“Come on. Come on,” he whispered to no one.
Brother and sister took another halting step forward, then another.
Four tactical officers in full body armor darted from cover. Two trained weapons on the entrance to the house. A third officer scooped up Jasmine, tucked her against his side and kept running. The fourth slung an arm around James Junior’s shoulders, shielding him and hurrying him along. But the boy stopped, turned to look back at the house, his eyes huge and haunted.
On the porch, James Hampton fell to his knees as the robot rolled to the door.
Come on, James, Matt willed. Get the tape and get back inside. Get on the phone. Talk to me.
James stood, but he didn’t pick up the tape. He looked at the clear expanse of azure sky. Watched the breeze rattle the sugar maples. Wiped the dampness from his cheeks.
Matt shuddered. No. He knew that look. James wasn’t going back to the phone. Throwing off his headset, he ran for the door. He had to get outside. Had to get to his H.T.—
Even as he started to move, Matt knew it was too late. He stared, transfixed, at the monitor as James lifted his weapon and ran toward the police barricades on the street. The shotgun muzzle flashed and a deep-throated concussion shook the video camera.
In the side yard James Junior tried to run back toward the house, but an officer restrained him. Horror etched a deep epithet into the boy’s face as he watched his father pull the trigger again, then a third time, until the perimeter officers were left with no choice but to return fire.
A barrage of small arms fire peppered the air, and James Hampton wasn’t living in limbo any longer.
Chapter 1
Welcome to the plains of southwest Texas, Matt thought, kicking at a withered dandelion shoot wedged in a crack in the dry earth. Where even the hardiest of weeds struggled to find foothold in the dry earth and the wind blew so strong it could peel the paint off a pickup.
Not much survived here; not much tried.
Matt never thought he’d come back here. Never expected to have reason. But James Hampton changed all that.
What had happened yesterday had touched Matt deeply. Driven him to his study to sit in the dark in the wee hours last night. Pushed him to the bus station a few hours later when he knew what he had to do, where he had to go, but didn’t trust his weary body to drive himself there.
He dropped the duffel bag he was carrying to the ground at his feet. Bending over, he pulled the zipper back enough to check that the thick yellow envelope was still inside.
The finality of what he was about to do hit him like a fist in the gut. The urge to go home, to pretend everything was all right and none of this was happening, followed like a one-two punch. But Matt couldn’t let himself be knocked down.
James Hampton was right. Living in limbo wasn’t really living at all. It was time to get on with life.
Before Matt ended up just like him.
Picking up his duffel, he started again toward the sun. When he reached the bottom of the hill atop which his destination lay, he took the long way around. On the backside of the slope, out of sight of the road, he paused to skip a stone across the pond where he’d learned to skip stones years ago. After a time, he felt the pull of the weeping willow tree behind him like a physical force. Giving in to the compulsion, he stepped into the magical circle of its fronds.
Would it still be there?
With fingers and eyes he skimmed the gnarled trunk until he found what he was looking for. An old carving:
M.B. Loves C.E.
Matt Burkett loves Caroline Everett. He remembered the night he carved that. Back then, he’d thought love lasted forever. Through any hardship.
How idealistic he’d been. How young.
And he wasn’t getting any younger. No sense putting off the inevitable any longer.
With a sigh, he hitched his duffel over his shoulder, called his K-9 partner, Alpha—Alf for short—from the bank of the pond, and set off up the hill toward the house.
Caroline’s house.
Minutes later, breathing a little harder, he stood at the top of the hill and stared up at the turn-of-the-century Victorian monstrosity. “This is it, Alf.”
The dog looked dubiously at the old house, then nudged his nose under Matt’s hand for reassurance. Matt obliged with a few easy strokes over the dog’s graying muzzle. “Let’s go see who’s home.”
In the front yard he studied the house up close. The last time he had seen the place, the facade had shone pearly white. Looking up from the bottom of the hill, it would have fit right in with the feathery summer clouds in the sky above it. Now, paint peeled from a weathered gray frame that reminded him more of thunderheads than summer cumulus.
Of all the places Caroline could have run to, he wondered why she’d come back to Sweet Gum. Happy memories? Simpler times?
Maybe she’d come home for the slower way life was lived here, where time was measured in seasons, crops planted and harvested, instead of seconds. Precious moments that never lasted.
Lost in his thoughts, Matt didn’t notice the small black boy barreling around the corner of the house until it was too late. The boy, five or six from the looks of him, ran into his knees, then bounced a step back and said, “Hey!” as if Matt had stood in his path on purpose.
Matt reached down to steady the boy, who then kicked him in the shin. “Ow!”
“Who’re you?”
He held the boy with one hand and rubbed his leg with the other. “Who are you?”
“I axed first.”
Matt forced himself to not recoil from the small body despite the pain slicing through him at the sight of twiggy arms and knobby knees. The kid was as rangy as Brad had been at that age. Only when he met the boy’s wide eyes and saw…nothing…did he realize the boy was blind. Stomach clenched against the unfairness of the child’s disability, he lowered himself to one knee, sliding his hand down the boy’s arm to shake his hand, and spoke less harshly. “Name’s Matt Burkett. You?”
The boy narrowed his unseeing eyes distrustfully a moment, then relented. “Jeb Justiss.”
Matt let go of the boy’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Jeb.”
Jeb’s nose wrinkled. He lifted his head, scenting, then the corners of his mouth curled up. His blank eyes shone with glee. “Dog!” he said exuberantly, his hands searching the empty air. “Can I pet him?”
Matt signaled Alf away and stood. “No.”
Jeb’s jubilant expression fell.
“He’s a police dog, not a pet,” Matt explained.
“You a cop?”
“Uh-huh. K-9 squad.”
