the cool shade of a swaying willow, lowered the kickstand and stepped on to the leaf-strewn edge of Redemption River Bridge. A breeze sang through the green leaves and whispered around him, tickling like small fingers and bringing the wet scent of the red, muddy river to his nostrils.
Muscles stiff from long hours of riding, Sloan stretched in the May sunlight and listened to the crackle of his neck as he looked around. The river narrowed here, near the ancient bridge, then widened on its restless journey toward the town of Redemption. A knot had formed in his gut the moment the river had come into view. Redemption was a misnomer if he ever heard one. Condemnation was a better term.
Beneath the picturesque bridge, water trickled and gurgled, peaceful this time of year but still corroding the rocks and earth, eating away its foundation—a fitting metaphor for his hometown.
Sloan had never expected to cast another shadow in Redemption, Oklahoma, or to breathe the same air as Police Chief Dooley Crawford—or his daughter, Annie. A dozen years later, here he was.
“Never say never,” he muttered through three days’ growth of whiskers. Traveling cross-country on a motorcycle with nothing but a duffel bag didn’t afford luxury. Not that he couldn’t have them if he wanted, but the good citizens of Redemption didn’t need that information. They believed the worst of their “bad seed” and he hadn’t come back to change their minds.
Only one person and one scenario could have coaxed him back to the place that had both destroyed and made him. Lydia. And she was dying.
The pain of that knowledge was a hot boulder in his belly, a fist around his heart tight enough to choke him to his knees. Sometimes life stunk.
He cast a hard-eyed squint across the riverbank toward the historic little town that despised him. They called him trouble. Like father, like son. With a throaty, humorless laugh, Sloan climbed back on the seat and kick-started the bike.
“Prepare yourself, Redemption, because trouble’s back in town.”
G.I. Jack spotted him first. The grizzled-gray Dumpster diver had just crawled out of the industrial-size receptacle behind Bracketts’ furniture store when he heard the rumble. Any man with salt in his blood recognized the sweet music of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Though G.I. Jack couldn’t recognize the model, he recognized the rider.
He rapped the side of the trash bin with his knuckles and hollered, “Popbottle, get out here this minute. You ain’t gonna believe your eyes.”
Popbottle Jones—so named because of an unfortunate length of cervical vertebrae—rose from the proverbial ashes of someone else’s junk and snapped off his miner’s lamp.
“Pray tell, G.I., what are you prattling on about?”
“Sloan Hawkins is back in town, bigger than life and scarier-looking than old Slewfoot himself, riding like some dark knight on a Harley.”
Despite his advanced age, Popbottle Jones scrambled up from the Dumpster, hopped with practiced agility to the paved alley, and hurried to the end of the building for a better view. To the surprise of neither man, others had also spotted the unlikely visitor.
Tooney Deer stood at the yawning bay entrance of Tooney’s Tune-Up, wiping his hands on a red mechanic’s rag. Eighty-something handywoman Ida June Click paused in hammering a new awning over Redemption Register and yelled down at Kitty Wainright and Cheyenne Rhodes, who were just arriving at the newspaper office with a notice about the new women’s shelter.
Across the street, Roberta Prine scurried out of the Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon, mouth hanging open in both shock and thrill. Strips of shiny foil poked from her head like antennae, as if she was waiting to be beamed aboard the mother ship. She fished in her pocket for her cell phone. This was news. Big news.
Miriam Martinelli was spritzing Windex on the plate glass of the Sugar Shack Bakery in a never-ending battle against dust and fingerprints. Her employee, Sassy Carlson, pointed a roll of paper towels at the passerby.
“Who is that?”
“Well, I declare.” Miriam plunked the Windex bottle on a round table and shaded her eyes with a large, bony hand. The dark rider roared past. “It’s him, come back. And not a moment too soon. Praise be to Jesus.”
“Who, Miriam? Who is it?”
Miriam cast a look over her shoulder, and sure enough, Police Chief Dooley Crawford had wrenched back in his chair and was coming over, leaving his coffee and cinnamon roll. If time hadn’t faded the issue, he wasn’t going to like what he was about to see. Nor would his daughter.
“What are you two gawking at?” the chief asked, patting his shirt pocket for the ever-present roll of antacids. “Santie Claus coming down Main Street in the middle of May?”
The Harley had reached the red light by now. The rider eased to a stop with one black-booted foot balancing the massive bike. A thick silver chain rode low on the heel of the boot, giving it a dangerous look—as if the rider himself didn’t look dangerous enough.
Chief Dooley Crawford grunted once, shoved a Rolaids between his lips, and stormed out of the bakery.
Home-health nurse Annie Markham was in the rose-colored kitchen, one hand on the oak cabinet where she kept Lydia’s medications, when she heard the back door open. She stilled, cocked her head to one side and listened.
Her patient, the elderly Miss Lydia, was lying down. Annie’s two kids were at school. No one else was supposed to be in Lydia Hawkins’s beautiful old Victorian.
Annie listened again to be certain the house wasn’t settling and heard the creak of footsteps. A twinge of alarm tickled the hair on her arms. “Who in the world…”
No one locked doors in Redemption. Nothing bad had happened here for nearly thirty years. Not since Lydia’s no-account brother, Clayton, killed a man over a gambling debt. This was a good town, a safe town.
“Who is it?” she called.
A man’s voice came back, smooth and deep. “Lydia?”
Her anxiety evaporated. Someone had come to visit her sick patient. Probably Popbottle Jones. The odd old gentleman had been coming around more and more since Lydia’s health had gotten so bad. Strange, though, that he would enter through the back way via the gardens instead of knocking on the front door. Stranger still, he hadn’t knocked at all.
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
In case the visitor wasn’t Mr. Jones, Annie grabbed the closest weapon, a saucepan, and started out of the kitchen.
One step into the living room and she froze again, pan held aloft.
A hulking shape stood in shadow just inside the French doors leading out to the garden veranda. This was not Popbottle Jones. This was a big, bulky, dangerous-looking man. She raised the pan higher.
“What do you want?”
“Annie?” He stepped into the light.
All the blood drained from Annie’s head. Her mouth went dry as saltines. “Sloan Hawkins?”
The man removed a pair of silver aviator sunglasses and hung them on the neck of his black rock ’n’ roll
