“He told me the apple on a tree doesn’t mind the time it takes to ripen. Makes for a better apple pie.”
“What does that mean?” he asks.
“That he's been waiting this long already. He can keep waiting,” I say. “But I'm not willing to let him keep waiting. Not if there's anything I can do about it. I promised him I would do everything I can to get him out of that place and get him a new trial as fast as possible.”
“And when he does get his new trial?” Sam asks. “The lawyer has to prove there is sufficient new evidence to even start the trial. But after that, he has to create an effective enough case to convince people the courts got it wrong the first time. That’s not something that happens too often. How is he going to prove he wasn't involved in Andrew's death and that it was actually Lorenzo Tarasco who did it?”
“That's what we have to figure out next,” I say.
Chapter Two
Eight weeks later …
Another bone comes up from the dirt. It wasn't buried. Not formally, anyway. From the way it was positioned and the grass and weeds growing around it, it looks as if this is one of the bones that was just scattered throughout the cornfield.
Thinking about it makes my skin crawl. Not because I have a problem with the bones. But because I have a problem with the way they were treated. These were once people. They aren't props or ancient remnants. No more than a handful of years ago, they were living, breathing human beings.
Until someone took them and tossed them out among the rows of corn to be forgotten. Now I know the real benefit of the cage that was put over Lakyn Monroe's body.
It wasn't put over her while she was still alive. That had been my first thought when I first saw it. I thought someone had caged her and left her out to die of exposure and starvation. But the cage was too lightweight, too weak to hold a human being inside. It was put in place after she was already dead. And after weeks of watching the forensics team collect and unearth bones and remnants of who these people once were, I understand why the cage was there.
It protected her. It kept the animals away and stopped them from tearing her apart and scattering her throughout the field the way the others were. For many of them, parts of their bodies will never be found. They've been taken far away and will never be seen again. It's entirely possible there will be people who we will never be able to identify because too much of them has gone missing.
We may not even know how many are here.
But we know who she was. We found all of her—at least, what was left—because of that cage. I don't understand how it came to be there. I described it to Xavier, but he didn't have an explanation for me. Not even one that I couldn't understand. According to him, she should have just been discarded the way all the others were. But someone had a different idea.
And because she knew her minutes were numbered, she used the very last grains of sand counting of her life to leave a message detailing where she was going. Her final gift was making sure we knew where to look for her. And because of the cage, we found her.
And because of her, we found the others.
And we keep finding them. It's been two months now, and the excavation is still going on. It hasn't been continuous. Autumn storms and red tape have slowed progress. It's infuriating. Every day that goes by, I watch more people come up from the field and have to keep waiting. I know who did this. And there's nothing I can do.
“Explain to me again why we haven't been able to get back into the temple, Detective,” I tell Noah, as he wipes dirt from his forehead with the back of his arm.
“Because we haven't gotten a warrant, Emma. You know that. We have to have a search warrant in order to go inside and open any of those doors. Right now, there is no clear-cut evidence that anybody who is inside that temple did anything wrong. Unless you want to get technical and count you and your cousin for breaking in,” he replies.
“How are we supposed to get a warrant? You know who's involved in all this. The judge, the warden, some of the most powerful people in Harlan are wrapped up in The Order of Prometheus. How are we supposed to get a search warrant to prove they are responsible for what's looking like more than a dozen deaths so far? And that doesn't even include the ones involved in the initiation rituals.”
“Emma, you know this. You have to think clearly about it. You have to remember that the law works in a specific way. Just because it doesn't always fit perfectly with what's going on, and just because it's not always fair or convenient, doesn't mean we can just toss it away and make our own rules,” he says.
“Clearly, you don't know Emma Griffin very well,” Sam comments, walking past with another plastic tray filled with bits of evidence.
He has spent the last month traveling back and forth between Harlan and Sherwood so he can keep up with his responsibilities as Sheriff while also continuing to help with the investigation here. It feels like most of the time we've been able to spend together has been out in this cornfield or running around from place to place in town trying to get somebody to listen to us.
But he's here. That means everything.
“We have to be able to give them a good reason,” Noah protests. “There has to be probable cause that would give us a reasonable need to go in there. Just saying that you know what's going
