The Lucky One(10)

The shirt, he realized, was no guarantee that the photo had been taken in North Carolina. Maybe someone who’d gone to the college gave the guy the shirt; maybe he was an out-of-state student, maybe he just liked the colors, maybe he was an alum and had moved someplace new. But with nothing else to go on, Thibault had made a quick phone call to the Hampton Chamber of Commerce before he’d left Colorado and verified that they had a county fair every summer. Another good sign. He had a destination, but it wasn’t yet a fact. He just assumed this was the right place. Still, for a reason he couldn’t explain, this place felt right.

There were other assumptions, too, but he’d get to those later. The first thing he had to do was find the fairgrounds. Hopefully, the county fair had been held in the same location for years; he hoped the person who could point him in the right direction could answer that question as well. Best place to find someone like that was at one of the businesses around here. Not a souvenir or antiques shop—those were often owned by newcomers to town, people escaping from the North in search of a quieter life in warmer weather. Instead, he thought his best bet would be someplace like a local hardware store. Or a bar. Or a real estate office. He figured he’d know the place when he saw it.

He wanted to see the exact place the photograph had been taken. Not to get a better feel for who the woman was. The fairgrounds wouldn’t help with that at all.

He wanted to know if there were three tall evergreen trees clustered together, pointy ones that could grow almost anywhere.





3

Beth

Beth set aside her can of Diet Coke, glad that Ben was having a good time at his friend Zach’s birthday party. She was just wishing that he didn’t have to go to his father’s when Melody came by and sat in the chair beside her.

“Good idea, huh? The water guns are a big hit.” Melody smiled, her bleached teeth a bit too white, her skin a shade too dark, as though she’d just come back from a trip to the tanning salon. Which she probably had. Melody had been vain about her appearance since high school, and lately it seemed to have become even more of an obsession.

“Let’s just hope they don’t turn those Super Soakers on us.”

“They better not.” Melody frowned. “I told Zach that if he did, I’d send everyone home.” She leaned back, making herself more comfortable. “What have you been doing with yourself this summer? I haven’t seen you around, and you haven’t returned my calls.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. I’ve been a hermit this summer. It’s just been hard trying to keep up with Nana and the kennel and all the training. I have no idea how Nana kept it up for so long.”

“Nana’s doing okay these days?”

Nana was Beth’s grandmother. She’d raised Beth since the age of three, after Beth’s parents died in a car accident. She nodded. “She’s getting better, but the stroke took a lot out of her. Her left side is still really weak. She can manage some of the training, but running the kennel and training is beyond her. And you know how hard she pushes herself. I’m always worried she might be overdoing it.”

“I noticed she was back in the choir this week.”

Nana had been in the First Baptist Church choir for over thirty years, and Beth knew it was one of her passions. “Last week was her first week back, but I’m not sure how much singing she actually did. Afterward, she took a two-hour nap.”

Melody nodded. “What’s going to happen when school starts up?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are going to teach, aren’t you?”

“I hope so.”

“You hope? Don’t you have teacher meetings next week?”

Beth didn’t want to think about it, let alone discuss it, but she knew Melody meant well. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be there. I know it would leave the school in a bind, but it’s not as if I can leave Nana alone all day. Not yet, anyway. And who would help her run the kennel? There’s no way she could train the dogs all day.”

“Can’t you hire someone?” Melody suggested.

“I’ve been trying. Did I tell you what happened earlier in the summer? I hired a guy who showed up twice, then quit as soon as the weekend rolled around. Same thing with the next guy I hired. After that, no one’s even bothered to come by. The ‘Help Wanted’ sign has become a permanent fixture in the window.”

“David’s always complaining about the lack of good employees.”

“Tell him to offer minimum wage. Then he’d really complain. Even high school kids don’t want to clean the cages anymore. They say it’s gross.”

“It is gross.”

Beth laughed. “Yeah, it is,” she admitted. “But I’m out of time. I doubt if anything will change before next week, and if it doesn’t, there are worse things. I do enjoy training the dogs. Half the time they’re easier than students.”

“Like mine?”

“Yours was easy. Trust me.”

Melody motioned toward Ben. “He’s grown since the last time I saw him.”

“Almost an inch,” she said, thinking it was nice of Melody to notice. Ben had always been small for his age, the kid always positioned on the left side, front row, of the class picture, half a head shorter than the child seated next to him. Zach, Melody’s son, was just the opposite: right-hand side, in the back, always the tallest in class.