“No, but I want to.”

“Oh, it’ll blow you away. Right beautiful it is. ’Course nothing’s as beautiful as what Candy had to show us—”

“How far away is it?”

He scratched his forehead. “About five hours or thereabouts.”

My spirits sank. That was a long way away for someone with no transportation. Or money. I toyed with my eggs, but I could feel Jeremiah’s curious gaze on me.

“You know,” he said. “There was a time I had dreams about those falls, even if I knew they wouldn’t come to nothing.”

“Really?”

I figured he was just saying that to make me feel better. How many other people hung their hopes on a waterfall? But I appreciated the gesture.

“Well, if you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a hermit. But even us hermits, we have people we look up to. Something to work toward. And ain’t no hermit better than the Niagara Falls hermit.”

I made a face. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“Nuh-uh. He was a real guy back in the eighteen hundreds. Francis something-or-other. He lived on an island right in the falls. He’d climb over some wooden planks and sit on the end like he was on a dock somewhere. People would scream, thinking he was going to fall.”

Despite myself, I was intrigued. This hadn’t been in my book.

“Did he fall?”

“Nope. Lived there happy as you please for years. Then one day he was gone into a shallow portion to take a bath like he always did. Went under and never came back up. Just goes to show.”

“Uh. What does it go to show?”

“Goes to show people think what they want to think. The man was highly-educated, well-traveled. Been to all these countries. Famous for his music. But he goes to live in the falls and everyone assumed he was crazy.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“Nah, he just knew a good thing when he found it. The falls is beautiful, so why should he leave?”

I couldn’t stop thinking about that man. The hermit. He knew a good thing when he found it. Was that Hunter, living isolated in his truck? Or was I trying to romanticize something so it would sit easier with me? It didn’t really matter. In the end, Hunter did what he did. And like Jeremiah said, people would think what they wanted to think.

In two more days I was strong enough to go outside. I took short walks but kept close to the cabin. I’d need to leave here soon, and that meant I needed money.

I asked Jeremiah about it when he came to stand on the porch to smoke his pipe.

“I know this is a long shot, but you wouldn’t know anyone around here who needs graphic design work, would you?” I sighed. “That’s pretty much the only marketable skill I have.”

He seemed thoughtful. “Nope, can’t say that I do. I barely know what to do with those computer things, but I have one if you want to look around for a job or something.”

I raised my eyebrow, doubtful. “You have a computer?”

He grinned, showing off his missing tooth in the front. “Bet you thought I was just an old stupid hillbilly, didn’t you? Well, I am. But my daughter keeps trying to get me hooked into that stuff, so she got me set up. It’s in the kitchen cabinet underneath the sink.”

Excited, I ran to the door. On a whim, I stopped and gave him a kiss on his cheek.

“You’re not old or stupid.”

His eyes danced. “But I am a hillbilly.”

I laughed on my way inside. “And I love you for it.”

I pulled out the laptop and cables, which were pretty new as far as I could tell, and thankfully not messed up from being in a damp, enclosed space for so long. There was a little router that pulled up a signal, though it was slow all the way out in the woods.

The cursor waited patiently for me to type some search terms about a job nearby. Or maybe there would be some kind of assistance program for homeless people—which I basically was at this point. Or if I were really desperate, I could try to get in touch with my mother.

Instead I typed in Hunter’s full name. Apparently there was a B-list actor of the same name so I had to scroll through a few pages of search results until I found the one I was looking for. A news site reporting on a conviction for aggravated assault.

Nineteen year old parishioner…

Spiritual advisor and close friend of the family…

Abused his position of authority…

Guilty and sentenced to five years in a medium security prison…

A priest?

Jesus Christ, Hunter had been a priest. No wonder Laura had been so sure of him. And yet, what I’d told her had been true. How had he come to this? Why had he done it?

I went back to the search results and found a new article dated one year later.

U.S. Federal Appeals court tossed out the conviction on Friday…

New evidence brought forward by the victim’s friend…

Had fabricated the story over a series of emails…

Released on bond pending official exoneration…

The conviction was overturned.

My palms felt sweaty on the keyboard. A girl had lied about him. Lied to get attention or for whatever reasons, and he’d gone to jail for that. Where Hunter had gotten raped. The article didn’t say but I knew it with a certainty bone-deep. A priest who had raped a teenage girl would be exactly the kind of person targeted for assault by the other inmates. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against those men.

The first article had a picture of him. I returned and studied it.

The same features. The same man.

But the younger Hunter had a smooth face and guileless eyes whereas the Hunter I knew always wore a certain level of scruff. And his eyes were haunted. The pain he held was more marked now that I had seen him before.

Even though the picture had been taken from the shoulders up, I could see the changes in his whole body. His cheeks were more gaunt now, his shoulders broader and thicker. He’d gotten leaner while bulking up on muscle. He even held himself differently, more proud before, now defiant.

I had once wondered who had broken him, and now I knew the answer. That girl had when she lied about him. The judge and jury had when they convicted and sentenced him. His fellow priests had turned against him. The inmates had attacked him.

The whole world had turned against him and in a way, he had cracked. He wasn’t entirely right in the head. Even knowing this about him, caring for him, I had to admit that his actions at that motel had been inexcusable.

But in another way, he wasn’t broken. He lived, he felt, he suffered like any person.

More than other people.

A clink sounded on the kitchen table beside the laptop. Car keys.

I looked up at Jeremiah. “No way.”

“Don’t give me a hard time about this, missy. I know what I’m doing.”

“I can’t take your car.”

“You take it and go where you want to go. Then if you still need a place to stay, you come back here. Ain’t no use for a man as old as me to be alive if he can’t help someone who needs it.”

“Jeremiah. I don’t have a license. If I get caught—”

He cackled. “Lord, girl. I don’t have a title for that car neither. You just don’t get caught.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you steal it?”

“Grand theft auto, is that what you’re trying to charge me with?” He sat down opposite me and grew serious. “About four years ago I was wandering the country, hitching rides and doing what I had to in truck stations to earn money for food, if you know what I mean.”

My heart clenched. “Oh, Jeremiah.”

“Now, don’t go feeling sorry for me. I made my bed, and I never really regretted it neither. But this one day a guy met up with me in the stalls. We did our business and he handed me the money—along with the keys. I figured it was some kind of setup, but I took it anyway.

“Drove straight to my daughter’s house even though I hadn’t spoken to her in a decade. She was real good to me. Put me up for a while, helped me access my VA benefits, and I finally could afford this house. Kept the car, though. Now it’s yours.”