“I once gave my little sister a teddy bear I got for my birthday,” the boy whispered. “I knew it would make her happy.”

“Did it?”

“I think so. Sometimes…sometimes, it’s hard to remember. I try to picture them, but it gets jumbled in my mind. Like my favorite flavor of ice cream. I think it’s chocolate, but it’s been so long…Maybe it’s vanilla. Or strawberry. Can someone take your favorite flavor from you? I get confused…”

“What happened to your sister, child?”

He shrugged. “She’s dead, I guess. They’re all dead. That’s what he says.”

They were on treacherous ground now. Rita could feel it, even if she didn’t understand it. When she’d first met the boy, she’d assumed he came from an “unfortunate” home situation. Those were the words the social workers always used in her day. This child comes from an unfortunate home situation.

Lately, however, Rita had begun to wonder. She tried to pick her next words with care.

“When your parents were alive, child, did you live around here?”

He frowned at her. “Where is here?”

“Dahlonega. The Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. Is this where you were born?”

He was quiet for so long, she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. But then, slowly, he shook his head. “Macon. Macon Bacon, that’s what my father always said, when we were driving up the highway. ‘Macon Bacon, Georgia, where it’s all about the chickens!’ And he’d laugh. He liked bacon, too. And scrambled eggs in the morning. Do you think that’s what killed him? Eating eggs and bacon?”

The boy’s eyes were guileless. The expression made him appear smaller, more vulnerable. Rita wondered again if she was doing the right thing. Then she spotted her brother Joseph, racing along the front yard, leaping up to snag the lowest branch of the old oak tree, swinging himself up just as he used to do when they were kids.

Joseph spent the afterlife forever young. She wondered if that was because he died young, or if it was a choice each spirit was allowed to make. She was tired, she thought. Tired of the ache in her joints, the way the chill of a winter morning bit so deep into her wrinkled flesh. Not much time left, she figured. All the more reason to spend it wisely.

“When your parents died,” she asked, “did you have any other family?”

The boy studied her curiously, seeming almost perplexed.

“Did a social worker visit you?” Rita forged ahead. “Explain to you about foster parents and your new home?”

“What are foster parents?” the boy asked.

Rita stilled in the rocker, then forced herself to move again. Her mind was racing. If the boy wasn’t living with his parents, other relatives, or foster parents…She wished that she got out more, knew her neighbors. She’d dearly like to ask someone what they knew about the house on the hill, the man who lived there, when they had first started noticing the boy. Because they were beyond an unfortunate home situation now, she was certain of it. She was journeying instead into something darker, more sinister.

“Who lives with you, child?” she asked quietly.

The boy shook his head.

“It’s okay to tell me. I’m an old lady, you know. We’re the best at keeping secrets.”

The boy wouldn’t look at her. His gaze fell to the floor. “I don’t think I should be talking anymore,” he whispered.

“Tell me your name, child.”

The boy shook his head.

“How about your birthday?”

“I don’t have one. There’s only homecoming day, the day you belong to him.”

“Are there others?” she insisted. “Children, adults, pets? Tell me about them. I won’t judge.”

The boy studied his empty lemonade glass, then the shape of the porch banisters. Rita rocked back and forth in her chair, watching the dark clouds pile up on the horizon, feeling the electric pulse of the impending storm. She wanted to push harder, but she didn’t. Children talked when they felt like talking. You had to have the patience to let them come to you.

“He’s going to kill you,” the boy said.

She waved her hand. “Nonsense. I’ll die when I’m good and ready to, and not a minute sooner.”

“You don’t know what he’s like. He gets what he wants. He always gets what he wants.”

The first gust of wind hit, laced with rain, tasting like distant pines. Rita heard the boom of thunder, followed shortly by the crack of lightning. The storm would be a good one. The kind to rattle a house down to its very foundation.

The boy stood. “I gotta go-”

“Nonsense. You’ll stay the night.”

“The rain is coming,” the boy insisted. “I gotta get back.”

“You’ll stay the night.”

“Rita-”

“Sit down!”

The boy paled at her firm tone. He sank down into his chair, wary now, skittish.

“If you will not talk to me,” Rita said curtly, rocking furiously in her little wooden chair, “that is your business. But you’ll not be returning to the house on the hill. I couldn’t in good conscience send you back, and that is my business.”

“He’ll be angry. You don’t want him angry.”

“Pish posh. At my age, what’s some man gonna do that isn’t already about to happen? If he gets angry, he can visit me himself. Because I have a few things to say!”

She finished brashly, rising out of her rocker, stomping her foot. Neither she nor the boy were fooled, however. Rita didn’t know the man, but she already understood: If Scott’s “guardian” appeared on her front porch, it wouldn’t be to talk.

“Rita-”

“Shall I call the police, child?”

“No!”

The boy spoke instantly, in wild-eyed panic. Enough to let her know that the moment she picked up the phone, the child would bolt.

“Then it’s settled,” she declared. “You’ll stay. We’ll make stew. Have hot cups of cocoa. We’ll hunker down inside and watch the world go to holy hell. It’s the best way to spend a stormy night.”

The boy looked at her, his eyes wide, filled with something she hadn’t seen before. Fear, hope, longing. He opened his mouth. She thought he’d argue. Or maybe, leap from the porch and dash up the hill.

But then he closed his mouth. He squared his shoulders. Not happy, she noticed, not relieved, but a soldier resigned to war.

Rita guided the boy inside, shutting the old door behind them. He headed for the kitchen, while she paused in the foyer to work the locks. First fat drops of rain hit her driveway. She fastened the newly installed chain lock, pretending she didn’t notice the darkness gathering outside her window or the lights glowing in the old Victorian up the hill.

KIMBERLY WOKE UP TO A STRING OF BAD NEWS. THE manager at the Smith House had come up with forty-five possible credit card receipts. A lightning storm was forecast by mid-afternoon. Her supervisor wanted to know why she hadn’t attended yesterday afternoon’s meeting for Violent Crimes.

And Mac hadn’t returned her call.

She took them in stride as best she could. All receipts would be photocopied for her and Sal to divide and conquer upon their return. Given the approaching storm, they would leave for Suches immediately. She put in a message with her supervisor that she was following up on a major lead.

And she put Mac out of her mind. At least, the best she could.

They all climbed into Sal’s car and headed for Suches.

Highway 60 took its own sweet time. It looped through an endless series of S-curves, climbing higher and higher. They passed a gold mine, a bunch of boiled-peanut stands, various log cabins for rent. To the right, the Blue Ridge Mountains soared up as a dense wall of green underbrush and gray boulders. To the left, a deceptively thin wall of towering trees gave way to sudden views of a plunging valley that spread beyond the line of sight.