When the water got high, we all carried furniture to safety. Our clothes were soaked, two men caught pneumonia. When I got up the nerve to ask Perry where he’d been, he’d just shrugged.” JACOB SCHROCK Luke was walking along the well line again, thinking about the case, about how sure he’d been that the sunglasses were the link to Perry’s killer . . . and then how they’d only led him to a whole other investigation. Pulling out the file he’d brought with him to the Millers’ property, he reread the medical examiner’s findings—about how there had been traces of meth in Perry’s blood, but an overdose hadn’t killed him. His death had been caused by the trauma to his head. “Who killed you, Perry?” he asked and listened as his voice echoed across the empty field. He wanted to do right by the kid, the kid who’d caused so much trouble to so many people. But who had also been a victim.
