LITMIR.BIZ

       ONE

      “Walker.” Deputy U.S. Marshal Zachary Walker answered his cell phone and held it in front of him set on speakerphone. He dropped his duffel bag on the floor of his rarely used hunting cabin. He hadn’t had a chance to open the windows to air out the place before the call came in. It was probably just as well considering the rain pelting the sides of his family’s cabin.

      “Hi, Zach.” It was his boss, Dave Kenner, at the U.S. Marshals Service at the Western District of New York headquarters in Buffalo. And if his boss was calling him late on a Friday night at the start of what was to be Zach’s vacation—a vacation his boss had to force him to take—he knew it wasn’t to make small talk. “Are you in Quail Hollow yet?” Zach pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and waited for his boss to get to the point.

      “Yeah, just got here.” He cleared his throat. “Remember that vacation you told me I had to take?”

      “You never thought you’d have a nine-to-five job as a U.S. Marshal, did you?” Dave exhaled sharply over the line. Something was seriously wrong. “You see the news?”

      “No.” Zach had left the office at six, stopped to visit a college friend and his family for a few hours, then listened to an audiobook on the hour drive to Quail Hollow. It was his attempt to decompress. Transition. Leave the stress of the job behind. So, no, he hadn’t listened to the news.

      “Let me bring you up to speed.”

      “Am I no longer on vacation?”

      “That remains to be seen.”

      “Hold on.” Zach stood, set his phone on the counter, grabbed the remote and aimed it at the nine-inch TV sitting on the kitchen counter. The laugh track of some sitcom filled the quiet room. He immediately hit the down arrow on the volume and then played with the bunny ears mounted on the TV. He refused to pay for cable at his getaway cabin.

      “Let me fill you in.”

      “I had no doubt you would.” Zach didn’t try to hide his frustration. He had worked for Dave long enough to know when he was avoiding getting to the point. That could mean only one thing: the news had to strike a personal chord.

      Zach flipped the channels blindly, sensing his blood pressure spiking.

      “It’s Brian Fox.”

      And there it was.

      A headache exploded behind his eyes. He dragged a hand over his mouth. Just then he clicked on a channel and a live news broadcast appeared on the screen. Searchlights lit the stone walls of Peters Correctional Facility like a scene out of some prison break movie. A woman with a blond bob and a red coat stood with a mike in one hand, pressing the other to her ear, waiting for directions from her producer or whoever called the shots at the studio in a situation like this. The words on the bottom of the screen scrolled past. Zach had to squint to read them as the reception cut in and out to the old-school TV: “Convicted murderer Brian Fox escaped Peters Correctional Facility at 8:15 p.m.”

      He swallowed hard as disbelief made the words flicker even more.

      Over two hours ago.

      Zach muttered under his breath. “You gotta be kidding me. He escaped? How in the...?” He rubbed his temples with his fingers. The image of his little sister, bloodied and sprawled on his back steps with a trail of blood leaking from her head, flashed in his mind. Bile rose in his throat. People had told him he’d have closure when Fox was convicted. Put behind bars. The people who’d claimed that had never experienced the brutal death of a loved one. Peace. Closure. They were elusive.

      “How did this happen, Dave?”

      “Initial speculation is that he had help from the inside.”

      “Help?” Zach paced the small space. “Who helps a convicted killer escape?” He closed his eyes against the flickering image on the TV, feeling a migraine coming on.

      “A female employee may have provided him tools. She’s missing now, too. He’s resourceful. Fox dug a hole through the cement wall in his cell. Got into the bowels of the prison, then, it appears, he got out through the sewer system.”

      Zach fisted his hand. “You’re kidding me. He was able to do this without anyone noticing?”

      “Apparently he knows how to turn on the charm. Had this woman wrapped around his finger...” His boss’s words trailed off when he realized he had opened mouth, inserted foot. Fox had turned on the charm with Zach’s sister. Married her. Then showed his true self when it was too late. “I’m sorry. I know this is personal for you.”

      Zach ignored the last comment. That was the only way he got through each day. The only way he was able to do his job. Each day he did his best to catch the bad guys, something he did in memory of his little sister. But he had yet to find a way to do his job and not be haunted by the horrific scene in which she died.

      He was successful in shutting down the dark thoughts maybe 20 percent of the time, at most. Despite helping other people, he’d never get past failing the one person who had spent her entire life looking up to him.

      I’m sorry, Jill.

      “Brian Fox’s on the run.” His boss got back to the facts.

      “Any idea where he’s headed?”

      “His first wife moved to Quail Hollow about nine months ago. She’s renovating an old house. Word is she’s opening a bed-and-breakfast.”

      “She’s here in Quail Hollow?” Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach. This wasn’t the first time Zach had wondered how a guy like Fox landed not one, but two wives. “Does Fox know where she is?”

      “Not sure. But his cellmate said he’s fixated on her. Blamed her for putting him in prison.”

      “Great. The jerk kills my sister and he blames his first wife for his imprisonment. What a delusional idiot.”

      “About

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