The Last Child

“No.” Hunt placed the page on the table.

“I thought the wife blamed him so bad he skipped town.”

Hunt looked again across the field of shallow graves. He lifted the child’s drawing. The crayon was red. Lopsided hearts hung in the open spaces. “No,” he said again. “This man knocked on the wrong door.” A perfect silence, Hunt’s heart swelling with respect. “This man died looking for his daughter.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Joh

He felt better when he stood.

The house winked dirty paint beyond the trees.

Detective Hunt was halfway up the slope when his cell phone rang. It was Officer Taylor, who spoke as he hiked. She told him about Ken Holloway: the damage done to his piano, the physical abuse of his cleaning lady. “That’s the piano Joh

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s ruined now.”

Hunt was breathing hard, the air close and damp, pressure on his lungs. “How about the cleaning lady? Is she severely injured?”

“No,” Taylor said. “And it’s a miracle. You should see this place.”

“Bad?”

“The guy’s off his rocker. Booze and coke, looks like. He called his cleaning lady Katherine.”

“And?”

“That’s not her name.”

“Oh, crap.”

“Exactly.”

“Add an assault charge and get it on the wire, ASAP. Let’s find him before he hurts somebody else. And do me a favor, call Katherine Merrimon and tell her to get out of the house. Tell her to drive to the station. I’ll meet her there. Tell her I need to talk to her. Tell her it’s important.”

“That’s the thing.”

“What?”

“I already tried.”

Hunt felt it coming.

“No answer at her house.”

Joh

Ken’s Escalade was in the yard. Not in the driveway, but in the yard. He’d run over the line of stunted bushes and glanced off the yard’s single tree. The front fender was folded, two feet of paint peeled from the side of the vehicle. The driver’s door stood open; the right tire touched the bottom step of the porch.

Joh

The house was shut tight, but he heard it plain enough: a scream.

His mother.

Joh

Jack had his small hand on the barrel, good one on the grip. He watched Freemantle, who stretched across the floor, shifting in his sleep, muttering under his breath as his chest rose and fell. He was a dark lump in the still, hot air.

A killer, afraid of crows.

A crazy man, talking in his sleep.

God knows.

Even asleep, he wouldn’t stop saying it.

Jack pressed warm steel against his cheek. Where was Joh

God knows.

He wouldn’t stop saying it.

Joh

Holloway kicked the door shut, then dragged Joh

The big hand drew back, rushed in, and Joh

His mother screamed again.

Levi stood at the river’s edge. His momma was fresh buried, the dirt of her grave still under his nails, and in the deep, calloused lines that cut the palms of his hands. He was soaked with sweat, hot from digging and grief, hot from the burns beneath the gauze on his face. He’d walked into town the day before and ordered the stone that would sit above her.

Creola Freemantle, it would read.

God Knows the Beauty of Her Soul.

Levi studied the dirt on his hands. It was God’s dirt, black and rich. Hush Arbor dirt. Family dirt. He rubbed his fingers together, then stepped into the water. It rose cool to his knees, then to his chest.

“God knows,” he said.

And the water bore him up.

Levi sat up in the barn. The gun was leveled at his face, and the boy behind it was scared. He looked familiar, but Levi wasn’t seeing too good. The world was fuzzy, tilted. He saw white skin and wild hair. Eyes that jittered.

Levi didn’t know where he was, but he felt the change like he knew it was coming. He felt the air pile up above him, the coolness of it pressing down. Then the voice filled him up. One last thing, it said; and Levi’s teeth shone white in the gloom.

He stood, and the pain became a distant thing.

The pain became a memory.

Jack drove his feet against the floor, pushed himself back into the wall. The man’s eyes held an insane light, and all Jack could think of were the two people he’d killed. Blood, like paint, Joh

Like paint.

Jack held the gun straight out and it shook. He couldn’t help it. He was saying his own prayer: Don’t make me kill him, don’t make me kill him…

But Freemantle made no move to hurt him. “Past that big rock, between those trees.” The words came thick and slow. “Hop a creek and you’ll see it.” He showed ivory eyes shot with red, then limped outside. He leaned back in the door, said one last thing to Jack, and then the door was empty.

For long seconds, Jack could not move, too stu

The sun burned high in a faultless sky.

The roof was black with crows.

His mother’s voice still rang in Joh