CHAPTER 32

Starved Rock, Illinois, November 3, 2019

THOMAS MITCHELL CLOSED THE DOOR TO THE CABIN AND WATCHED through the window as Frank Moore’s daughter drove the circular path around the cottage and disappeared into the forested drive from which they had come. Once she was gone, he looked around his new home, checking each room. He walked back out onto the front porch and into the dawning morning. It was the first time in forty years that he witnessed a sunrise. He sucked in the scent of the pine trees, his brain tricking him at first into believing he smelled the usual antiseptic bleach that had greeted him for the last many decades. But no, he tasted only the fresh scents of morning, of freedom, of opportunity.

So much had transpired at this place. He had history here, at his uncle’s cabin tucked away in the woods. And there was more to come. The final chapter of his life was about to be written here. He planned to find her. To bring her here, the way he should have done years before.

He took just a moment to enjoy the rising sun before he went back into the cabin and sat on the couch. Across the coffee table, he spread the contents of the plastic bag the guard had given him when he stood at the precipice of the open gate at Stateville Correctional Center. The trinkets and possessions he had accumulated during his life in prison had been left in his jail cell. He knew the guards had pocketed the knickknacks to sell to rabid fans. The Thief still had a following. But all that mattered to him were his papers. The tedious and meticulous notes he had taken over the years. They were a verbatim list of everything he had ever spoken about to Frank Moore. Every lead the attorney had ever brought him during the search for his wife. Every person Frank had contacted. Years of plotting had boiled the list down to an essential few. Thomas knew where to start. He planned to waste no time. Forty years of waiting were about to end.

* * *

Hours later, the sun was high above and his white skin burned under the unfamiliar rays. His shirt was soaked through with perspiration as he stepped onto the shovel for the thousandth time. The mound of dirt had grown thigh-high and it took a good stride down to reach the bottom of the hole. He spent another hour widening it, and another squaring off the corners. It had been so long since he’d dug a grave that he nearly forgot the thrill it brought. It meant The Rush was coming.

The anticipation surged through him. He swiped his forearm across his face to clear the sweat; then he speared the shovel into the earth again. And again. And again.