A man running a hardware store in Beaufort. A blond nurse working in pediatrics. An elderly church elder in assisted living, his sins tucked away behind careful denials and the respectability that came from old family names and enough money to make people look the other way.
Forty years was long enough for everyone to believe they were safe. Long enough to build respectable lives on foundations of buried bodies and burned evidence. Long enough that the past should have stayed past, should have remained a story people told at dinner parties when the conversation turned to Grimm Island’s scandals—remember when that preacher was killed with his mistress? No one ever figured out who did it.
Frank emerged from his house carrying a manila envelope so thick it had been reinforced with packing tape, the kind of precaution you took when you knew something was valuable enough to protect but fragile enough to fall apart under its own weight. The way he held it—carefully, reverently, like it was either a holy relic or a live grenade—told me everything I needed to know about what was inside.
He climbed back into the truck and set the envelope on the seat between us. It sat there like a third passenger, silent but present, heavy with more than just paper and ink.
“Everything Tommy documented,” Frank said, starting the engine. “Crime-scene photos Milton claimed were lost. Witness statements that never made it into official reports. Financial records from the church. His personal notes about why he thought the investigation was being deliberately sabotaged.” He pulled back onto the highway, heading toward Charleston. “Three copies originally. The one that got stolen from his house when someone broke in. One he mailed to a lawyer in Columbia. I figured the lawyer must have died because nothing came of that. And this one, that he gave me for safekeeping.”
“Did you ever look through it?”
“Once. Right after Tommy died.”
The landscape rolled past—marsh grass turning golden in the declining light, the occasional house on stilts rising from the wetlands like something from a fairy tale about people who’d learned to live with floods.
Charleston emerged on the horizon like a promise or a threat depending on your perspective—church steeples and bridge spans, the city spreading along the harbor with centuries of practice at being beautiful. We crossed the Ashley River as the sun dropped lower, painting the water in shades that made me think of fire and blood and all the things that looked lovely from a distance but burned when you got too close.
Charleston Medical Center announced itself with the visual grammar of hospitals everywhere—multiple buildings connected by covered walkways, parking garages stacked like concrete layer cakes, the emergency entrance marked with letters that glowed red even in daylight, demanding attention, promising help, suggesting that whatever brought you here was serious enough to require fluorescent lighting and people in scrubs.
Frank pulled up to the main entrance. “Go. I’ll park and find you inside.”
“You don’t have to stay?—”
“I’m staying.” He said it quietly, almost apologetically. “At least until your sheriff arrives. Someone attacked your friend in broad daylight, and I—” He paused, seeming to search for the right words. “I’d feel better knowing you weren’t alone until he gets here.”
The automatic doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss that sounded like the hospital breathing out, and I stepped into air-conditioning aggressive enough to raise goose bumps on my arms despite the humid warmth I’d left behind. The lobby smelled like every hospital lobby I’d ever encountered—antiseptic trying to mask fear, coffee fighting a losing battle with institutional cleaning solution, wilting flowers in vases near the information desk where someone had left them as offering or apology or both.
The volunteer at the desk was elderly, kind faced, wearing a pink jacket that marked her as someone whose job was helping people find their way through the labyrinth. Her name tag read Dorothy—20 Years of Service, and she looked up at me with practiced sympathy that suggested she’d directed many worried people toward many trauma bays.
“I’m looking for Henry Hardeman,” I said, surprised my voice came out steadier than I felt. “Brought in by ambulance not long ago.”
She typed with two-finger precision, squinting at her computer screen through glasses that had slipped down her nose. “Emergency department, treatment bay four. Are you family?”
“Yes.” I’d apologize to God for the lie later, but right now I needed to get to Hank.
“Through those doors, follow the blue line on the floor. Take a left at the nursing station. Bay four will be on your right.” She printed out a visitor badge with my name in letters large enough to read from across a room.
The blue line on the floor led me through corridors that all looked identical—beige walls, motivational posters about hand-washing, the distant sound of monitors beeping in rhythms that meant something to people who spoke that particular language. I followed the line like Dorothy in Oz, except this yellow brick road led to trauma bays instead of emerald cities, and there was no wizard waiting at the end.
Dottie stood outside bay four with her arms wrapped around herself like she was physically holding her ribs together. She’d lost her cat-eye glasses somewhere—probably in the ambulance—and without them she looked diminished, older, as if the glasses had been holding up not just her vision but some essential part of her carefully constructed armor.
“Mabel.” She straightened when she saw me, trying to pull herself together. “They won’t let me in while they’re doing the CT scan. Said I’m making everyone nervous hovering around.”
I pulled her into a hug, felt her shake against me. “What did they say about his condition?”
“Someone hit him hard enough to crack his skull. They’re checking to see if there’s bleeding in his brain.” Her voice wavered. “At his age, that’s the real worry. Even a small bleed can turn into something serious.”
“But he’s alive.”
“He’s alive.” She said it like a prayer.
The door to bay four opened and a doctor emerged—Asian, forties, wearing scrubs printed with cartoon dinosaurs. His name tag read Dr. James Chen, Emergency Medicine.
“Dr. Simmons,” he said. “Your friend is stable. The CT showed a small subdural hematoma, but it’s not expanding. We’re monitoring closely, but I’m cautiously optimistic it won’t require surgical intervention.”
“Prognosis?” Dottie asked, her voice steady.
“Guarded but good. Responsive to stimuli, pupils equal and reactive. We’re keeping him sedated for the next twelve to twenty-four hours to prevent agitation.” He paused. “At his age, recovery will be slower. There may be lingering effects—headaches, confusion, memory issues related to the incident. But barring complications, I expect full recovery.”
