe."

Faith tried to figure out where to go from here. She was used to long negotiations with suspects who parceled out the truth. Sometimes they put themselves in the vicinity of the scene as opposed to in the actual spot, or admitted to one part of the crime but not the other.

This was another thing entirely.

"Jon." Dave looked up at Faith. "Does he know what I did?"

Faith nodded.

"Fuck. He's never gonna forgive me." Dave's head went back into his hand. "She tried to call me. I didn't see it come in cause I didn't have a signal up on the mountain. I could've saved her. Does Bitty know? I need to see Bitty. I gotta explain—"

"Wait," Faith said. "Go back. When did Mercy call you?"

"I don't know. I saw the messages when Biscuits took my phone away. They must'a loaded when we got down the hill."

Faith found Dave's Android on the sink by the door. She used the edge of her notebook to bump the screen on. There was at least half a dozen notifications, all time stamped, all but one with the same message:

MISSED CALL 10:47PM – Mercy Mac

MISSED CALL 11:10PM – Mercy Mac

MISSED CALL 11:12PM – Mercy Mac

MISSED CALL 11:14PM – Mercy Mac

MISSED CALL 11:19PM – Mercy Mac

MISSED CALL 11:22PM – Mercy Mac

Faith scrolled down to the last one.

VOICEMAIL 11:28PM – Mercy Mac

Faith flipped open her notebook. She looked at the timeline.

By Will's estimation, Mercy had howled at 11:30 PM, two minutes after she had left a voicemail for Dave. Faith stuck her notebook back in her pocket. She slipped on the sheriff's gloves before picking up Dave's phone and walking back to his bed.

She asked him, "You couldn't get a signal on your phone, but Mercy could?"

"There's Wi-Fi around the main house and at the dining hall, but you don't get cell coverage until you're halfway down the mountain." He wiped his eyes. "Can I listen to it? I wanna hear her voice."

Faith had assumed she'd have to file a warrant to hack the phone. "What's your password?"

"My gotcha day," he said. "Oh-eight-oh-four-ninety-two."

Faith traced the numbers into the lock. The phone opened. She felt an unwelcome shakiness as her finger hovered over the voicemail icon. Before she played it, she took out her own phone to record whatever the message said. Her hand was sweating inside the glove when she finally tapped play.

"Dave!" Mercy cried, almost hysterical. "Dave! Oh my God, where are you? Please, please call me back. I can't believe—oh, God, I can't— Please call me. Please. I need you. I know you've never been there for me before, but I really need you now. I need your help, baby. Please c-call—"

There was a muffled sound, like Mercy had pressed the phone to her chest. Her voice was heartbreaking. Faith felt a lump in her throat. The woman sounded so desperately alone.

"I failed her," Dave whispered. "She needed me, and I failed her."

Faith looked at the progress bar under the message. There were seven more seconds left. She listened to Mercy's soft cries as the bar got smaller and smaller.

"What are you doing here?"

Mercy's voice sounded different—angry, afraid.

"Don't!" she yelled. "Dave will be here soon. I told him what happened. He's on his—"

There was nothing more. The bar had reached the end.

"What happened?" Dave asked. "Did Mercy say what happened? Is there another message? A text?"

Faith stared at the phone. There was no other message. There was no other text. There was only the timestamped notifications and Mercy's last known recorded words.

"Please," Dave begged. "Tell me what this means."

Faith thought about what Delilah had told Will. The money motive. Her asshole brother. Her nasty sister-in-law. Mercy's serial killer vibes brother. His creepy friend. The guests. The chef. The bartender. The two waiters. The locked-room mystery.

She told Dave, "It means you didn't kill her."