been so terrified in his life. If anything happened to his daughter, he would never be able to forgive himself, let alone live with the guilt. He should have been carrying her, or at least holding her hand, but one often adopted a false sense of security in such a small community, where everyone felt like extended family to some degree. Strangers stood apart the moment they entered town, yet it was the evil that hid behind a friendly face from which one always had the most to fear.
The big top rose above him, reaching high up over the surrounding forest canopy. Vendors blew by to either side, hawking everything from glowing necklaces to foil balloons. The ticket booth materialized through the crowd to his right. It stood lifeless and forlorn as the entire population now swarmed within the carnival's hastily erected fence.
He caught movement on the path across the field that led uphill to the parking lot. Two silhouettes of shadow against darkness. One tall, one much smaller. Holding hands. Walking fast.
'Emma!' he shouted.
He ran past the ticket booth. A voice from inside yelled something about a hand stamp as he sprinted out onto the path.
'Emma!'
The smaller shadow stopped. Even in the dark he could see the fringes of a dress at her knees. The larger figure urged her onward with a tug on her arm.
Warren swore he heard Emma's voice, calling to him from somewhere beneath the tumult.
'Stay where you are!' he yelled. 'Wait for me right there!'
He forced his legs to run faster than they ever had before.
Focused solely on the smaller figure, he didn't see a third shadow emerge from the tree line to his right until it was too late.
A sharp impact to his chest.
A sensation of bitter cold in the right side of his chest, then heat.
Then searing pain.
His legs slid out from under him and he landed on his back.
He saw stars dotting the night sky. A quarter moon shrouded by clouds. They were eclipsed by the wild- haired silhouette of a woman's head. She screamed right into his face and the pressure in his chest momentarily abated.
A flash of reflected light on a long kitchen knife, already slick with blood.
Then it was gone and the pain in his chest intensified.
Another flash.
More pain.
His mouth filled with blood. He couldn't manage to breathe.
The woman vanished and he saw the stars again. They were now blurry and appeared to drift aimlessly.
His trembling hands pawed at his chest and probed through his tattered shirt until his fingertips slipped into the deep wounds, from which damp heat poured unimpeded.
He tried to call his daughter's name, but only produced a coughing sound and a rush of blood that drained down his cheeks and over his chin.
His thoughts were disjointed, murky, and yet he managed to focus on Emma, drawing strength from her image, a sense of purpose.
He rolled onto his side and struggled to all fours.
Blood poured from his mouth and chest.
His watery vision constricted.
Two large figures now held his daughter. One restrained her arms and silenced her with a hand clasped over her mouth. The other pinned her legs.
He recognized them now.
He saw them duck from the path into the dense forest.
And then he saw no more.
Barely four minutes had passed when Trey heard the first screams.
He hit the gas and sped straight toward the end of the central aisle. The path wasn't wide enough to accommodate the cruiser, but he didn't care. Branches scraped the sides of the Caprice, slicing through the paint before snapping off. With a resounding crack, his side mirror disappeared. The trees fell away and a small meadow opened to his left. He slammed the brakes and skidded to a stop on the gravel.
Dust settled over the car. Through the haze, he saw a clumped gathering at the edge of the field.
Screams tore the night.
He threw his door open and drew his pistol in one motion, and hit the ground running. Left arm extended, he forced his way through the small crowd.
A man knelt over a supine form. Gus Tarver. The lower half of his face and his arms, clear up past his elbows, were covered with blood. Hands clasped, he thrust his stiff arms down against the other man's chest. Over and over. Compressions, which only served to squeeze more blood out of the man's ruined torso.
Trey looked down at the man's waxen face and felt a sudden and deep sorrow.
Gus leaned down and closed his mouth over Warren's. Crimson burbled from the wounds as the ribcage rose once. Then again.
Trey walked around his brother-in-law's body and gently placed his hand on Gus's shoulder before he could resume compressions.
Gus toppled onto his rear end and smeared the blood from around his mouth with his sleeve.
Trey looked at the stunned faces surrounding the corpse. His stare latched onto one he knew nearly as well as his own.
'I'm so sorry,' he whispered.
Vanessa screamed and threw herself toward what remained of her husband, but her brother stepped into her path and wrestled her backward. She hit his chest, the side of his head, begged for him to let her go.
He held her even tighter.
Over his shoulder, she saw the love of her life lying dead on the ground. Blood shimmered black on his face and torso, in a wide pool around him on the wet grass.
She moaned and felt her legs give out.
Trey managed to support her weight long enough to lower them both to their knees.
She screamed and he held her head against his, their damp cheeks pressed together.
'Where's Emma?' she sobbed into his ear.
She curled her fingers into fists in the back of his uniform shirt.
The crowd closed in on them.
'Where's my daughter?' she shouted.
'We'll find her,' Trey said. 'I swear to you. We'll find her and whoever did this to Warren.'
Present Day
'Have you told anyone else about this?'
Trey stood and turned a slow circle. Murky, stagnant water surrounded him on all sides, save for the random islands that poked up over the surface of the bayou. They were packed with cypresses with lazy branches that draped down nearly to the water. Spanish moss bearded their boughs. Mangroves grew directly from the slough, their stained trunks memorializing the history of the water table. Clouds of insects swirled near the banks.
It had taken him nearly an hour by motorboat, winding a strange, circuitous route through shadowed channels where snapping turtles fought for basking space in the precious few rays of sun that reached the ground. The fact that the man standing uncomfortably at the edge of the sloppy bank had made this particular discovery at all was a stroke of luck.
