I sat on the chair in the hall outside Circuit Court and watched the line of inmates march single-file through the large wooden doors. I followed them in and took my seat alongside the other attorneys. A moment later, the bailiff appeared from the door on the right side of the courtroom that led to the judges' chambers.

"All rise. The Honorable Judge William A. Stone, presiding," the bailiff announced, stepping aside. Everyone in the courtroom rose as Judge Stone emerged from the door and made his way to the bench.

"You may be seated," he said, grabbing a pair of reading glasses from the bench and placing them on his face. Judge Stone was in his early seventies, with a round face and a large, bulbous nose. His eyebrows were so bushy that his eyelashes would get caught in them sometimes and he'd have to wipe his brow to get them out. "Court will now come to order. I see we've got several arraignments to do and then some other motions this afternoon." He looked at the docket for the day and then shuffled through the red folders in front of him as he'd done every day for the last thirty years. "Court will call 15-BR-0056, State vs. Elliot Rubarger. Roo-barger? Is that how you say it?"

It had been exactly six weeks to the day since Lester was arrested, and now he was being arraigned on his Circuit Court indictment. I wasn't surprised at all to find they'd presented his case to the grand jury so quickly. If Lester had been tried and convicted for Disturbing the Peace for what happened at the jail with Captain Murphy—a crime I'd never had a client serve jail time for— *before* being indicted on the murder charge, the sheriff's department would've lost him. He would have walked right out that door and disappeared into the wind. But they'd beaten the clock.

The grand jury process is secretive, so I wasn't able to find out how it went, but I'm sure it had been an easy sell for the State. After all, the grand jury was made up of members of the community—the very same people who'd been following the case in the paper over the past several months.

My mind was elsewhere as the second defendant was called up by the Judge. It had taken Eddie two weeks to get back to me with information on Rabbit. We'd met late on a Friday night, at my place that time; Eddie didn't want to take any chances. If Rabbit found out he was asking around about him, Eddie's life could be in danger. He apologized when I told him about my close call with Ronald; he obviously couldn't have known he'd be there. He didn't explain how he'd come about the information and I didn't ask him to. It was better that way.

It turned out Rabbit was a drug runner for a New Orleans gang called the Young Mafia. They were notorious for dealing in guns and cocaine but had recently expanded into methamphetamine distribution. Eddie thought they'd moved into Coles Creek, which made sense: New Orleans was only two hours away.

Eddie didn't know of any ties between the gang and kidnappings or child trafficking though, which left me no closer to locating Sarah. The drug connection was all I had. Eddie did find out Ronald took a trip down to New Orleans once every two weeks to re-up on methamphetamine. If I could find out where he was going, maybe that would lead me to Sarah. Eddie hadn't been able to come up with an address and said he'd get back to me if he found one.

"Mr. Price," I heard someone say. I snapped out of my reverie. "Are you representing Mr. Crowe?"

It was Judge Stone. "Yes, your Honor," I said, jumping out of my seat and taking my place beside Lester, who was already standing in front of the bench. "Sorry about that."

Lester turned toward me and narrowed his eyes.

"Have you been served a copy of your indictment? Do you want the State to read it to you?" the Judge asked again.

"I got it. I understand it," Lester said.

"Your Honor, he'll waive the formal reading and enter a plea of Not Guilty."

"Not Guilty it is," the Judge announced.

Lester was muttering something under his breath. I leaned over and whispered, "Don't make a show of this."

"I'm sorry Mr. Crowe, do you have something to say?" Judge Stone took his glasses off and placed them in front of him.

"No your Honor, my client – "

"Be sober-minded; be watchful," he said over my objection. "Your adversary prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." In the silence of the large courtroom, with every ear trained upon it, his voice seemed to carry more weight than it was due. It wasn't overly deep or high; each word just rolled off his tongue in an even, rhythmic procession, like a train's click-clack over its tracks. It was familiar, too; it was the same tone he'd used when he asked me to be his partner.

"Excuse me, Mr. Crowe?" The lines on the Judge's face seemed to deepen and a bright shade of crimson crept into his pale cheeks. "Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?" The bailiff, standing on Lester's side of the bench, stiffened.

"A threat?" Lester laughed. "Of course not. Just telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God," he mocked, raising his hand like he was swearing an oath. He paused a moment as the last word echoed across the courtroom. "Honesty may be my only virtue."

"Thank you Mr. Crowe," the Judge sighed, putting his glasses back on. "Your honesty is duly noted. Trial is set for November 11th. Who's next?"

"We'll talk after I've reviewed the discovery," I said before Lester shuffled back to his seat. On my way out, I picked up the thick stack of paper sitting in front of Paul Maxwell and signed my name on the front page. Paul shot me a contemptuous look. He didn't seem impressed by my client's cryptic outburst, but that didn't bother me. Lester was just putting on a show, like he always did, and all I could do was watch.

As I stepped into the hall, I felt something tug at my suit jacket. I turned to see who it was, but all of the spectators were still in their seats. When I glanced at Lester, he was already staring back at me, the edges of his mouth curved upwards in his telltale grin.

Back at my office, I cleared some space on my desk and started reviewing the discovery. I started at the beginning with the eyewitness who said she'd seen Lester walking down County Road 50 right around the same time Amanda was attacked. Her name was Keisha Fleming, a thirty-five year old black female who worked as a night-shift nurse at Community Health, the same hospital where Amanda was treated after she was attacked. In her written statement, Keisha claimed that on the night of July 30th she was returning home a little after 9:00 p.m. with a late dinner for her family when she passed a man walking in the opposite direction toward town. She lived nearby and thought it odd to see someone out on the road that late, especially by himself. That was the reason she paid close attention to the man's appearance and was able to give investigators an accurate description. Amanda was arriving at the hospital at around the same time her shift started at 10:00 p.m., but she did not treat Amanda. When she read about what happened in the paper the next day, she immediately called the sheriff's department. When I got to the last few sentences of her statement, the hair on my arms prickled:

When I got to work that night and heard about that poor girl, I knew the man I saw on the road had done it. Y'all won't believe this, but as soon as my headlights hit him, his face looked like it lit up in flames. I hit my brakes and looked in my rearview and he was watchin' me. I swear to God, when I saw him in the red light of my taillights, he burned like hellfire!

The sheriff's deputy who took her statement must have gotten a kick out of that one. And even though he most likely didn't believe her, I did.

I put aside Keisha's statement and moved on to Amanda's autopsy. The state medical examiner's report found Amanda had died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head. The technical term is "cerebral edema", or brain swelling. That's what caused the coma. She also had bruising on her face and lacerations on her mouth and below her left eye as well as damage to other internal organs. Those injuries appeared consistent with someone who'd received a brutal beating from a much stronger person.

There was something strange, though. The report also mentioned dozens of lacerations found on Amanda's back, each measuring between three and four centimeters long and only several deep. They were mostly superficial, meaning they didn't contribute to Amanda's death. They had to have bled like hell, though. To my knowledge, the instrument that made these cuts was never recovered, either from the crime scene or Lester's person. It was still out there.

I pulled the disc out of the green sleeve stapled to the back page of the packet and inserted it into my computer. The CPU whirred to life and a prompt appeared asking me if I wanted to open the file folders for viewing. Yes, do that every time, please, thank you. Don't ask me again. I navigated through the pictures in the /crimescene folder before I found what I was looking for. It was the picture of the white t-shirt Amanda was wearing when she was attacked. The entire back was soaked in blood.

Whoever killed her tortured her first. They wanted her to suffer.

Amanda's blood toxicology report was next. I was only a little surprised to see that her blood was positive for THC, meaning she'd ingested marijuana recently. She didn't seem that type on the surface, but Lake Baldwin was a popular spot for drug activity, so it made sense. The area where she was found was well-secluded and a short distance outside the city limits. Everyone in town, including the kids, knew the deputies only patrolled out there on holiday weekends.

As soon as I heard her body had been found at the lake, I'd been suspicious. I wondered if I could compel her boyfriend, Brad Bailey, to take a drug test. Probably not, though I knew what it would show. It didn't matter either way. Armed with Amanda's positive test, I could suggest she'd gone out to the lake to score some weed or smoke with someone and that one of those people killed her. Not Lester. The jury didn't have to believe it—they only had to believe it was possible. At the very least, it would help sow the seeds of reasonable doubt.

I was shocked to find that the lab report concerning the material found under Amanda Dunbar's fingernails, which would have typically taken several months to process, had already come back. The sample was negative for Lester's DNA. There wasn't any DNA at all, actually— only soil. Curious, I looked back at the ME's report and noted the nail beds of every finger and both thumbs were filled with it. I clicked through the crime scene folder again and found the picture of the front side of Amanda's t-shirt, which was ripped and covered in dirt. I was pretty sure I knew what happened: she was dragged. She was alive as her killer dragged her to the water's edge, desperately clinging to the earth with every bit of strength she had left.

My stomach turned somersaults.

I walked out of my office, down the hall, and into the bathroom. I stood over the toilet, saliva pooling in my mouth, trying to decide whether I was going to throw up or not and wondering why I felt sick. Crime scene details had never bothered me before.

When I got back to my office, I froze. Lester was standing against the far wall, right behind my chair. He wore Sarah's face again, like a rubber mask stretched too thin. Before I could move, he—it—stumbled toward me, odd and jerky like a marionette, its eyes wide and mouth oddly thin. As it got closer, I realized why: the mouth was stitched shut. I stumbled back against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut. Even in my terror, I knew it wasn't real.

When I opened my eyes again, my office was empty. I lurched out of the doorway and back to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before losing everything I'd eaten for lunch. The chicken pot pie had looked much better going down.

***

That night, my phone, still switched to silent on account of court, vibrated on the kitchen island as Rachel and I were sitting down to dinner. The text was from Eddie.

No address, trip dis wed, it read. Three dots appeared as if he was texting something else, then disappeared just as quickly. I wanted to text him back, but knew it would be useless. If he had more information, he would have sent it.

I was disappointed, but not surprised. From what I understood from former clients, gangs rarely, if ever, used addresses when they communicated about their stash houses, opting to use a code word like the color of the house or the first letter of the street name. That way jackers—criminals who steal from other criminals—can't figure out where they are. You'd think criminals would work together against the police, but there really is no honor amongst thieves. There may be several stash houses at a time and contraband is moved from house to house every so often so everything isn't lost if one of the houses gets jacked. Even criminals know how to diversify their investments.

"Was that him?" Rachel asked, putting her fork down when she saw my face. She he didn't look well, but I didn't say anything. There were dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks had sunken, accentuating her cheekbones for the first time since we'd been married. She'd gotten thinner, too, but wouldn't admit it. I knew she hadn't gotten a full night's sleep since she'd found out Sarah was alive. She cried every time I tried to talk to her about taking care of herself, so I'd resolved to simply grin and bear it.

"Yeah," I answered, my mouth full of pot roast. I wasn't really in the mood to talk.

"Bad news?"

"Eddie couldn't get an address. I'm probably going to have to tail him."

She didn't respond immediately. I watched her push the food on her plate around for several minutes as she chewed on her lower lip. "Isn't that dangerous, Jack?" she asked when she couldn't hold it in any longer.

I chose my answer carefully. It was dangerous, but I really didn't want to make her any more worried. "I'll keep my distance," I ended up saying. "He won't even know I'm there."

"When?"

"Two days."

I was pretty confident I could pull it off. Stalking, like painting or pottery, was an art form: a delicate dance of give and take, at least if you asked Rob, one of my former clients. He'd been arrested and charged with aggravated stalking for spying on his estranged wife and her new boyfriend and threatening the boyfriend with a gun on the golf course one Saturday. Instead of the five year felony, I convinced Paul to let Rob plead to simple stalking, a misdemeanor, in return for Rob enrolling in anger management and doing some community service.

Rob was an appointed client, which meant the county paid me beans for representing him. To make up for that, he paid me in knowledge.

To be a successful stalker you have to learn your target's daily routine. Down to the minute, if possible. When you're near, obscure your face, but not too much. Large glasses are okay, or a hat, but never both. Most importantly, keep your distance. Not everyone has 20/20 vision. Plus, people are more concerned with their cell phones these days than watching where they're walking – or noticing who may be following them. All it takes is a little distance.

"Hello?" I heard Rachel ask.

I hadn't heard her question. It seemed I'd been doing it quite a bit lately. "Sorry. What did you say?"

"Are you okay, Jack? You seem a bit off tonight."

I guess I wasn't doing a good job at hiding it. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about what happened in my office earlier. And then there was Lester's grin in the courtroom and the strange tug on my back.

"It's nothing, probably," I said. "It's just—something odd happened in court today. And then again at my office afterwards. It's hard to explain, but I think Lester's fucking with me." I dropped my fork. "Sometimes I think he can hear what I'm thinking. Jesus, I sound crazy."

"What makes you say that?"

"Ronald Babineaux popped into my head in court today and I got the feeling Lester knew somehow." I probably shouldn't' have said anything at all, but I needed her to know. I needed her. A secret like Lester Crowe is cancerous. I don't think anyone could hold onto something like that for very long, especially alone, without eventually succumbing to it.

Rachel's eyes began to well with tears for what felt like the hundredth time. I hated seeing her cry so much.

I reached my hand out and she placed hers over it. "It scares me, too," I whispered. Then, more softly, "We're going to get through this. I promise."