CHAPTER ONE

August in Georgia is its own special kind of hell.

Carl listened to the sound of the ceiling fan rhythmically clicking above him and felt the rush of slightly cooler air on his chest and face. He refused to open his eyes. If he opened his eyes he’d look at the damned fool alarm clock and realize that all of four or five minutes had gone by since the last time he’d looked and that would just piss him off.

He tended to spend enough time pissed off already, thanks just the same.

Outside of his house the wind barely moved; the thick, humid air was still ungodly warm, even at almost three in the morning, and the sky from time to time strobed with a distant flash of heat lightning. Inside the house the air was almost as sticky and the alarm clock kept up its siren call, mockingly calling him to just open one eye and check out the glowing numbers. It couldn’t possibly be as bad as he thought it was.

He finally opened one eye, peeked, and saw that a total of three minutes had slipped past since the last time he gave in. “Son of a damn bitch.” Out of bed then. Into the shower for a blast of cold water to wake him up and then he’d go on his early morning run. He didn’t want to, not really, but there wasn’t much choice in the matter. Sitting in an empty bed and listening to his own brain trying to cover everything he had done in the last week and all the stuff he still had to do was not getting him any closer to sleeping, and he didn’t feel like soaking in his own sweat for one more second.

Ten minutes later he was dressed in his shorts and t-shirt and jogging out the door and into the sultry air of an early morning. His cell phone was clipped to his hip and he had the ear buds in place so he could listen to music and answer the phone if he had to. The sun was hours away from up and the temperature was already in the low eighties. Oh, yes, a hell of a fine summer. He hadn’t made twenty feet from his driveway before he started sweating.

The job was working its way to hellish and disgusting just as fast as the weather lately. Though it seemed like the dust had barely cleared from the situation at the end of the last October, the spill out was getting uglier and uglier. The county prosecutor’s office had called to warn him there were possible repercussions to the way he’d handled the whole situation with the Blackbourne clan. That was to be expected, really. He and Wade Griffin had put an epic hurting on the people, and more than a dozen members of Brennert County’s premier criminal family were dead as a direct result of their actions.

Some people have no sense of humor when you kill their loved ones. Of course that was a two-way street and the death of an old high school buddy had led to the investigation that in turn ended up in a bloodbath last Halloween. Sometimes you get easy cases and sometimes you get the sort that leaves ripples in your life for months. This was definitely a ripple situation. As the Sheriff of Brennert County Carl had to deal with those waves in the way things were supposed to be. He rather envied Wade the title of private investigator in this situation, partially because he’d done everything he could to keep the affair from blowing back on his old friend.

You do what you have to.

The road curved and Carl followed the flow, stepping onto the sidewalk when he saw headlights coming.

The second he saw the vehicle’s headlights, he suspected the driver of the car saw him. That was when the headlights suddenly died away. Carl felt himself tense. As a rule you don’t kill the headlights on a moving vehicle in the middle of the night. Not unless there’s a reason. In his not inconsiderable experience, that reason normally meant you didn’t want to get seen doing something you knew you shouldn’t be doing.

Carl tended to be exactly the sort that paid attention to shit like that.

Before he could do more than acknowledge the potential problem, the car engine revved hard and the entire thing lurched forward, gathering speed. Not a car, a pickup truck. The engine whined as the vehicle increased speed, and even with the lights gone and his eyes still adjusting to the sudden darkness Carl figured there was a good chance the driver intended to paste him. Eyes left, nothing but road. Eyes right, two very large oak trees. He ran to the right, hurtling a small picket fence and moving into a front yard where the trees waited like islands of possible safety.

The truck came closer, bouncing against the curb and then rising up to the level of the sidewalk – recently installed in the neighborhood to encourage joggers like Carl from standing in the damned road, thank you – and came for him, the engine’s desperate note getting louder and the sound of the tires hissing across the pavement loud enough at last to be heard over the sound of The Beatles playing in his ears.

Carl made it behind the first tree, cursing the lack of a pistol on his hip. Damned hard to carry a holster with your running shorts.

Rather than trying its luck with the tree, the truck swerved back onto the road and accelerated. Carl looked carefully, staring at the rear of the Ford F-150. He could see a tag, but couldn’t make out a single number or letter. Ford pickups were damned near the official truck of Brennert County and the town of Wellman. Might as well look for a blade of grass in a well-mown lawn.

Carl chased after the truck, running as hard as he could in the heat of the early morning, his eyes focused on the tag, without which he would have nothing. It was too damned dark to even make out the color. It could be white, it could be yellow or gray. The tag was a Georgia tag, but beyond that he needed to get closer.

The truck did not agree, moving faster as it took the next curve in the road. Carl spat a curse as the vehicle slowed just enough to avoid flipping over. In the back of the truck a flash of motion, a pale face and wild hair and then a hand slapping the glass of the window, fingers wide apart.

And then a voice screaming, but too far away to hear what was said, only a tone. A desperate, frightened tone.

And then the truck was gone.

Carl cursed a second time and pulled his cell phone free. He had the office on speed dial. He called the number, breathing hard in the humid air and glaring after the truck that was now gone from his sight. “Brennert County Sheriff ’s Department, Deputy Austin.”

“Ryan, this is Carl. You got any cars around my neighborhood?” He looked at the street sign a bit down the road. “Euclid Street. Got a truck down this way that just tried to run my ass down.” He ignored the man’s shocked tone and recited the few details he had, demanding a car in the area as soon as possible. Then it was back to the house. He had to get dressed and quickly if he was going to join the pursuit himself.

Two hours later the sky was growing light and Carl’s eyes were growing tired. Nothing. No sign of any truck with a convenient hostage in the back seat to help identify, and there were too damned many trucks parked to examine them all. Carl pulled into the parking lot of the Rabbit Hutch Diner and scowled as he climbed from his truck – a Ford F-150, of course – and headed for the front door. Breakfast and a couple of gallons of coffee would help. He was absolutely willing to convince himself of that lie if it would get him through the day.

Despite the early hour several of the tables and booths were already occupied. Carl sidled up to the long counter and smiled at Becky, the skinny little thing that served him five days of the week. The woman was in her fifties and looked like a long-time anorexic, but that was just the way she was built. Her hair was exactly the color of red that comes from generic hair dye and her makeup brought to mind a few of the clowns he’d seen the last time he went to the circus – not a comforting thought as he absolutely hated clowns – but aside from the artificial attempts to look twenty years younger she was a sweet lady.

“Mornin’, Carl! Same old thing?” He nodded and smiled his thanks. She smiled back and called to Zeb in the kitchen to set up his usual.

He drank two cups of coffee while he was waiting and checked in at the office to see if anyone, by some miracle, had had more luck than him at spotting the elusive driver from a few hours earlier. Nope. He wasn’t surprised.

The little bell over the door jangled as another patron came in. Normally Carl might have bothered to look, but he was exhausted. He would have completely ignored the door, but just as it rang Becky was heading his way with a plateful of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a lethal dose of extra-crispy bacon. Becky looked at the door, looked at Carl then shook her head in warning. The expression on her face said it was bad, very, very bad.

Carl turned to the door and saw Hell in high heels heading in his direction.

It was much worse than he’d expected.