Chapter 3 - THE TRACKS IN THE MUD
The engine didn't belong to Arthur’s heavy diesel flatbed. It was too quiet, purring with the smooth idle of an older gasoline V8.
“That’s not Dad,” Clara whispered, pulling me down behind a dense thicket of blackberry brambles.
The headlights clicked off. In the sudden blanket of darkness, a truck door creaked open, followed by the firm thud of a heavy work boot stepping into the mud. A beam from a handheld flashlight flickered to life, cutting through the swirling mist near the fresh mound of disturbed earth where I had just been buried.
I held my breath, clutching the Saint Christopher medal against my ribs. Through the thorns, I watched the silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man move toward the pit. He was wearing an oilskin barn coat.
When the beam hit the empty hole and the discarded shovel, the man cursed softly under his breath. He swung the light across the trampled grass, following the fresh tracks of our frantic crawling.
“Elena?”
The voice wasn’t hostile. It was rough, thick with gravel and exhaustion.
“Hank?” Clara breathed, her hand relaxing against my arm.
Hank Miller was Mark’s older half-brother. He had walked away from the family farm five years ago after a bitter fallout with Evelyn, running a small engine repair shop three miles down the county road. Arthur barely spoke his name, and Evelyn treated him like a ghost that refused to leave town.
“Stay here,” I murmured to Clara.
I dragged myself to the edge of the clearing, supporting my weight against a young birch. “Hank.”
The flashlight snapped directly toward me, then instantly dipped to the ground so as not to blind me. Hank crossed the distance in four long strides, his weathered face tight with shock as the light caught my mud-caked clothes and the dried blood plastered to my temple.
“Sweet Jesus,” Hank muttered, stripping off his heavy oilskin coat without asking a single question and wrapping it around my shaking shoulders. The sheepskin lining held the warmth of a woodstove and tobacco. “Clara called my landline from the kitchen before they dragged you out here. She hung up before she could finish, but she said Arthur had a shovel in the back of the truck.”
“They took her phone, Hank,” Clara said, stepping out from the brush. “Mom told Mark that Elena’s baby isn’t his. She showed him a letter she claimed she intercepted from the post office.”
I clutched Hank’s coat around my belly. “What letter? I’ve never written or received a letter from anyone, Clara!”
“A letter with a cashier's check stub tucked inside,” Clara answered, her voice cracking. “Addressed to you, signed by someone named David Vance. Mom told Mark that Vance has been paying for your prenatal appointments in the city.”
The name struck me like a physical blow. David Vance wasn’t an ex-lover. He wasn’t even a contemporary. David Vance was the town’s former probate judge—the man who had handled the division of my late father’s modest estate two years ago.
“Why would Judge Vance send me money?” I whispered, feeling the damp chill fight against Hank’s coat.
“He wouldn’t,” Hank said quietly, his eyes dark as he surveyed the woods. “Not unless it was money that belonged to your dad. But Vance passed away three weeks ago, Elena. His office has been closed since August.”
The pieces refused to fit together. If Vance was dead, who generated that letter? And why was Evelyn using a deceased country judge to convince her son that his pregnant wife was unfaithful?
“We can’t stay here,” Hank said, taking my elbow to steady my unsteady steps. “Arthur’s truck is parked down at the diner right now, but he left his phone in the cab. He’s going to notice Clara is missing the second they step outside.”
“I need my father’s watch,” I said, digging my heels into the wet leaves. “They took it from our bedroom. Clara said Evelyn used it to poison Mark’s mind.”
“You need a doctor first,” Hank replied firmly.
“No hospital,” Clara interrupted, her eyes wide with panic. “Mom’s cousin is the night administrator at the county clinic. If Elena walks into that emergency room covered in ditch mud, Evelyn will know within ten minutes. She’ll claim Elena had a nervous breakdown and tried to harm herself. You know how she spins things to the family, Hank.”
She was right. Evelyn’s word was gospel in this valley. She was on the church council, the historical preservation board, and second cousin to half the deputies in the precinct. A wild accusation from a bruised girl with no phone and no car would be buried under paperwork until it was too late.
“We go to my shop,” Hank decided, steering us toward his truck. “I’ve got hot water, first-aid supplies, and an old wood burner. Nobody looks for anyone at my place.”
He helped me into the bench seat of the pickup while Clara climbed in beside me. As Hank turned the key and eased the truck down the rutted path without headlights, my fingers traced the back of Mark’s Saint Christopher medal.
October 14th. 3-8-1-2.
October 14th was today. Today’s date.
Mark hadn’t scratched an old memory into the back of that silver disk. He had set that combination this morning, hours before he helped his mother drag me into the cold hollow.
“Hank,” I said, leaning toward the steering wheel. “Does the old barn behind the farmhouse still have that cast-iron floor safe under the tack room?”
Hank glanced at me through the dim green glow of the dashboard. “The one my grandfather built into the foundation? Yeah. Arthur keeps the deed to the timber acreage in it. Nobody’s opened that safe since the old man died in ninety-eight because Arthur lost the dial sequence.”
“He didn't lose it,” I whispered, staring down at the four numbers. “Mark found it.”
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Before Hank could answer, his cb radio beneath the dash crackled with static, followed by Arthur’s unmistakable, gravelly drawl cutting through the receiver: “Hank? You near the south ridge? We got a stray heifer out near the old logging cut. Better keep your eyes peeled.”
Hank’s knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. Arthur wasn't looking for cattle. He was testing the waters to see which roads were clear.
