If he’d had their town’s phone tree, Paul Revere and his cohorts could have saved themselves a hell of a hard night’s ride.

  Rory didn’t say much to anyone as he left the van and moved to where Thomas and Marcus were. When Elaine embraced him, her eyes were serious, her mouth set. She didn’t comment on Daralyn’s absence, but all his family looked as glad as he was that she’d decided to sit this out.

  Everyone was quiet, most gazing down the empty stretch of road. Anticipating, watchful. Other community gatherings were noisy with laughter and local gossip, but the purpose of those events was socializing. Celebrating.

  This was an army, waiting for the enemy to show himself.

  They didn’t have long to wait. He saw the car coming, a nineties-era dusty black Chrysler sedan. His heart thudded like a hammer. He remembered that same car, occasionally parked in town as Burton or Oscar came to the grocery store, the bank. Even more infrequent had been the times Daralyn was with one or both of them, a shadow that stayed close.

  They’d rarely come into his parents’ store. Maybe once or twice, but the Moorfield brothers probably sensed his mother’s eagle eyes, her growing suspicions about Daralyn.

  Burton had three cars trailing behind him, far enough back that it looked like he’d simply picked up some traffic on his way into town. One of them had Brick in it, who’d sent the text to Rory. He’d volunteered to be the one to drive from Richmond to Tabor City and dog Burton once he’d left the prison, confirm his first stop was their town. The last text he’d sent Rory, the one he’d received at the store, had been brief.

  Forty-five minutes. Doesn’t seem to know he’s being tailed.

  Rory figured Burton wouldn’t expect a tail, so he hadn’t been looking for it. The other two cars following Brick were town residents who’d fallen in behind him a few miles back. One of them included the Baptist preacher, Reverend Mueller, and his mother. That was the church Burton and Oscar had gone to, only a stone’s throw from the Catholic one that Rory’s family attended.

  Rory rolled to the center of the road. He didn’t have to look to know the now nearly seventy people had followed his lead. They were gathering and spreading out behind him, a human roadblock. Thomas and Marcus were closest to him, just ahead of his mom. Thomas had probably exhorted her to stay back a little bit, and she’d graciously accepted the protectiveness, while staying close enough to go mama bear if needed. At another time, that thought would have made him smile. Not right now.

  The Chrysler slowed but kept approaching. Burton probably thought it was some local festival. As he drew close enough to realize it might be something different, the car slowed further. That was when Brick and the other two cars behind him drew closer to his tail and fanned out, blocking his retreat and parking in a loose semi-circle behind him. There were drainage ditches on both sides of the road, and the two flanking cars covered the shoulders. He wasn’t leaving.

  The Chrysler had come to a full stop. Burton Moorfield was a shadowed silhouette inside, but Rory noted a scruffy beard, and the glitter of calculating eyes. Then the door opened, and he emerged.

  He hadn’t missed a meal during his prison stay, a gut hanging over the waistband of his pants. Though Rory had done all sorts of practice runs in his head to ensure he could keep it together during this, he couldn’t keep the teenage memory from springing to mind. Daralyn changing her clothes, exposing the sharp jut of her vertebrae, the stark lines of her ribs. How she struggled to eat more than a half a cup of food at a time.

  She wasn’t allowed to want.

  Rory gripped his wheelrims and reminded himself of their purpose here. It wasn’t to kick the shit out of the man, much as he deserved it. And he took some admittedly mean-spirited satisfaction in acknowledging cancer would take care of that weight soon.

  Burton’s clothes were worn, a stretched golf shirt, rumpled khakis, and a faded bill cap. His hair hadn’t been cut in some time. When Daralyn’s father had been alive, Burton usually looked clean and put-together. Oscar really had been the glue that kept this piece of shit from looking exactly like what he was. Good. It was better when bad guys looked the part, especially sexual predators.

  Burton’s expression had tightened, because his gaze had lighted on Elaine. His mouth twisted, but before he could say a word, Thomas stepped even with Rory. His eyes were flint, his expression formidable.

  “Say one word against our mother, and this is going to get ugly a lot faster.”

  Burton’s jaw flexed. “I don’t want any trouble. I’m just headed home.”

  “You don’t have a home here.” Rory pushed his chair forward, making it clear Burton’s fight was with him.

  Surprise crossed the man’s face as he assessed the chair, squinted at Rory. “Elaine’s boy. Didn’t know you’d ended up in a wheelchair. Sorry to see that.”

  Rory offered a mirthless smile. “Hasn’t slowed me down any. And I’m not interested in your feelings about it. You’re not welcome here. Not now, not ever. You’re going to get back in your car, turn around and choose somewhere else to go that doesn’t take you through any part of our town. You won’t be coming back.”

  Burton’s gaze shifted past him, took in the force rallying against him, the resolve in their faces. Whatever he saw rattled him; Rory detected the flash of uneasiness, but the man had a stubborn asshole streak. Or nowhere else to go, more likely. Also not Rory’s problem.

  Burton’s mouth thinned. “I have a right to live in my own home. I’ve got a niece here. Family.”

  “You don’t have shit here,” Rory said. “You gave up the right to call her family a long time ago. We’re her family now.” He shoved the chair forward another few feet, coming right up on Burton’s toes. “She’s with me.”

  Burton blinked. “So that’s how it is. You think you have a claim on her. You don’t.” He leaned down, his eyes a hard glitter, the ugliness showing itself. “This isn’t your business, boy. You brought backup to keep me from coming back to what’s mine. But backup isn’t always there.” His gaze swept the chair. “And I’m not seeing how you’re going to stop me.”

  Rory hooked Moorfield’s collar in one hand and jerked him forward. Which meant when his face plowed into Rory’s fist, the momentum came from both sides. The nose broke like glass under the blow, but Rory still had him, and he landed several strong punches. He was ready to break all of it. Eye socket, jaw. Turn the bastard’s face into a pile of broken pieces. He knew just how fragile bones could be under the right amount of force. But he made himself let him go after those three punches, shoved him away. Watched Burton fall on his ass to the pavement.

  But he wasn’t done. Rory closed the distance once more, gripped his leg to lift it and drive it down, ramming his work shoe into Burton’s abdomen.

  Air left the man in a wheeze. Reflexes had him curled up in a fetal ball, while self-preservation made him simultaneously try to crawl away, get clear of Rory.

  Now Rory held his position, not following. Inside, he was shaking with rage, but outside he kept everything locked down. He had to be here for her. He would be here for her.

  “You mistook why I have backup,” he said coldly. “They’re here to keep me from killing you. Call me ‘boy’ one more time, talk about any kind of claim you think you have here, and they won’t be able to stop me.”

  He was aware Thomas and Marcus had joined him, standing at his back and underlining the declaration with the darkest of markers.

  When Marcus moved forward and gave Rory a look, Rory nodded. Marcus stepped over to the crumpled man, hauled him up by the collar. Since Burton was like a fat, unsteady gnome, Thomas went with him to flank the other side.

  “I wouldn’t count overly much on our willingness to stop him.” Marcus’s eyes were shards of green glass. “We’d be more than happy to help him get rid of your body and be his alibi. The whole fucking community.”

  Thomas jerked his head at the assembly of men and women. “This town looks after its own. And Daralyn is ours. Don’t come back. We’ll be watching.”

  Then Rory saw his brother’s eyes shift to something behind him. Thomas’s gaze sharpened and moved to Rory, a warning. Rory heard a quiet stirring among his neighbors. They’d agreed that they would all remain quiet, here as witnesses and reinforcement while they allowed Rory and his family to handle this. So there was only one reason they’d be murmuring among themselves. Something unexpected had happened.

  Shit. Rory turned to see Daralyn approaching the group on her bicycle. In her jeans and pink knit shirt, she was an unlikely pastoral picture. He bit back a curse, but as his gaze briefly met his mother’s, he knew he had to stand by what he’d said to her, and to Daralyn. Much as he wished he could keep her from it, Daralyn had every right to be here.

  She walked through the group, steady and quiet. Many spoke a quiet word to her, reached out to touch her arm. Elaine slipped an arm around her waist, squeezed. Daralyn never looked at any of them, but she paused for each acknowledgment, as if drawing strength from that before proceeding. Her gaze stayed locked on Burton, bleeding and slack in Marcus and Thomas’s grip.

  Only when she reached Rory’s side did her attention shift from her uncle to him. He held out his hand and she took it. She was ice cold, and he felt the tremor. The protective side of him, still backed by rage, immediately demanded that he get her out of here. She wasn’t up for this.

  He told that side of himself to fuck off. She was stronger than anyone here, including him. He put it in his expression, his grip. We’re here. We’ve got you. Do what you have to do.

  Her gaze flickered, and she gave him a slight dip of her chin. Then she turned back to her uncle, studied him.

  Rory couldn’t read anything from her face. She was a blank page, except for the hand that stayed in his grip. Her thumb rubbed over his slightly reddened knuckles, her gaze moving briefly to them, then she looked at her uncle, taking in the damage to his face, the bleeding nose and swelling eye.

  She released Rory and moved forward, toward Burton. Rory tensed, but Marcus and Thomas were on it, their grip tightening on their captive in emphatic warning.

  She stopped a foot from her uncle, met his gaze squarely, her back straight, chin up.

  “This is my home,” she said. “My family. I don’t want you here.”

  She said it clear and strong. Nothing outward indicated the effort the declaration might have cost her. Maybe in this one miraculous moment, it didn’t cost her at all.

  It freed her.

  “I don’t know why you did what you did to me,” she said. “But I don’t think you know, either. Because you don’t have a soul. You have to have a soul to know why.” She extended her hand, her voice as firm as Rory had ever heard it. “Give me the keys to the house.”

  Elaine had come to Rory’s side. She put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard, her tear-filled eyes brilliant with pride and pain both.

  Several weeks ago, Elaine had shown Daralyn the simple handwritten will her father had left. “‘My worldly belongings go to my closest kin,’” Daralyn said now, quoting it. “That’s from my father’s will. That would be me. Not his half-brother.”

  Thomas shifted his grip, obviously intending to search Burton’s pockets, but Daralyn stopped him. “No. He has to do it. Please.”

  When Burton stared into Daralyn’s face and she didn’t so much as flinch, that was when he knew he was beat. Rory saw his gaze sweep back over the assembled townsfolk and their united front. Which included Owen.

  The sheriff wore his uniform and leaned on the bumper of his patrol car with an impassive expression, arms crossed over his chest.

  Burton shot a nervous glance at Marcus and Thomas, then brought his gaze to Rory’s face once more. Rory knew he saw that they weren’t bluffing. If he came back again, he wouldn’t leave here alive. And Rory wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep over it.

  He’d been raised to believe in God’s judgment. Which meant he fully believed God sometimes used other people to mete out that judgment. He’d pay good money to be Burton Moorfield’s.

  Burton reached down, fished in his pants pocket. Pulled out his keys. The keychain was an orange car-shaped piece of rubber, probably from the mechanic’s place where he’d last had his beater car serviced. He took two keys off the ring and held them out. “Guess it’s yours now, then.”

  Daralyn took the keys from his hand without touching his fingers. “Goodbye.”

  She turned, walked back through the group. Everyone watched as she reclaimed her bike, straddled it and pedaled away, her ponytail fluttering.

  Brick assisted Marcus in escorting Burton back to his car, while Thomas returned to Rory. As he stood on one side of Rory’s chair, Rory’s mother on the other, Thomas squeezed his shoulder. “Go be with her,” he said.

  Rory didn’t hesitate. He’d done what needed to be done for Daralyn here. Now she needed him for something else. He could trust his family to have their backs.

  He knew where she was headed, but since her childhood home wasn’t far from where they’d set up the blockade, she beat him there. As he pulled into the driveway, a scattering of gravel taken over by weeds, he saw her bike leaning against the warped boards of the front porch.

  He hadn’t wanted her to go in by herself, particularly in her current hard-to-read mood. But maybe she’d wanted a few minutes on her own; otherwise she probably would have still been standing outside.

  When she’d lived there, her father and uncle had only done the bare minimum to take care of the place. Never any decorations or homey touches. The only thing he remembered was a candle in the window at Christmas time, and Thomas mentioning a brief glimpse of a straggly tree, when he accompanied Elaine to drop off some cookies and a Christmas card. Thomas had thought those had been Daralyn’s efforts, not the men’s.

  After Oscar’s death and Burton’s imprisonment, Rory’s father bushhogged the area around the house a couple times a year to keep nature at bay. His mother kept a line item in their account books for termite service and HVAC maintenance on the place, as well as anything else needed to keep the structure sound.

  He probably should have put those things together a long time ago to realize the house was Daralyn’s. If it had belonged to Burton, his parents would have let nature and the wildlife have it.

  There were only three steps up to the porch. He put his ass on the second step, hauled his chair up to the porch, then put himself back in it.

  She’d left the door open, either to help her feel less closed-in, or because she expected him. As he pushed over the threshold, he was able to take in most of the fifteen hundred square foot floor plan at a glance.

  It was a two-bedroom one-story, with a bathroom, living room and kitchen. The living room had a couple pieces of furniture, upholstered in faded-to-colorless fabric. The walls had the same gray tint, though in sunlight and with a proper cleaning they probably were some shade of white.

  No pictures on the walls. It was the habitat of two men with no evidence of a female occupant. Unless one knew where to look.

  He noted a narrow twin bed in a skinny room he realized had likely been the laundry room or pantry. Her bedroom. The bed told him that, as did the lack of a door.

  Plus, Daralyn stood in front of it. She was as motionless as the furniture that rested in the haze of way-too-undead memories floating in the place.

  As he moved closer, he saw a scarred side table and a lamp jammed in behind the bed. “Daralyn.”

  She started, but not in a way that suggested she hadn’t known he was here with her. It was as if his voice amid the other ones happening in her head had been unexpected.

  He reached out, touched her rigid hand. Nothing about her said she was ready to be coddled. She gazed at him, then pivoted and walked toward the kitchen. He followed.

  There was a mudroom. It was in that room he recalled there was one other door in the house that had been left intact, other than the ones to her father and uncle’s bedrooms.

  They punished me for misbehaving by putting me in the cellar without food or light, usually for a few hours or overnight… Three days, I think. I lost track.

  As she stared at the trap door, her hands half curled, horror spiked in his gut.

  “Daralyn. Don’t go down there.”

  “I need to get something.” She lifted her head, gazed at him steadily. “It’s just a cellar.”

  But he could see the paleness of her features, the pulse jumping in her throat. He took her hand. “I’m here,” he said. “Nothing here is going to hurt you.”

  She blinked. Swallowed. She tightened her grip on his before it slipped away so she could pull up the cellar door, revealing a narrow wooden ladder that descended into darkness.

  She’d seemed so calm, he wasn’t ready for it. As the stale, trapped air wafted up from a room that hadn’t been disturbed in years, she lost all color, as well as whatever resolve had driven her to open the door. Her knees gave out.

  His heart leaped as she swayed precariously over that opening. Fortunately, she was reaching for him at the same moment he grabbed for her, so she mostly collapsed into his arms, one of her bent knees against his wheel as the other rested on the floor. Her forehead and face were pressed to his biceps.

  “Can’t…”

  She was clinging to him as if she thought she was on the edge of a cliff, prepared to fight off the pull of gravity with teeth and nails.

  He tipped up her chin and forced down fear at the naked wildness in her face. In a blink, all that detached calm had given way to the look of someone lost in a tornado, no sense of how to find her way out. It made him speak sharply.

  “Daralyn, pay attention to me. Right now.”