CHAPTER 9

They stuffed me in the back of a cop car then watched the shed burn to the ground. Eventually, firemen put water on the smoking debris, but not before my arms went numb. I thought about what I’d almost done. Zebulon Faith. Not Danny. Feet drumming clay and the fierce satisfaction I’d felt as the life began to fade out of him. I could have killed him.

I felt like that should trouble me.

The air in the car grew close, and I watched the sun rise. Grantham poked through the soaking ash with a white-haired fireman. They picked up objects and then let them fall. Robin’s car rolled out of the trees an hour after dawn. She passed me on the cratered road, and lifted a hand from the wheel. She spoke for a long time with Detective Grantham, who pointed at things amid the ruin, then at the fire marshal, who came over and spoke some more. Several times they looked at me, and Grantham refused to hide his displeasure. After about ten minutes, Robin got into her car and Grantham walked uphill to where I sat in his. He opened my door.

“Out,” he said.

I slipped across the seat and put my feet on the damp grass.

“Turn around.” He made a motion with his finger. I turned and he removed the handcuffs. “A question, Mr. Chase. Do you have any ownership interest in your family’s farm?”

I rubbed my wrists. “The farm is held as a family partnership. I had a ten percent interest.”

“Had?”

“My father bought me out.”

Grantham nodded. “When you left?”

“When he kicked me out.”

“So, you have nothing to gain if he sells.”

“That’s right.”

“Who else has an interest?”

“He gave Jamie and Miriam ten percent each when he adopted them.”

“What’s a ten percent stake worth?”

“A lot.”

“How much is a lot?”

“More than a little,” I said, and he let it go.

“And your stepmother? Does she have ownership?”

“No. She has no interest.”

“Okay,” Grantham said.

I studied the man. His face was unreadable, his shoes black and destroyed. “That’s it?” I asked.

He pointed at Robin’s car. “If you have questions, Mr. Chase, you can talk to her.”

“What about Danny Faith?” I asked. “What about his father?”

“Talk to Alexander,” he said.

He shut my door and walked to the driver’s side; turned the car around and drove back into the trees. I heard the car bottom out in a rut, then I walked down to speak with Robin. She did not get out, so I slid in next to her, my knee touching the shotgun locked to the dash. She was tired, still in last night’s clothes. Her voice was drawn.

“I’ve been at the hospital,” she said.

“How’s Grace?”

“Talking a bit.”

I nodded.

“She says it wasn’t you.”

“Are you surprised?”

“No, but she didn’t see a face. Inconclusive, according to Detective Grantham.”

I looked at the cabin. “Did they find Danny?” I asked.

“No sign.” She stared at me. When I turned back, I knew what she was going to say before the words left her mouth. “You should not have been here, Adam.”

I shrugged.

“You’re lucky nobody got killed.” She peered through the glass, clearly frustrated. “Jesus, Adam. You don’t think right when you get like this.”

“I didn’t ask for this to happen but it did. I’m not going to sit on my hands and do nothing. This happened to Grace! Not some stranger.”

“Did you come here to do harm?” she asked.

I thought of Dolf Shepherd’s pistol lying out there in the leaves. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

“Probably not.”

“Then why bother to ask. It’s done.”

We were both stripped-down, nerves exposed. Robin had her cop face on. I was getting to recognize it pretty well. “Why did Grantham let me go?” I asked. “He could have made my life hell.”

She thought about it, then pointed at the pile of black ash. “Zebulon Faith was running a methamphetamine lab in the shed. He was probably using the money to cover the debt on the property he’s bought. He had it rigged to burn. He must have known that the police were coming in. We’ll find something to that effect. A motion sensor up the road. A phone call from one of the trailers you pass on the way in. Something that told him to get out. There’s not much left.”

“Enough?” I asked.

“For a prosecution? Maybe. Juries are fickle.”

“And Faith?”

“He’d have disappeared completely, with nothing but circumstantial evidence linking him to the lab.” She faced me, pivoting in her seat. “If it goes to trial, Grantham will need you to put Zebulon Faith at the scene. He weighed that into his decision to cut you loose.”

“I’m still surprised he did it.”

“Crystal meth is a big problem. A conviction will play well. The sheriff is a politician.”

“And if Grantham thinks I had something to do with Grace’s rape? Would he sell her out, too?”

Robin hesitated. “Grantham has reason to doubt that you were involved with the assault on Grace.”

There was a new tension in her face. I knew her too well. “Something’s changed,” I said.

She thought about it, and I waited her out. Finally, she relented.

“Whoever attacked Grace left a scrap of paper at the scene. A message.”

Cold filled me up. “And you’ve known this all along?”

“Yes.” Unrepentant.

“What did it say?”

“‘Tell the old man to sell.’ ”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“That’s what it said.”

My mind went red, and I got out of the car, started walking.

I should have killed him.

“Adam.” I felt her hands on my shoulders. “We don’t know that it was Zebulon Faith. Or Danny, for that matter. A lot of people want your father to sell. More than one person has made threats. The ring could be a coincidence.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

“Look at me,” she said. I turned. She stood on a depression in the earth, a low place, and her head barely reached my chest. “You got lucky today. You understand? Somebody could have been killed. You. Faith. It should have ended worse than it did. We will handle this.”

“I don’t owe you any promises, Robin.”

Sudden bitterness twisted her mouth. “It wouldn’t matter if you did. I know what your promises are worth.”

Then she turned, and as she left the darkness beneath the trees, the day fell upon her shoulders like a weight. She disappeared into her car and threw dirt from her rear tires as she slewed the car around. I stepped onto the road behind her, watched her taillights flare as she slammed her way out.

It took half an hour to find Dolf’s gun, but eventually I saw it, one black patch among the millions. I found the path next, and followed the river, my feet soundless on the soft earth. The river moved, as always, but its voice was hushed, and after a time I ceased to hear it. I put the violence behind me, sought some kind of peace, a stillness that went beyond mere numbness. Being in the woods helped. Like memories of Robin in the early days, my father before the trial, my mother before the light winked out of her. I walked slowly and felt rough bark under my fingers. I rounded a bend in the trail and stopped.

Fifteen feet away, its head lowered to drink, was a white deer. Its coat shone, still damp from the night air, and I saw a quiver in its shoulder, where it took the weight of its thick neck, and of the antlers that spanned five feet from tip to tip. I held my breath. Then its head came up, turned my way, and I saw those great, black eyes.

Nothing moved.

Moisture condensed around its nostrils.

It snorted, and some strange emotion stirred in my chest: comfort shot through with pain. I did not know what it meant, but I felt it, like it could tear me open. Seconds rolled over us and I thought back to the other white deer and how I’d learned, at age nine, that anger could take away pain. I reached out a hand, knowing that I was too far away to touch it, that too many years had passed to take that day back. I stepped closer, and the animal tilted its head, scraped an antler against one of the trees. Otherwise, it stood perfectly still and continued to regard me.