That night, I almost asked my wife to have a beer with me.

I'd just opened my fourth—a tasty craft beer called Altered State brewed by a local brewery—when Rachel emerged from our bedroom in the back of the house and headed toward the kitchen. The bedroom was where she'd spent most of her time over the last several years, mostly reading she said, but sometimes knitting brightly colored scarves or sweaters meant to fit an eleven-year-old girl. She was wearing loose pajamas, as usual, and her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. She always moved with the air of someone on a mission, even if it was only a trip to the kitchen to make soup. When she passed by the living room, she didn't even glance in my direction.

The words died on my tongue. Like old times. Asking her would be giving Lester exactly what he wanted: someone to play his sick game. Or, I thought, maybe it wasn't his game. Maybe I'd pissed off a former client. I'd pissed off my fair share—especially during the last couple years—and they hadn't been afraid to tell me so. But why would someone go to the trouble of telling a client of mine about how shitty my life had gotten? That type of insult was best delivered in person. And how would they even know I was representing Lester? No, that just didn't make any sense.

The other reason I didn't ask her—okay, the real reason—was because I knew she'd laugh in my face. Lester was right: Rachel didn't like my drinking. I hadn't always been a heavy drinker; I went to college in northern Mississippi and partied like the rest of my friends, but I never let the drinking affect my grades. I didn't drink a single drop in law school and continued the tradition once Sarah was born.

When Sarah disappeared, things changed, and I fell back into old habits. It started with a beer or two at night, just to take the edge off. Then it was six beers. Rachel didn't mind so much at first – she knew I was hurting. Hell, she was hurting too, but she knew how to handle it better. Six beers at dinner soon became another two to three beers at lunch, which became another beer or two with my eggs in the morning. I started drinking Wild Turkey, my favorite bourbon from college, when the beers weren't enough anymore. "Haven't you had enough today, Jack?" Rachel would ask, her worry painfully apparent as she threw my empty cans in the trash hoping I'd just stop without her having to ask me. But I hadn't had enough.

At some point she started getting angry. She had a right to. I didn't blame her – I was a mess and I knew it, but that didn't stop me. Maybe I felt like I didn't deserve to be happy anymore and screw anyone for trying to make me. How could I be happy when a massive part of me was gone—dead for all I knew? So, I started pushing her away.

If my pain was a suit of armor, the alcohol was my sword. I guess I thought I needed it to fight off... what? Introspection? Self-pity? Healing, perhaps. Except that's not how it works. All alcohol can do is numb you—make you care a little bit less. My self-doubt still remained, as constant as ever, along with the pain and heartache and frustration and worry. I just couldn't hear them yelling as loudly as I once did.

Rachel tried her best to convince me I had a problem, but I didn't listen of course. We began to drift apart—not all at once, because I don't think it ever happens like that—more like two boats, unanchored, out on a calm sea. One day you find yourself yelling across a vast expanse, saying "We can do this!", but the divide is just too great, and you can't hear anything over the roaring wind, because now the storm has hit, and you can't ever get your footing on account of the waves that crash into your boat. There's no mercy in that type of slow death. We did still love each other; I knew that much for sure. But Rachel didn't know how to coexist with the person I'd become.

So, I didn't ask. Instead, I drank alone. Hello, darkness, my old friend. First the beers, like always, then the Wild Turkey. No mixer, just ice. Maybe some water, but only a splash—you don't want to ruin the flavor. I wondered if Lester knew that sitting there alone in his cell, like he knew about the bourbon I drank. Could he see me? Hear me? I knew it was ridiculous, but the booze-soaked thoughts refused to stop, at least for a while. And then sleep. Glorious sleep.

I got to my office around 9:30 a.m. the next morning—late for me. The eighteen stairs were unforgiving and my head pounded from the night before. Whatever talents I possessed, handling hangovers gracefully was not one of them. I always hurt the next morning no matter how much I drank. Maybe it was God's way of telling me to stop being a dumbass and grow up.

I sat down at my desk, the custom-made leather top hidden beneath teetering piles of unfiled documents, to find the light on my office phone lit in red. On most days I would welcome the light; it usually means someone wants to hire me. Today it looked like an angry eye. Blinking and accusing.

The voice on the machine said I had twelve new messages, which was much more than usual. I had a bad feeling about them. I opened the top drawer of my desk and pulled out my handy bottle of aspirin, popping several into my mouth and washing them down with the last ice cold Natural Light from the mini fridge beside my desk. Hesitantly, I dove into the messages. That's when the shitstorm began.

The first message was from Marcus Sellers, the attorney in the office next to me, congratulating me on my article in the Sentinel. Obviously, the news had gotten out about my appointment to Lester Crowe. I ran down the stairs and grabbed the paper from the third step from the bottom, which I missed in my haste to get to my aspirin, then headed back up. It wasn't the main article, thank God, but there was a front page story, tucked into the bottom left corner, that read: Crowe represented by father of missing girl.

Just. Fucking. Great.

The article stuck to the facts because that's all it had to do. The implication was so palpable, there in the white space between the lines, it may as well have been written there in red: How could he do this? I rolled up the paper and threw it across the room, missing the box I was aiming for by three lengths.

With no secretary to field the rest of my messages, I trudged on. Several were from current clients who'd called to "check in on me", but I knew what they really wanted: the inside scoop on the case. Delete. One was from an another attorney in town—a nosy woman named Kathleen who'd lived in Coles Creek all her life—letting me know she was available if I needed her help. I knew her game well: she'd done a land deal for the Dunbars recently and hoped information about the case would win her the promise of future work. Delete. And then there were the messages from "concerned citizens" who wanted to give me their piece of mind. Delete. I listened to one more before deciding to skip the rest. It was from a Sentinel reporter trying to reach me for comment for another story they were working on about the case. I wanted to call her back and tell her where to stick her story, but decided against it. I already had the public against me; I didn't need another enemy.

The citizens of Coles Creek, Mississippi liked their causes. Coles Creek is the home to about forty-thousand people, most of them raised right here along the banks of the mighty Mississippi, which passes beneath the loess bluffs of the city on its way from Minnesota all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. They're doers, not talkers—God's own humble servants, if you asked them. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the muddy water itself ran through most their veins. When the gazebo on the bluff was struck by lightning and nearly burned to the ground, remaining that way for an entire month (the city's property, mind you), a committee of concerned citizens raised enough money to have it rebuilt. One month later it stood as strong as ever. Someone posted a picture of the mayor, complete with the caption, "Don't worry, I'll handle it" on one of the front posts. He certainly wasn't happy when the newspaper photographer failed to take it down before shooting the picture for their story. Another time, when a local boy was diagnosed with cancer, members of the community organized a 5k run that raised thousands of dollars for the child's care.

I lamented the fact that nothing bad had happened for quite some time. And felt bad for it. All that pent up do-goodery had been waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed on someone. Who better than the child murderer and his appointed accomplice?

Just then, something buzzed beneath a stack of bills. I brushed them aside and found my cell phone, which had obviously been there all night. Several little red circles screamed at me from the screen, most notably the one above the email icon, which counted over a thousand unread. Most of them were spam anyway—at least that's what I told myself. There were several missed calls and an unread text from Rachel, sent at 9:20 that morning: is the paper right? are you representing this lester crowe person?

I hadn't told her.

I know I should have. How was I supposed to explain it? For all of her intelligence, Rachel wasn't as painfully objective as I was. For her, there was a line. You never cross that line, especially when it hits so closely to home. Some attorneys, rather than face any backlash, ask to be removed from difficult cases that involve murder or rape, citing moral or professional conflicts. Some people just can't handle the internal dilemma cases like those create.

I'm not one of those attorneys. I'm able to separate my morality from the duty I owe my clients and I will go to almost any length to ensure they get a good defense.

I didn't respond to the text message, hoping she'd simply drop it. I worked in my office the rest of the day and didn't step outside my door unless I had to. I wasn't in the mood to explain myself to anyone. Not yet. Later that evening, Rachel asked me about the case again.

"I don't want to talk about it," I barked, looking past her at the television.

"Are you serious right now, Jack?" She sounded hurt.

"You heard what I said." I took another sip of the bourbon drink I'd just poured for myself and tried to act like I didn't care. Deep down, I was hurting too, but I couldn't let her see it.

"You're such an asshole, you know that?" She stormed down the hall toward the bedroom door, slamming it so hard the pictures rattled on the walls. Pictures of the three of us, laughing and smiling—all three dead and gone now, ghosts of our past.

I knew I'd be sleeping on the couch. Again.

We didn't talk much for the next week. I stayed at my office later than usual, working on several cases that had trial dates set in the current court term. All but Lester's were low-level felonies that would most likely end in plea agreements. Nine out of ten of my criminal clients either made oral confessions or written statements to law enforcement before I was ever appointed to them, largely because the officers interrogating them are able to convince them talking is in their best interest. They know if they get a confession, the case is usually over, and aside from a major procedural issue or rights violation, they're right. There's not much an attorney can do at that point. Luckily, Lester's hadn't made any written statements to the sheriff's department. He mentioned saying something to the deputy who arrested him, but as long as it wasn't an outright confession, I could work with it. Since Lester didn't need a bond reduction, there wasn't anything to do on his case until the preliminary hearing, which was set for Thursday of the next week.

Six days after she called me an asshole, Rachel cornered me as I got home from work. She was waiting at the front door and slammed it behind me as soon as I walked in. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes were puffy from crying.

"I'm sick of this, Jack!" Rachel's long, dark hair, usually pulled back in a ponytail, fell loosely around her shoulders, unwashed. "I can deal with some things, and I know you're going through a hard time, but I can't deal with you stonewalling me." She tucked the string of hair that had fallen into her face behind her ear and then folded her arms across her chest. A page of the newspaper was rolled up in her right hand.

"Rachel, I — "

"I know this has been hard for you. I know it. And I'm here for you. But this thing with Lester Crowe. Have you read the paper?" She uncrossed her arms and shook the roll in front of my face. "Have you heard what people are saying about you? About us? And you refuse to even talk to me about it?" Her voice shook as tears streamed down her face. "It's not fair!"

I took a deep breath. I'd always had a soft spot for her when she cried; something about it really tore me up inside. I really wanted to make things right, but I didn't know how. Suddenly, Lester's words rang in my ears again. Only this time, I couldn't hold them back.

"Hon, how about a beer? Like old times," I offered as confidently as I could, bracing myself for the backlash.

For a single moment, shorter than the time it takes to blink, I thought I saw anger flash across her eyes. Then it was gone. Her face relaxed and the edges of her mouth curled up into what was almost a smile.

"I'd like that," she whispered, her lips trembling.

We drank a beer together that night for the first time in at least three years. She sat across from me at our kitchen island wearing an oversized t-shirt from some community event and we talked. She sipped her beer slowly, like she was relishing every drop. She told me about her day and about some of the snide remarks her girlfriends had made. None of it was direct—only vague, passive-aggressive comments through text and Facebook. Rachel wanted to be liked; she was a people-pleaser and this was hard on her. I listened intently, never speaking, as she laid it all out. It was as if the last week had never happened.

We made love that night, which didn't happen very often if at all. I don't know if it was the booze or what, but for a brief moment everything felt like it was back to the way it was before Sarah disappeared. My heart, a hardened stone, was finally beginning to soften. I knew, somehow, that it wouldn't last—like morning dew on the grass that dries up when the sun finally rises. After Rachel fell asleep, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, savoring the final moments before the sun would rise on us – on this, whatever it was. Dozens of thoughts raced around the foggy recesses of my brain, but only one popped up over and over again: How?

The next day, I called the sheriff's department and set up an appointment to meet with Lester. When I arrived, a deputy was waiting to take me back to his cell.

Lester was sitting on his bed quietly reading a tattered paperback. I tilted my head and read the title. To Kill a Mockingbird.

"One of my favorites, Jack," he said without looking. He pronounced it like favor-ites. "Ol' Atticus Finch, what a hero." He set the book down and looked me over. "You have a bit of pep in your step today. Care to share any news with your buddy Lester?"

That grin. Somehow, he knew.

"What type of game are you playing at, Lester?" It was time to get to the bottom of this. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew it was something I couldn't explain.

"No games, Jack. Looks like you ain't gonna get rid o' me just yet, though. I'm sorry about that. I know you had your hopes up."

"How did you know? About Rachel."

"Like I said, Jack. I'm not who you think I am. But now you know when I make a promise, I keep it. Ol' Lester won't lie to you. Not ever."

"What do you want from me?" That's what he'd been waiting to hear all along.

He walked slowly around his cell in a circle, stopping in front of me. "A partnership," he finally answered.

I was silent for a moment. "What kind of partnership?"

"Here's the thing, Jack: I didn't kill Amanda Dunbar," he said frankly. "But these greasy piggies got me pegged as the killer. I'm stuck in this jail cell, with Jack Price the magnificent as my attorney, and all I need is a little help in winning this case."

"That's my job, Lester. To defend you," I explained.

"That's true. But you know well and good that the twelve imbeciles they put in that box are gonna convict me before they've even considered the evidence. They already have, Jack."

I couldn't argue with that. "We'll fight, Lester. I'll look for procedural mistakes. We may be able to exclude some evidence. If it's there, I'll find it. I'll do the work. Whatever it takes."

"Whatever?" he repeated, smiling. "That's the ticket. I knew you were a team player, Jackie boy." He sat down on the bed and leaned back against the wall. "Now let's discuss this partnership. I have a certain knack for being able to convince people to say and do things that ain't normal for them. The only catch is that I can't be the one doing the convincing. Don't ask me why—those are just the rules."

"Do you know how that sounds, Lester? Are you saying you gave me the power to hypnotize Rachel?"

"Something like that," he replied. "And you're going to do it for me again at trial. Let's say there's a piece of evidence, for example, a shoeprint that's found in the mud." He wiggled his right foot beneath the dirty sock and black, jail-issued flip flop. "They think they can tie me to the shoe print, but maybe you'll convince them to say they can't. Maybe the shoe print doesn't match up at all. A roundabout way of 'excluding evidence', if you want to call it that." He waited for my response.

I didn't know what to think. I'd never been one to believe in the supernatural—anything extraordinary for that matter—so taking Lester at face value went against everything I believed to be true about the world. Even so, deep down, I knew he was telling the truth. He'd already proven it twice. The trick with the deputy could possibly be explained, but Rachel's actions the previous night couldn't. As soon as I'd said the words to her, a switch had flipped.

I knew the answer, but asked anyway. "And you want me to be the one to do the convincing?"

"You got it, Jack. That's it in a nutshell: simple and clean. No one will know the difference. That's what it's gonna take to get me out of this. In return—well, I've already told you what I can do for you. And I think you already know in that melon of yours that I can deliver. After all, I'm the lizard king; I can do anything." He flicked his tongue in a grotesque display of confidence. Lizard King. I'd heard it somewhere before.

"Jim Morrison, Jack," he said, as if he could read my thoughts. "Hell of an artist, that one. He didn't take much convincing." He gazed off like he was remembering something, then his head snapped back like a rattlesnake's. "Whaddaya say?"

The hairs on my arms stood up. Lester could be terrifying when he wanted to be. I thought about his proposal. Simple and clean. No one will know the difference. If he could do what he said, no one would ever know except me. I'd be violating...what? My conscience? Either way, none of that mattered if it got me closer to finding my daughter.

"How can I be sure that you....that you know what..."

"Happened to her?" He placed his finger on his chin. "I guess you're gonna have to trust me, Jack." Then he broke into a discordant tune:

"I know where the good girls go –

way up high or down below –

stuffed in holes and hung in trees –

stitch their mouths to stop their pleas."

Jesus, I thought. I felt the sweat beginning to soak through my undershirt. I'm in deep now. I wondered for a moment if he'd taken Sarah himself. When he saw my face, he cackled. He enjoyed watching me squirm. When he was finally done he stood up and walked over toward me.

"All kidding aside, Jack. If you get me out of this, I'll do what I said I would. I'll tell you what happened to Sarah." He paused for a moment, sensing my hesitation. Then, his voice changed. "I can see into your heart, Jack Price." As if on cue, my heart began to pound in my ears. "And you know that I mean what I say. You don't want to admit it, but you feel it. It's like the genie from that old story is right there in front of you. He's offering you three wishes, but you've been told he's a trickster. And above all, you wonder if you've gone fucking loony." He spun his finger beside his temple. "Surely this is some cruel joke or a bad dream you'll wake up from soon. Are they gonna have to drag you screaming into some nondescript white van before the ink on the deal even dries?"

He looked me dead in the eyes. "It ain't a joke, Jack. Choose wisely, because there's no going back. Are you with me or not? Do you want to find Sarah? What do you say, partner?"

I spoke the single, heavy word with no consideration for the consequences that followed.

      "Deal."