Being home for the summer spun my emotional balance in a manic dance. Separated by hundreds of miles from the crazies who tried to kill me was a relief, but I missed Clay, my almost-boyfriend, who I almost had sex with, and the girls I’d befriended on the seventh floor of Grogan Hall.
I tried not to think about how wrong everything could’ve ended. Some decent juju had channeled my way, and I’d breathed a deep sigh every morning since. Clementine Hunter and the New Orleans Museum of Art had filed charges against Billy and Jack Ray, Stewart Hayes, and Bridget Bodsworth for heisting and forging artwork. The case files were in the hands of lawyers and courts to sort out.
There still was some open-ended business—namely Bubba Jackson. He had slipped through the cracks of the FBI raid on his apartment, which amounted to seizing a stockpile of forged paintings, invoices that linked New Bern to an art dealer in New Orleans, illegal fireworks, and a heap of cannabis.
Storm Cauldwell, the smoking-hot FBI agent in charge, confided that the confiscated marijuana was the largest North Carolina bust so far this year. Jackson’s refrigerator, freezer, kitchen cabinets, and storage facility below his deck didn’t contain household items and sporting equipment. Every inch had been stocked with blocks of cellophane-wrapped happy grass. No one in New Bern admitted to knowing his whereabouts. But once authorities found Bubba, he’d be facing an additional set of charges for possession and distribution.
Two weeks into the Canton, Ohio, summer, a certified package arrived at Dad’s shop, addressed to me. A painting of a chorus group wearing white robes sang inside a country church. There was one vanilla face among the singers. Clementine Hunter had titled the painting Awakening. It came with a typed thank you note initialed in a Sharpie pen.
I called Francine at home in Louisiana to tell her I’d received the painting. She said it would make a fine addition to our dorm room in the fall. After I hung up, I flipped through the calendar and counted the weeks. I had to survive just ten in Canton, Ohio.