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  Deni hovered over him, rivaling his mother in her attempts to make him comfortable. He didn’t want her to see him this way. He would rather have her waiting at home until the doctors patched him up . . . until he could gather his strength and pick up the pieces of his shattered pride.

  The trauma of the last three days ached in him, and images of the dead deputies and Scarbrough’s bloody, shattered face did a mocking dance through his mind. Along with those pictures, he saw the hatred in Tree House’s eyes — so much like that in Lou Grantham’s. Funny how the civilized and uncivilized had hatred in common.

  When they finally called his name, he almost didn’t hear them. Deni nudged him, and his mother grabbed his good arm and tried to help him up. “Come on, honey.”

  Deni got up to come with them, but Mark glanced back. “Why don’t you wait here?”

  She looked hurt, but she didn’t argue. “All right.”

  He tried not to limp as he left her in the waiting room.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  DENI TRIED TO SWALLOW THE HURT WHEN MARK ASKED her not to go with him into the examining room. It wasn’t a slight, she told herself. It was just a guy thing.

  But as she paced in the waiting room, stepping around the sick and injured, she wondered if there had been another reason he didn’t want her with him. Had she smothered him with too much attention? He’d hardly said a word since they’d been here, and he’d seemed impatient with her pampering.

  She’d seen this before — when her dad was injured. Being weak made him so angry that he’d practically bitten their heads off as they’d tried to care for him.

  But Mark wasn’t weak. In spite of the last few days, he was still one of the two most courageous people she knew. It was that courage that kept getting him into trouble.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Deputy Wheaton coming in. She’d never met him before, but she recognized him from the sheriff’s station earlier today. He seemed to be in a hurry as he cut through the crowd.

  She made a beeline toward him. “Deputy, I’m so glad to see you. I’m with Mark Green. He was beaten this afternoon — ”

  “I know all about it,” he said, not slowing his step.

  She assumed George and Will had filled him in. “Have you arrested the men who did it?”

  “Working on it. Right now I’m going to see Zach Emory. His brother just came and told me he’s conscious and ready to talk.”

  Deni caught her breath. “That’s great. He can clear Mark!”

  Wheaton nodded. “Ask him to hang around after he’s released. I may need to talk to him.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  “Also, let him know that Ralph Scarbrough is out of surgery.” “Is he going to make it?”

  “Looks like it,” he said, “but he’s not out of the woods.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  “IT WASN’T MARK.” ZACH’S THROAT BURNED FROM THE ventilator tube that had been in his throat, but he croaked out the words.

  He wasn’t sure when the memory had made itself clear in his mind. It had come in images, fading in and out. The buck on the ground. His pride and excitement . . . waiting for his brother . . .

  When he’d come fully awake, his parents had asked him to confirm that Mark was the one. His memories had been blurry, but he was able to get that much into focus. It wasn’t Mark.

  They stared at him now, as if they just couldn’t believe it. “Are you sure?”

  He tried to say yes, but nodded instead. What was the matter with them? Why would they think a guy like Mark would do a thing like that?

  Deputy Wheaton didn’t seem all that surprised. “Then can you identify who did?”

  He pictured the shooter again, approaching him, raising his gun. He’d seen him somewhere before, but he couldn’t think where. “No,” he grunted.

  “Can you describe him?”

  Zach tried to focus. “Brown hair . . . average height.”

  “What do you mean, average?”

  “My height.”

  Ned looked at the deputy. “He’s five-ten.”

  Wheaton nodded. “That’s the same description Charles Hoyt gave us. What was he wearing, Zach?”

  “Camo.” His head began to ache with the effort of remembering, and fatigue tugged at him, threatening to pull him under.

  “Zach, yesterday when your ventilator was shut off, did you see anyone in your room?”

  He shifted his thoughts. He remembered images . . . the guy over his bed . . . the voices . . . panic . . .

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know him?”

  He tried to picture the man again. He looked familiar too. “Maybe.”

  “Was it Mark Green?”

  “No.”

  Wheaton looked at Zach’s parents.

  “Zach,” his mother said. “The guy told your roommate that he was Mark Green.”

  “Then he lied.”

  Deputy Wheaton tried again. “Was he the same guy who shot you?”

  Zach frowned. “Maybe.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  Zach shook his head no.

  “See there?” Ellen said. “He doesn’t even know for sure.”

  Anger flared through Zach. Why wouldn’t they listen? “Wasn’t Mark,” he tried to say louder.

  Wheaton cleared his throat and stood up. “Looks like we locked up an innocent man.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now, since you let him go,” Ellen cried.

  “The man’s innocent,” Wheaton said. “Didn’t you hear your son?”

  Zach closed his eyes, hoping his mother wasn’t about to launch into one of her fits. Hoping to distract her, he rasped out, “Shoulda seen it. Ten-pointer. Beautiful.”

  “The buck?” Wheaton asked. “The one Mark Green brought home was eight points. Did you see the shooter take the deer?”

  He didn’t remember anything past the man raising his gun. His next memory was in the ambulance, gasping for breath. He shook his head again.

  He faded out as the deputy talked softly to his parents.

  FORTY

  DESPITE THE EVENTS OF THE PAST FEW DAYS, KAY KNEW life had to go on. There were clothes to wash and more bread to bake, but there was no one around to help her. Doug had gone with Brad to volunteer at the sheriff’s department, which meant that he’d be here less and less often. Deni had gone to the hospital with Mark, and Beth . . . well, Kay hadn’t seen her in hours.

  She went out into the garage and raised the door to give her some light as she washed a load of clothes in the hand-cranked Maytag Doug had bought two months ago. Because of his careful planning with their FEMA disbursements and his investments in things that made them more money, he’d managed to raise enough to buy them a few luxuries. Though this machine wasn’t as time-saving as the Kenmore she’d used before the outage, it was a far cry from washing the clothes by hand out in the cold. They had rigged it to run on kerosene, which was becoming cheaper and more readily available.

  There was no reason Beth and Logan couldn’t help her with this. Kay went back into the house, looked out the window, and saw Logan in the backyard feeding the chickens. She opened the door. “Honey, where’s Beth?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her.”

  She watched him for a moment. The snow was melting, and the temperature had warmed a little. It felt like it was in the upper fifties — a welcome change from the last couple of days.

  “When you get finished there, come in and help me wash laundry.”

  He gave her that hangdog look he had. “Mom, no! I hate doing that. It’s for girls.”

  “It’s for anyone who doesn’t want to wear dirty clothes. Now hurry up.”

  Resentment rushed through her as she closed the door. Why was it that she was the only one confined to the house twenty-four hours a day, baking and cooking and cleaning and washing, while everyone else was out in the fresh air, with a variety of things to do?

  She did it for her family, and given the events
of the last few months, she was glad to have all of them healthy and active. But sometimes she wanted to curl up on her bed and cry. The bad news that came so frequently — news of shootings and illness and the death of friends — took its toll and made her want to give up.

  But she couldn’t, not as long as there was work to get done.

  She went to the bottom of the stairs and called up. “Beth?”

  There was no answer, but she heard Beth’s feet running across her floor. Maybe she couldn’t hear her. Sighing, she went up the stairs. Beth’s door was closed.

  “Beth?” She knocked, and then opened the door.

  Beth sat sobbing on the floor in the corner of her room, holding a rabbit in her arms and another in her lap. At least a dozen other rabbits sniffed and moved around her. “Don’t be mad, Mom.”

  Kay wanted to scream. “Beth, what are you doing?”

  Beth’s chin trembled and she wiped her red nose. “I had to protect them. I couldn’t just leave them over there, with killers and thieves in our own neighborhood, doing whatever they want.”

  Kay’s anger faded. Had her daughter been up here suffering since Mark’s beating this afternoon? She hadn’t wanted the kids to see what was happening, but of course they had. She had ignored Beth after they’d gotten Mark inside, unaware that she was traumatized.

  And then when the rabbits were stolen, Kay had decided to deal with it later. With two deputies dead, the sheriff fighting for his life, and Mark beaten with baseball bats, the rabbits had seemed unimportant.

  But they were the one thing Beth could control.

  Kay went into the room and knelt beside her. “How did you get them up here? I didn’t see you bringing them in.”

  Beth sniffed. “I brought them two at a time. I tried to put four of them in a box, but they fought.”

  “That’s why we keep them in separate cages.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t sneak the cages in without being seen.”

  Kay tried not to focus on the droppings ruining her carpet. This was about her daughter exercising some control over the chaos of their lives. It was about protecting something, when she had no ability to protect the ones she loved.

  She took the rabbit out of Beth’s arms and set him on the floor, then pulled her child into her arms. Beth came willingly, clinging to her, weeping into her sweatshirt, wailing out her heartache.

  “They beat him, Mom. They almost killed him.”

  Kay closed her eyes and stroked Beth’s hair. “Oh, sweetie, I didn’t want you to see that.”

  “Where’s God? Why would he let that happen to Mark?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “But things are getting worse and worse. They never end. Do you think God has a bet with the devil? That he’s just daring him to do something to Mark, like Job?”

  Kay pulled Beth back and looked into her wet face. “Honey, you’re misunderstanding what happened with Job. It wasn’t a bet. It happened for a reason. Job just wasn’t told what it was.”

  “What reason?”

  “So that we would be encouraged that God is in control. Thousands of years after that book was written, we read it and know that we’re not alone in our suffering. That no one can do anything to us without God’s permission. And that God uses things in ways we can’t imagine. Job was an example to us. Do you think he would have ever dreamed that we’d be talking about him in the twenty-first century?”

  Beth’s hiccupping sobs eased up, and she shook her head. “I wish God would tell us more.”

  “I wish he would too. But you know that suffering has a way of making us stronger. Aren’t we better people than we were eight months ago?”

  “Maybe.” She thought for a minute. “Nothing really bad ever happened to us before. We were kind of wimpy.”

  Kay laughed softly. “We’re not wimpy now, are we? And don’t we trust God more?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Kay wished she could make Beth trust him more, but she knew she had a long way to go with that, herself. Kissing her daughter, she said, “We have to get these rabbits back where they belong.”

  “But Mom, what if they get stolen? Can’t I keep them in the garage until Dad gets home?”

  Kay didn’t want them in her garage, but if it would make Beth feel better, so be it. “All right, just until he’s home. Then he can figure out some way to lock the cages down so no one can take them. Maybe he can padlock the doors.” She kissed her forehead again. “Are you all right now?”

  Beth drew in a long, shaky breath. “Yeah, but my head really hurts.”

  “It’s no wonder.” She sighed and picked up two of the rabbits. “Come on, I’ll help you get them out to the garage.”

  FORTY-ONE

  “WELL, SON, YOU’RE OFF THE HOOK.”

  Mark had waited in the lobby with Deni and his mother for the last half hour, anxious to hear if Zach had, indeed, been coherent enough to clear things up. Now he wasn’t sure he’d heard Wheaton right. “So he told you what happened?”

  “That’s right. Guy who shot him was around five-ten, brown hair. The one who unplugged his ventilator might have been the same person. He was only sure about one thing — that neither of them was you.”

  For the first time in days, light broke through the clouds that seemed to hover over Mark. Deni shouted and threw her arms around him, but the pressure brought a sharp jolt of pain, and he gasped. She pulled back apologetically and hugged his mother instead. The two of them jumped up and down as though they’d just won a lottery. Mark laughed in spite of his pain.

  Turning, his mother hugged Wheaton. “Thank you, Deputy. We’re so grateful.”

  “Don’t thank me, thank Zach. Now I have to find the real guy.”

  Deni’s joy faded. “Not telling you how to do your job, Deputy, but you ought to question Blake Mahaffey and Randy Kraft. They lied about Mark for a reason.”

  “You bet I’m going to question them.” He started to walk away, but Martha stopped him. “Deputy, will you please go tell our neighborhood so Mark can go home without being attacked again?”

  “They’ll find out when we start arresting Lou Grantham and the others. That’s at the top of my priority list, almost as high as finding the escapees. But first I need to get some volunteers signed up.”

  “I want to be sworn in,” Mark said.

  Deni swung toward him, and Martha looked like she’d been slapped. “Mark, you’re injured!” his mother cried.

  Wheaton rested his hands on his hips. “Son, you’re not in any shape to serve in the sheriff’s department.”

  Mark wouldn’t take no for an answer. “There must be something I can do. I could man the offices. I could go through the prisoners’ files, getting their addresses and trying to figure out where to look for them. You need someone to do that, Deputy.”

  “But I don’t need someone bent on revenge helping enforce the law.”

  “It’s not revenge I want, Deputy. It’s justice. Two men on your force were killed, and another is fighting for his life.”

  Wheaton stared at him for a long moment.

  “I’m not saying that I’m not angry. But my anger won’t keep me from enforcing the law. It’ll just make me more determined to see justice done. Do you really have the luxury of turning capable men away? I can help you find those prisoners.”

  Wheaton looked at the floor. Mark knew he was considering it.

  But Deni intervened. “Mark, you don’t have to be the one who saves the world. Please — keep a low profile for a while so you can heal.”

  “Deni, somebody has to step up.”

  “Not you!” she shouted.

  Mark grew silent. He looked at his mother, waiting for her to chime in. She was standing there, tears in her eyes, and her look told him she knew he was going to do what he had to do. She didn’t like it any more than Deni, but she wasn’t going to stand in his way.

  Deni, on the other hand, wouldn’t take it well. “Deputy, your instincts ar
e right,” she said. “He shouldn’t be there. It would be irresponsible to swear him in.”

  “Deni, stop it!” Mark bit out.

  She looked at him as if he’d betrayed her, her eyes pleading. He didn’t like to see her cry, but this was important. Someone had to help them catch the escapees so she could ride the streets safely. Someone had to stop those men before they turned Crockett into a war zone.

  If she couldn’t understand that —

  “Deputy,” he said, “do you need volunteers, or don’t you?”

  Wheaton stared at Mark, then finally said, “All right. We’ll give it a try. I’ll give you a ride back to Crockett and we’ll stop by the station and swear you in.”

  “I don’t believe this.” Deni took off toward the door.

  Mark looked back at his mother and saw that her eyes were on the edge of grief. He hated making her worry.

  “Mom, I need to do this.”

  She blinked back the tears misting in her eyes. “I know. That’s the kind of man you are.”

  “You can stay with the Brannings when I’m at work.”

  She nodded. “I will. But for now, you need to go after her.”

  Holding his broken arm in its sling close to his body, and running his fingers under the brace on his collarbone, he went outside. He found her sitting on the curb near Wheaton’s van. Her face was wet, and she wiped it with both hands.

  He sat down next to her. Putting his good arm around her, he pulled her head against his chest. “It’ll be okay.”

  “He’s going to swear you in, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  She crumpled against him. “I’ve been lucky until now. Of all the people I’ve loved who have been in danger, I haven’t lost anyone yet. But I have a really bad feeling about this. You and my dad — in the middle of this mess.”

  “Deni, think of it this way. Who do you want protecting you?”

  She closed her eyes. “You or my dad.”

  “So that’s how I see it. I want to protect your family and my family, and the neighborhood and the town. I’m not the kind to sit back and wait for others to work things out.”