“Gracie said you and the judge are kinfolks.”

  Buddy never emphasized the fact that he and Judge Nathan Claremont were first cousins once removed.

  “The judge and my mother are first cousins, but that doesn’t mean he gives my clients preferential treatment. He’ll rule in our favor based on the facts and the law.” Buddy scrolled to a final screen. “Was there anyone else in the picture for either one of you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did either one of you have an affair during the marriage or are you in a relationship with another person at this time?”

  “I don’t know for sure about Jackie, but I’ve been faithful. Like I said, I took my marriage vows seriously. When I first met Jackie, he was quiet and kind of shy. He hadn’t dated much. He was a hard worker and really wanted kids, or I guess at least a son. I thought that meant he would be a family man.”

  “How is Emily doing?”

  Sue Ellen sighed. “She misses little Jack more than she does her daddy. My father has always been the male figure in her life, not Jackie. He ignores her.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There’s so much,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “I’m a private person, and I’ve kept my problems to myself and our marriage difficulties behind closed doors. I hate that this is going to come out in the open so people can gossip.”

  “Even negative publicity can be good, because it gets the word out about little Jack. You’re the victim here. No one has the right to judge you.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” Sue Ellen answered sadly. “Little Jack is the victim.”

  “Which is why I’m going to help you,” Buddy replied.

  “What about paying you? I don’t have much money, but my parents say they’ll help.”

  “I’ll email a contract for you to sign and return. Don’t worry about the money. We’ll work it out. What are your parents’ names and their address? I’ll put them on the contract too.”

  Sue Ellen gave him the information. “My mama is praying like crazy for us,” she said.

  “In situations like this, I tell people to call on whatever help they believe is out there.”

  “I can’t imagine never seeing little Jack again or holding him.” Sue Ellen sniffled.

  Buddy handed Sue Ellen a packet of information. He didn’t tell her that if not quickly resolved, cases like hers could gather dust for a long time. Just like his search for Elise.

  After Sue Ellen left, Buddy pushed aside two other projects and spent over an hour engaged in preliminary research. Jackson Ford Sr. had no criminal record. He’d not even received a traffic ticket during the past ten years. He’d been sued twice in small-claims court by people dissatisfied with the repair work he performed on their cars. Both cases settled. Buddy studied the Ford family photos. There was no denying the resemblance between father and son. Little Jack shared his father’s dark brown eyes, square chin, and short curly brown hair. In a recent picture, both of them were dressed in blue jeans, work boots, and identical T-shirts with a hot rod car printed on the front. The photo would have been cute if not for the fact that Jackie was trying to clone his son. Emily looked more like her mother, with sandy hair and scattered freckles. In a family portrait taken nine months earlier, the intense expression on Jackie’s face as he glared at the photographer caused an involuntary shiver to run down Buddy’s spine.

  Two

  Gracie Blaylock hoisted a large canvas bag of softballs over her shoulder and carried it to the pitcher’s mound. Compact and physically fit, she placed the bag on the ground and finished her stretching exercises. It would be twenty minutes before the group of fifteen- to seventeen-year-old girls on the Milton County summer softball league team began to arrive. After quickly rotating her left arm several times in windmill fashion, she adjusted the yellow cap that covered her short blond hair. Taking out a ball, she rocked back and forth a couple of times before whipping her arm over her head and releasing the ball with a snap so that it shot forty-three feet from the mound to home plate with fierce velocity.

  When she was an all-star pitcher in high school, Gracie’s hair was much longer and a golden ponytail hung down her back. Her hair would snap to the side like a blond whip when she released a two-seam fastball at close to seventy miles an hour. During her senior year, she’d accepted a friendly dare from the boys’ baseball coach and successfully struck out five male batters in a row before a few of the better players made weak contact. Without practice, the boys had trouble adjusting to her riseball.

  The canvas bag contained a mix of white and yellow balls. Gracie practiced pitching, not so she could compete, but as a way to stay loose and blow off stress inherent in her job as clerk of court for Milton County. Each time she hurled a ball that caromed off the wire backstop, she relaxed a tiny bit more.

  “Hey, Coach,” a young female voice called out from behind third base. “Do you want me to put on a catcher’s mitt?”

  Heidi Casey was a tall, redheaded girl with long arms and a face full of freckles. During her first year on the summer team, Heidi was a gangly fifteen-year-old with little hope of playing in high school. Gracie saw her potential, and now the rising senior had the second-highest batting average on the team and the ability to throw out runners at home plate from deep left field. Gracie threw one more pitch.

  “No,” Gracie answered. “But you can help me pick them up.”

  Gracie held the bag open while Heidi tossed in the balls. Several more girls arrived. The players came in all shapes and sizes. There were muscular country girls who could hit a softball over the fence and smaller girls who relied on speed and quick reflexes. Gracie always began and ended practice with a brief prayer. The team wasn’t sponsored by the local school system, and no one had ever complained.

  “Has anybody heard from Reagan Landry?” Gracie asked when they’d gathered in a circle. “She hasn’t been here for over two weeks and hasn’t returned my calls or texts.”

  “I talked to her mom the other day at the grocery store,” said Laura Anselm, a scrappy second baseman. “All she said was for me to pray for her.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Gracie replied.

  “I’ll pray,” Heidi volunteered.

  One of the highlights of Gracie’s day was listening to one of the girls pray. Ninety minutes later practice wound down as the sun crept toward the tops of the tall pine trees beyond the left field fence. Heat was a perpetual part of life in Georgia, and drops of sweat carved paths down the reddish dust on the girls’ faces. Gracie was just as hot as they were, and her voice was raspy from yelling instructions by the time they formed a final circle.

  One of the younger girls, who rarely spoke, lifted her right hand. “Coach, did you hear about the man who kidnapped his little boy? My mom was talking about it with one of her friends.”

  “A kidnapping?” a girl asked.

  “How can a parent kidnap their own kid?” another girl responded.

  “I know a little bit about the situation,” Gracie said. “And it would be right for us to pray for the boy. His name is Jack.”

  The girls joined hands again and bowed their heads. When no volunteers stepped forward, Gracie prayed, “God, we know that you are the best and greatest Father in the world. You love and take care of each and every one of us. Wherever Jack is tonight, we ask you to watch over him and bring him safely home to his mom and sister.”

  The circle broke up. Laura helped Gracie load their equipment into the trunk of Gracie’s car, placing the bag of softballs beside a set of golf clubs.

  “How often do you play golf?” Laura asked.

  “Not as much as I used to.”

  The only reason Gracie had taken up the sport was to spend time with Barry, her former boyfriend. Within six months, she was regularly beating him, even when playing from the men’s tees.

  Gracie grabbed a couple of waters from a cooler and handed one to Laura. Emblazoned on the side of the cooler was the Milton County Generals logo. The previous year, the girls’ high school softball team, known as the Lady Generals, unveiled a modified mascot, switching out the white-haired old general for a vibrant older woman with white pigtails. The new figure lasted three weeks before the school principal nixed it. The controversy made it into the local newspaper. Gracie bought a T-shirt with the female general galloping across the front at a fund-raiser held by the softball team but didn’t wear the shirt in public. She needed the votes of men as well as women to remain in office. Neutrality was an inherent part of her job description.

  Laura dangled her legs off the bleachers. “Would you let me pitch an inning if we get ahead in one of the early games in the tournament?” she asked. “I’ve been working on my changeup and four-seam fastball.”

  The team already had three solid pitchers, but Gracie knew Laura was itching to be involved in every play. Physics worked against the second baseman. Laura’s diminutive size made it harder to generate the ball speed needed to be an effective pitcher.

  “The fastball sets up the changeup, my strikeout pitch,” Laura continued. “It comes out looking the same, then dies and drops when it reaches the plate. Maybe I can come early before our next practice and show you how much I’ve improved.”

  “Okay, but the fastball has to have enough zip on it to get the job done too.”

  Laura swung her legs a few more times. “Maybe I need to add a riser,” she said. “I’ve tried, but it always ends up too high because I’m releasing it lower than the other girls. How tall were you when you were my age?”

  “About the same as you. Be here thirty minutes early on Thursday, and we’ll work on it.”

  Laura’s mother pulled into the gravel parking lot, sending up a cloud of grayish dust.

  “Thanks!” Laura said brightly as she hopped down onto the ground.

  Gracie waved bye but stayed seated on the low bleachers. She loved everything about the softball field. The green grass, the brown infield, and the blue sky, the smell of a top-quality leather glove, the orderliness of the white lines that framed the field of play. It was a controlled world where the rules were clear and results easy to quantify. She stayed until the sun dipped below the tops of the pine trees.

  * * *

  The sign in front of the large older home located two blocks from the courthouse read “Blair C. Smith, Attorney at Law.” Buddy’s father spent most of his adult life buying, selling, and renting real estate in and around Milton County. Rascal purchased the house from a local physician whose mother lived there until her death and turned it into a commercial property.

  Buddy’s law office took up the main floor of the house. He rented out spaces on the second floor to a nonprofit organization dedicated to building affordable housing for low-income families and to a semiretired financial planner who came in a few hours a day to check his mail and deposit the checks he received for managing his clients’ money.

  Rascal earned his nickname as a mischievous boy and proudly carried it with him through his entire life. He even left instructions that Marvin “Rascal” Smith be chiseled on his tombstone. Beatrice Smith honored the request when her husband dropped dead from a heart attack at age sixty-four.

  Buddy stopped beside the desk of Millie Graham, the office manager and bookkeeper who’d worked for his father and now helped him. Millie wore her gray hair pulled back in a tight bun that dared a hair to escape. The office manager still showed up for work every day wearing a dress, stockings, and nice shoes. Her memory and attention to detail were legendary and made her excel at her job. Even though it was 5:45 p.m., Millie was still at her desk. She usually worked until 6:00 p.m. because the supper hour was the prime time to contact residential tenants who might be behind on their rent.

  “Don’t forget the secretarial candidate coming in tomorrow morning for an interview,” Millie said. “She’s been working as a waitress at the Dinner Bell but wants to be in an office.”

  Buddy did most of his own typing, and Millie kept his calendar. He’d had several secretaries over the years, but it was hard to find a good one. Millie wanted an assistant to spell her as much as to help Buddy, and he’d reluctantly agreed to consider a new hire. They’d already interviewed one candidate.

  “Does this girl know it might not be a permanent job?”

  “Yes. She just wants some experience.”

  “We’ll see,” Buddy replied noncommittally.

  The initial documents in the Sue Ellen Ford case were on Millie’s desk.

  “Cut the filing fee checks in the Ford case so I can take this to the courthouse in the morning,” Buddy continued. “I’m going to try to schedule an emergency hearing in front of Judge Claremont as soon as possible.”

  “I read the file. The husband sounds like the kind of jerk who could actually disappear with the son.”

  “Yeah,” Buddy replied. “This won’t be like the father who took off with his children for Idaho. By the time he made it to Mississippi, the kids were acting out so badly he drove back and handed them over to their mom.”

  “One other thing,” Millie said as she raised her right index finger. “What do you want to do about the Grants? As of tomorrow, they will be three months behind on their rent.”

  “They caught up the payments when they received their federal tax refund.”

  “It’s June. Are you going to wait until next April before filing a dispossessory warrant? Their rent is month to month, not year to year.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Your father would—”

  “Sometimes let it slide, sometimes not.”

  “Mostly not.”

  “Let me talk to my mother about it,” Buddy said. “Mr. Grant’s father used to work for her at the house on Lexington Avenue. She liked him a lot.”

  Millie sniffed. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “And you do it well. The Grants are a special case because of their history with our family.”

  Leaving the office, Buddy took a detour and slowly drove past the house where the Grant family lived. It was a single-story brick dwelling, built in the 1950s, with three bedrooms and two baths. Rascal had owned it long enough to replace the roof shingles twice and extensively renovate the interior after a drunken tenant trashed it on his way out of town in the middle of the night.

  The yard was well maintained, and the house looked to be in good shape. The problem with the current tenants was their dependence on seasonal work. Kenneth Grant repaired the large equipment that harvested soybeans, field corn, and cotton. The work paid well during the harvest period, but he had a lot of downtime, and his efforts the previous year to start a lawn maintenance business to bridge the gaps resulted in capital outlay for equipment with not much profit. Buddy could see two commercial mowers sitting idly on a trailer parked next to the house.

  Seeing the equipment, Buddy suddenly had an idea that would help Ken Grant satisfy his rent obligation.

  Three

  After earning an associate degree in business management from the local community college, Gracie went to work at the clerk of court’s office. Eight years later she was promoted to chief assistant clerk. When her boss decided not to seek reelection, a lot of people encouraged Gracie to run. She wasn’t sure she had the stomach for the rough-and-tumble world of Milton County politics, but her competitive juices kicked in. Also, she knew that if she lost the election, she would be out of a job because her opponent would bring in his own chief assistant. In the end, she won by a narrow margin, and Milton County had its first female clerk of court. Now, unless she made a big mistake, her job was secure. Incumbents rarely lost in small southern towns where people valued familiarity over the unknown.

  Having arrived home after practice, Gracie placed the large bag of softballs in a small, cramped closet filled with bats, balls, gloves, hats, cleats, and other softball-related paraphernalia, enough to outfit an entire team. There were also leftover yard signs from her political campaign with “Grace Blaylock for Clerk of Court” printed on them in red, white, and blue letters. Opening the door to the small fenced-in yard, she greeted her dog. Opie was a four-year-old soft-coated wheaten terrier. The thirty-five-pound animal jumped up and placed his paws on her waist while Gracie rubbed the dog’s curly-haired head. She’d rescued the dog from a backyard breeder who was about to be shut down by the county animal rescue department. The spirited terrier had deep, dark, soulful eyes.

  In some ways, Opie rescued her. Gracie had fallen into a nagging depression after the three-year relationship with Barry fell apart. The golf addict moved to Birmingham and four months later married another woman. It turned out the newlyweds had been secretly communicating before Barry broke up with Gracie.

  Abandoning the dating game for a while, Gracie had focused on work, softball, family, and faith for the past year. Taking a break from dating was easy because the number of suitable bachelors within a twenty-mile radius of the courthouse was small. Recently, Gracie’s sister, Lauren, had started pressuring her to sign up on a Christian dating site. That was how Lauren met her husband, and she was convinced Gracie could also find true love and a godly soul mate through the right profile and photos.

  “Did you keep all the squirrels and chipmunks off the property?” Gracie asked Opie.

  The dog fixed his gaze on Gracie. Now that she was home, he would follow her around the house closer than if on a leash. Gracie was the epicenter of his world.

  The single-story house that Gracie rented from the Smith family had heartwood-pine floors throughout. Opie’s paws pattered on the wood as he followed her into the small kitchen and lapped water from a metal bowl. Gracie sorted through her mail. People occasionally sent business mail to her home address, and she set aside three letters to take to the courthouse in the morning.