I’ve got my heart set on being a small-town country lawyer and fishing a little every day.”
“This is the place for you, Jack. We’ve got running trails, hiking trails, natural springs, and the most beautiful rivers in all of Florida.”
“Sorry, Ronnie. I’m hooked on Bass Creek. It’s a sleepy little backwoods town that sits next to a pretty big fishing pond. A man can lose track of time in a place like that.” The “pond” Jack was referring to was the great Lake Okeechobee.
“That’ll change. As a matter of fact, I predict someday you’ll come here to Oakville, Jack, maybe for a case or something, and you’ll decide to stay.”
“Wow, this is getting heavy,” Pete said. “Predictions of the future.”
“Mark my words,” Ronnie continued. “Jack will be here. It’ll be for either a big case or a woman or both.”
“Look at him,” Jack countered. “He has one good night and all of a sudden he thinks he’s Carnac the Magnificent.”
“It was a good night,” Pete said.
“Yeah,” Ron replied. “Now if I can just find a way to have a championship football game played at the stadium every night of the week, I may survive in this business.”
PART ONE
October 1993
Oakville, Florida
Chapter One
Stacey Kincaid had been at the University of North Central Florida at Oakville all of two months, but she already knew her way around. A pretty brunette with large greenish-hazel eyes, she stood out among the sea of blue-eyed blondes on campus.
It was a gloomy Monday afternoon. The rain had just stopped as she descended the steps of Fogarty Hall reading from her psychology textbook, a dangerous practice even on dry, sunny days. She looked up for a moment and spotted him walking in the grass about a hundred feet in front of her, stooped over, limping along, his right leg in a cast below the knee.
Carrying too many books in his outstretched arms, he appeared to slip on the wet surface. Both he and the books flew into the air as he performed an awkward and involuntary swan dive, hitting the ground headfirst.
Instinctively, Stacey rushed to the rescue.
“Are you okay?” she asked as she helped him to his feet.
“Yes,” he said in a soft, almost helpless voice. “Thank you so much.”
The books were scattered everywhere and he began to pick them up, his mannerisms deliberate, like those of an older man, although he looked to be in his midtwenties—thirty at the most. Thin, with shoulder-length blond hair and a scraggly beard, he was dressed like a sixties hippy in jeans, a tie-dyed tee shirt, and one dirty white Converse All-Star. The cast leg was shoeless. The front part of his body was soaking wet.
“Let me help you,” she said as she started to pick up some of the books.
“Thanks. I don’t know if I can make it to my car. It’s just a block off campus,” he said when the books were all gathered and she was still holding a few in her hands along with her own psychology textbook and a notebook.
“I’ll come with you.”
She walked beside him until they reached the car, an old beat-up, two-door orange Volkswagen Bug. The man struggled to find his keys with the books in his hands, then fidgeted with the lock. Finally, he succeeded in opening the car door. Stacey smiled patiently as she watched him.
What a klutz, she thought. No wonder he’s in a cast.
The man pulled the passenger seat down and deposited his books in the back. Stacey didn’t notice him linger for a moment before he withdrew himself from the rear of the car.
“You can put those books on the floor in front,” he told her, pointing to the empty floor on the passenger side.
Stacey leaned down and set the books on the floor of the front seat. For some reason, she stole a glance back at him as she set the books in place. She didn’t know why she did it—perhaps it was simply intuition, perhaps it stemmed from her training in tae kwon do. Whatever the reason, that quick glance saved her life.
She saw the man raising his right arm to strike her with a small club that had appeared in his hand. She pivoted quickly, placing her left forearm high enough to blunt the force of the blow before the man’s arm had gained enough speed on its downward trajectory. Without thinking, she latched her left hand onto his right shoulder as she used him to pull herself up and toward him. When she was