hair cut short; there were times he actually held down odd jobs, doing manual labor. He didn’t look like a criminal, but looks were deceiving. His name was loosely linked with various crimes, and townspeople frequently speculated that it was he who directed the flow of drugs into the county, though Miles had no way to prove that. All of their raids had come up empty, much to Miles’s frustration.
Otis also held on to a grudge.
He didn’t fully understand that until after Jonah was born. He’d arrested three of Otis’s brothers after a riot had broken out at their family reunion. A week after that, Missy was rocking four-month-old Jonah in the living room when a brick came crashing through the window. It nearly hit them, and a shard of glass cut Jonah’s cheek. Though he couldn’t prove it, Miles knew that Otis had somehow been responsible, and Miles showed up at the Timson compound—a series of decrepit mobile homes arranged in a semicircle on the outskirts of town—with three other deputies, their guns drawn. The Timsons came out peacefully and, without a word, held out their hands to be cuffed and were taken in.
In the end, no charges were brought for lack of evidence. Miles was furious, and after the Timsons were released, he confronted Harvey Wellman outside his office. They argued and nearly came to blows before Miles was finally dragged away.
In the following years, there were other things: gunshots fired nearby, a mysterious fire in Miles’s garage, incidents that were more akin to adolescent pranks. But again, without witnesses, there was nothing Miles could do. Since Missy’s death it had been relatively quiet.
Until the latest arrest.
Charlie glanced up from his food, his expression serious. “Listen, you and I both know he’s guilty as hell, but don’t even think about handling this on your own. You don’t want this thing to escalate like it did before. You’ve got Jonah to think about now, and you’re not always there to watch out for him.”
Miles looked out the window as Charlie went on.
“Look—he’ll do something stupid again, and if there’s a case, I’ll be the first to come down on him. You know that. But don’t go looking for trouble—he’s bad news. So stay away from him.”
Miles still didn’t respond.
“Let it go, you got that?” Charlie was speaking now not simply as a friend, but as Miles’s boss as well.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I just told you why.”
Miles looked at Charlie closely. “But there’s something else, isn’t there.”
Charlie held Miles’s gaze for a long moment. “Look... Otis says you got a little rough when you arrested him, and he filed a complaint—”
Miles slammed his hand against the table, the noise reverberating throughout the restaurant. People at the next table jumped and turned to stare, but Miles didn’t notice.
“That’s crap—”
Charlie raised his hands to stop him. “Hell, I know that, and I told Harvey that, too, and Harvey isn’t gonna do anything with it. But you and him aren’t exactly best friends, and he knows what you’re like when you get worked up. Even though he’s not gonna press it, he thinks it’s possible that Otis is telling the truth and he told me to tell you to lay off.”
“So what am I supposed to do if I see Otis committing a crime? Look the other way?”
“Hell, no—don’t be stupid. I’d come down on you if you did that. Just keep your distance for a while, until all this blows over, unless there’s no other choice. I’m telling you this for your own good, okay?”
It took a moment before Miles finally sighed. “Fine,” he answered.
Even as he spoke, however, he knew that he and Otis weren’t finished with one another yet.
Chapter 3
Three hours after meeting with Charlie, Miles pulled into a parking space in front of Grayton Elementary School just as classes were being dismissed. Three school buses were idling and students began drifting toward them, clustering in groups of four or six. Miles saw Jonah at the same time his son saw him. Jonah waved happily and ran toward the car; Miles knew that in a few more years, once adolescence settled in, Jonah wouldn’t do that anymore. Jonah leapt into his open arms and Miles squeezed him tight, enjoying the closeness while he could.
“Hey, champ, how was school?”
Jonah pulled back. “It was fine. How’s work going?”
“It’s better now that I’m done.”
“Did you arrest anyone today?”
Miles shook his head. “Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Listen, do you want to get