“Is there any venison chili in the fridge?” he asked. “I forgot to take home my leftovers.”

  “I saw that. But there’s not as much as you’d think. I had some friends over this afternoon, and they wanted to taste it. They ended up eating seconds.”

  Buddy smiled at the thought of his mother’s friends hunched over bowls of chili. “Would it be okay if I stopped by?”

  “Yes, I’m not doing anything with Bryant this evening.”

  “Can I pick up something from the store and bring it with me?” he asked.

  “Some strawberries if they look nice, and a pound of coffee. You know the blend I prefer.”

  “Dark Colombian roast?”

  “Right.”

  Buddy stopped at the grocery store. He also grabbed a bunch of fresh asparagus, which was his mother’s favorite vegetable. When he arrived at the house on Franklin Street, there was a much smaller pot of chili warming on the stovetop.

  “Asparagus!” his mother exclaimed when she unpacked the grocery bag. “I almost asked you to get some. It may not be the best pairing for chili, but I’ve been craving some. I’m going to sauté it right now.”

  Buddy sat at the kitchen table while his mother washed the asparagus and put it in a pan with melted butter and two cloves of crushed garlic. Rascal didn’t like garlic, so Beatrice had rarely cooked asparagus the way she preferred when he was alive. She put a lid on the skillet and sat at the table across from Buddy.

  “I wanted to tell you what happened after you went upstairs last night,” he began. “Gracie and I sat on the front porch and talked for quite a while. Actually, there was more praying than talking, kind of a carryover from the dinner table.”

  Beatrice’s eyes opened wider. “What did you pray about?”

  Buddy pointed at himself. “Gracie prayed first. You know what that’s like, but then I was able to pray too. For much longer than ever before in my life.” Buddy leaned forward. “And something happened to me. I can’t exactly explain it, but I don’t have any doubt it was real. I’d always thought praying was words directed toward God, but this was God touching me. Afterward, I went home and wrote for over an hour, scribbling as fast as I could what I was thinking and feeling and seeing. It poured out of me.”

  Buddy stopped. He could tell his mother was shocked.

  “Would you let me read any of it?” she asked. “I was paying close attention to what you said, but that would help me understand better.”

  Buddy hesitated but then remembered the box of his mother’s journals she’d willingly entrusted to him.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Beatrice stepped over to the stove and checked the asparagus. “What did you think about Bryant?” she asked.

  Buddy leaned back in his chair. “He wasn’t the same as he is at the courthouse. And having a talking parrot as a dinner guest was a first. But I liked him.”

  “Bryant or Bailiff?”

  “Both.” Buddy chuckled. “But I meant the judge.”

  “I like him too,” Beatrice said in a soft voice. “But I’m not sure I like him enough.”

  “Maybe you’re filling a role in his life for something different. Were you surprised when he said getting to know you had made him evaluate his own life?”

  Beatrice looked down at the table. “No,” she answered with a slight smile before meeting Buddy’s eyes again. “I haven’t been as bold as Gracie, but I could tell pretty quickly that he’d gone astray over the years. The question was whether he wanted to find a way home.”

  Buddy was once again impressed by his mother. “What insights do you have about me that you’re keeping to yourself?” he asked.

  Instead of answering, Beatrice filled a bowl with chili, put some asparagus on a plate, and set the meal in front of him.

  “Have you been reading my journals?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “There might be some hints in there.”

  Beatrice fixed her own plate and joined him. She looked expectantly at Buddy. “Will you say the blessing?” she asked.

  Not sure what to pray, he decided to keep it short. “God, thank you for this food and for my mother and what you did on the porch last night.” Buddy started to say amen but hesitated. “And you know that I wanted to make things right for her the other day after we found out that my father gave Amber all that money without telling us. Maybe now I can help make that happen. Amen.”

  When he finished, Buddy expected to see tears in his mother’s eyes. Instead, she was smiling.

  “Sitting here and listening to you is a balm to my soul,” she said.

  “Would you like to hear the latest news about my search for Elise?” Buddy asked.

  “Of course.”

  Buddy brought his mother up-to-date on the investigation.

  “I’d like to see the photo of the young woman that the detective took in Atlanta to see if there’s a family resemblance,” Beatrice said.

  Buddy pulled it up on his phone and showed it to her. “I think she’s a combination of Amber and me, but Gracie and Mayleah Harkness claim the similarity is in my imagination.”

  Beatrice studied the picture closely before returning the phone to him. “Sorry, but I agree with Gracie and Mayleah.”

  “Okay. I know when I’m whipped.” Buddy shrugged. “I’m not going to win an argument with three women.”

  He laid the phone on the table beside his chili. “But that’s not all,” he said. “There’s a better lead.”

  Buddy told her about locating Amber’s great-uncle Vick Melrose in Soddy-Daisy.

  “Mayleah and I are going to Chattanooga next week to talk to the great-uncle. Hopefully, he’ll tell me where Amber and Elise are living.”

  Beatrice ate the last piece of asparagus on her plate and touched her mouth with a napkin. “That makes me feel like you’re closer than ever to finding Elise,” she said.

  “I wonder what it would be like to finally meet her. Where should that take place? What would I say? How will Elise react? What has Amber told her about me? Does Elise know anything about me at all? Has Amber made up a story about her past and—”

  Beatrice reached out and placed her hand on Buddy’s arm. “That’s where you need to put into practice this new faith you found last night,” she said. “You may even want to ask Gracie to pray about it, although I wouldn’t be surprised if she was already doing so.”

  Buddy ate the last of his bowl of chili. “Is there any peach cobbler?” he asked. “Please tell me the ladies didn’t finish that off too.”

  “No, there’s plenty,” Beatrice answered with a smile. “I’ll warm it up. There’s vanilla ice cream in the freezer.”

  While his mother heated the cobbler, Buddy went to his car and brought in the data from the DNA test. While they ate dessert, he shared the results.

  “Your father always claimed to be part French,” Beatrice said. “It was a few generations back on his mother’s side.”

  “So that’s not from your family?”

  Beatrice pointed to the percentage for English. “That came from me. One of my aunts traced our family to someplace in the middle of England. Nothing fancy. They were farmers and working-class people.”

  “What about the Native American connection?” Buddy asked.

  “Based on family rumors, I’ll claim that too.”

  * * *

  It was an unseasonably cool afternoon when Gracie arrived at the softball field. She spent time throwing softballs from the pitcher’s mound into the backstop until the team began to arrive. The first girl on the scene was Heidi, who gathered up balls and brought them to Gracie. Gracie grabbed one and hurled a rising fastball across home plate.

  “That would be hard to hit,” Heidi said.

  “Grab a bat, and I’ll throw you a few,” Gracie replied.

  Gracie threw ten pitches. Heidi whiffed on five, fouled off three, and hit two weak grounders toward second base that would have been easy outs.

  “What am I doing wrong?” Heidi called out from the batter’s box.

  “You’re not picking up the ball with your eyes as soon as it leaves my hand. You’re waiting until it’s halfway to home plate, which is too late.”

  Gracie threw six more pitches. Heidi missed one, fouled one, hit a weak grounder, but also solidly connected with three balls and sent them into the outfield for potential singles or doubles. By this point several other members of the team were watching.

  “Coach Blaylock, could you throw batting practice?” Laura called out.

  “Not today,” Gracie replied. “Our pitchers, including you, need the practice.”

  An hour and a half later the girls gathered in a circle to pray. Gracie glanced up as Mayleah pulled into the parking lot. After the prayer ended, two girls had questions about an upcoming game. As Gracie was answering, she saw Laura go over to the detective, who now sat on a low bleacher. It was ten minutes before Gracie walked over to join them.

  “Come by the sheriff’s department, and I’ll give you a tour,” Mayleah said to the second baseman as the girl walked away.

  Mayleah turned to Gracie. “Buddy and I are going to Chattanooga next week—”

  “I know,” Gracie said. “I talked to him at the Crossroads after he met with you.”

  “Okay. And at some point I’m going to Atlanta to follow up my investigation into Patricia Nichols.”

  Gracie leaned against the end of the bleacher where Mayleah was sitting.

  “I obtained a list of residents for the apartment building and called several of them,” the detective said. “One woman was willing to talk to me and confirmed there was a lot of activity involving younger women coming and going from the apartment connected to Nichols. The neighbor believes a man lives there too. The way she described the man fit the description of the guy who opened the door the other day.”

  “Did you tell the neighbor that you’re a detective?”

  “Yes. That’s why I believe she spoke with me. She’s been concerned about the activity centered at the apartment but didn’t know the name of anybody who lives there. She’d never heard of Patricia Nichols or Katrina Caldwell, the alias Nichols used for the Instagram account linked to Reagan.”

  Gracie felt a knot of anxiety in her stomach. “What’s next?” she asked.

  “Try to find out more.” Mayleah paused. “Would you be willing to reach out to Nichols on social media?”

  “How? I couldn’t do something like that.”

  “You wouldn’t do it in your own name. We’d create a fake presence and see if Nichols expressed an interest in meeting you. If she did, then we’d arrange something in a public place, and I’d record the conversation. It might give us a chance to find out what she’s up to.”

  Gracie’s head was spinning. “I’m the clerk of court, not in law enforcement,” she managed. “And I’m thirty-five, not eighteen.”

  “You look younger,” Mayleah said with a grin. “And we could use a photograph taken a few years ago so long as nothing about your clothes or the setting of the picture dates you. All we need is a picture that will pass scrutiny when you show up in person. People post deceptively positive pictures on social media all the time. Yours would be an honest representation.”

  “I’d be scared to death.”

  “Nervousness would enhance your credibility.”

  Gracie shook her head. “If word got out in Milton County that I did something like this, I’m not sure how the voters, judges, or county commissioners might respond. It could ruin my career.”

  Mayleah placed her hands on her knees. “I mentioned it to the sheriff, and he thought it was a good idea so long as I supervise everything and make sure you’re not put in a dangerous situation. I’d set up the social media account and create content based on what’s attracted Nichols’s attention to young women in the past.”

  “Why don’t you do it with one of your photos from a few years ago?” Gracie asked.

  “I’m going to whether you agree to do it or not,” Mayleah replied. “But if you join with me, we can establish a social link that gives us a reason to meet with Nichols together at the same time. Everything would be totally false except for our own interaction. All the rest of our friend networks would be manufactured. That’s not hard to do. We created bogus profiles for a case I worked on in Oklahoma, and I’d ask my former boss if I could borrow that data for this project. The success we had in the earlier investigation is what gave me the idea to use it here.”

  “What kind of investigation was it?”

  “Sex trafficking.”

  Gracie sighed. “And you’re sure the sheriff thinks this is a good idea?”

  “Talk to him yourself. A lot of police work depends on the cooperation of the public. Instead of giving information, you’d be helping uncover it. It’s all about finding Reagan and helping her and any other girls.”

  “Yes, and I do want to find her,” Gracie said. “But I don’t think I should do something like this. It’s not who I am.”

  “This wouldn’t be you. It would be someone we create.”

  Gracie didn’t respond.

  “It’s just an idea,” Mayleah continued. “And I’ll understand if you say no.”

  Gracie relaxed. Mayleah’s hard sell made her uncomfortable.

  * * *

  After leaving his mother’s house, Buddy returned to the back porch and reread what he’d written the previous night. There was a raw vitality to the words that poured out of him. They didn’t need to be refined. He would make a copy at the office and give it to his mother.

  Returning to the box of journals he’d found in the basement, he began to systematically read what his mother had written, some entries from more than twenty years earlier. Once again, he was impressed with her simple yet profound insights, expressed in succinct language. Family members figured prominently, but she also wrote about people throughout the community. The occasional mentions of Amber and Elise were like meteors shooting across the sky. He looked up from an entry about them that forced him to think about the situation in a new light.

  In the past, Buddy had struggled more with anger at Amber for leaving than regret over what he could have done differently. Although his mother didn’t openly criticize Buddy, her honest words and prayers forced him to face the selfishness he brought to the high school relationship. Beatrice prayed for Buddy’s heart to be tender toward the Lord and Amber. But during that time, he hadn’t thought about God and related to Amber based on the happiness she could give him. Tonight, an aching sorrow stirred the depths of his being. Buddy looked up from the pages for a moment as a pair of tears slowly rolled down his cheeks and dropped onto the yellowed page of the journal in his lap. He blinked a couple of times and stared at the small circles whose margins were marked by sadness. A few more tears escaped from his eyes. Those he wiped away with the back of his hand. He’d never cried over his loss. Maybe it was time he did.

  Twenty-One

  Gracie checked her emails through the dating site. There were two from Daniel, the second asking why she hadn’t responded to the first one. Gracie went back to the earlier email and discovered Daniel was ready to meet in person and willing to do so at the time and place of Gracie’s choosing. Other than an upcoming softball tournament, there were several open Saturdays within the next two months. Gracie stared at the calendar. The arrival of a new email from Mayleah gave her an excuse to delay a response.

  I’ve posted my Instagram profile and included links to fictitious people as well as to a couple of young women Patricia Nichols contacted in the past. I created a second-level link for me with those girls through other people in their network. Check it out. See you soon!

  Gracie opened the link to Mayleah’s fake social media account. The detective was using the name Ahyoka Lightfoot. The photo showed Mayleah on snow skis with a cup of coffee in her hand and a big smile on her face. A young Native American man, who looked to be in his late teens or early twenties, was standing beside her. Ahyoka longed for a life of adventure in Atlanta and listed herself as a recent high school graduate whose parents wanted her to go to college, but who didn’t want to conform to family expectations. All the photos of Mayleah were taken from a distance and hid her true age. Gracie knew she had similar pictures stored on her own computer. Scrolling through the follower list, Gracie wondered which two women were the real people who’d connected with Nichols. Nothing gave her a clue. She picked up her cell phone and called Mayleah.

  * * *

  Saturday evening Buddy was on his way to another dinner at Chris Henley’s house, this time to celebrate the lawyer’s birthday. Buddy pulled into the driveway at the same time as Jason and Katie Long.

  “Go inside,” Jason said to his wife. “I’m going to talk to Buddy for a minute.”

  “Don’t be too long,” Katie replied. “If Marissa says she’s serving dinner at seven o’clock, she means it.”

  Jason waited until they were alone before he turned to Buddy. There was anxiety in the doctor’s eyes.

  “Has something new happened?” Buddy asked.

  “Yes,” Jason said in a low but intense voice. “The lawyers for the boy’s family are talking to Cam Simpson about testifying against me.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “One of my nurses is friends with a physician’s assistant at his office. She said Cam is considering it.”

  Cam Simpson was a well-respected pediatrician at another clinic in Clarksburg. To convince a local doctor to testify that Jason had been negligent would be ten times more damaging in front of a Milton County jury than bringing in a hired expert with a fancy diploma from a big city. Buddy could understand the panic in his friend’s voice. Dr. Simpson was in his early sixties and considered by most the dean of pediatricians in the area. He’d been Elise’s doctor when she was a newborn at the hospital. He’d also been an investor in a couple of real estate deals with Rascal, both of which turned out to be very profitable. Buddy remembered his father describing the doctor as a difficult business partner.

  “What I want to know is, can I talk to Cam about it?” Jason asked. “The records from the hospital aren’t the best, and there are statements in the triage nurse’s notes that don’t accurately describe what was going on. I have independent recollections of the situation because I was so concerned for the boy’s status, and it would be important for Cam to know exactly what I did and why. I thought about calling the insurance company lawyers, but Katie reminded me that’s why I asked you to help.”