“Holy sh—” Her voice caught.“Ollie?”
She saw them clear as day: Connor and Ollie lighting firecrackers off the school roof, shot-gunning warm beers in the woods, leaning out the windows of Ollie’s car with baseball bats, splintering mailboxes up and down the holler.
And now Oliver “Ollie” Caldwell was standing in front of her…in a goddamn deputy’s uniform.
Towns like Clifton didn’t run on law—they ran on quiet understandings and loud loyalties.You didn’t call the cops; you called your cousins, your neighbors, the Kings.Ollie had known that.He’d grown up in it, same as she had.
Hell.The world hadn’t just moved on while she was gone.It had gone and flipped upside down.
“Ollie,” she repeated, dazed.“You’re a…cop.How the heck did that happen?”
He gave a dry cough.“Uh, well, same way as most things, I guess—one thing after another.”
Hesitating, he glanced down the road before meeting her eyes.“Look, Cas…I reckon I know why you’re here.I was on duty when they…found him.Wasn’t much on his phone—a burner, mostly wiped.But there was one number in there…saved under Fiddlebean.”
Cassie’s heart skipped.Fiddlebean.
“Didn’t mean much to the others,” he continued.“But I remembered.So I told the deputy to try it.Didn’t want anybody gettin’ the news before kin.”
It had been her daddy’s nickname for her, born of the violin in her hands and the beanpole legs that carried her.She hadn’t heard it in years.And after Daddy died, she hadn’t wanted to hear it ever again.
She turned her head, blinking fast.“I, um…I really need to go, Ollie.I have so much to do—I should stop by the house, and then—”
“Cas, hold up—did you say the house?”
Something in Ollie’s voice—surprise, maybe concern—made her stomach twist.She turned back slowly.“What?”
Ollie scratched the back of his neck, hesitating.“Ain’t no easy way to say this…aw, hell, Cas—the house is gone.”
She stared at him, stunned.“What…like a fire or somethin’?”
“No, nothin’ like that,” he replied quickly.“It’s still standin’.Just…it ain’t yours no more.The bank took it.”
“That’s bullshit,” she snapped.“Grandpap Ezra built that house.It’s been Berry land for a hundred years.”
Ollie’s gaze slid toward the trees.“Con, he, uh, let the taxes go.Long enough that the county came knockin’.”
Memories crashed in—the yellow siding, the smoke-stained chimney.Great-great-grandpap laid the foundation, Papaw Willie added the second story, Daddy had finished it with the porch.All Connor had to do was hold the fuck on.
“And everything inside?”she whispered.
“Mostly gone.I think he sold off a lot.Other stuff’s…destroyed.I can take you over if you want—don’t much like the thought of you goin’ alone.”
Cassie stared past him at the empty road.She didn’t need or want Ollie’s pity; she just needed to see it with her own eyes.
“Thanks, but no,” she gritted out.“I’ve got it.”
Chapter Four
Cassieidledatthelast stoplight in town; the brick storefronts of Main crowded the rearview.Ahead, a pair of gas stations marked the outskirts—the last before the road gave way to trees and the hills took over.
When the light turned green, she eased onto Sycamore Run, the pavement narrowing as the hollow closed in around her.The creek kept pace alongside, flashing silver where sunlight broke through the canopy.Daddy used to say the Holler held you like a cupped hand—safe and stuck all at once.
The blacktop eventually gave out to dirt; this deep in the run, the sun barely touched the road.The hills rose like walls, oak and sycamore so thick she could only glimpse sky straight overhead.
The road narrowed further, barely wide enough for one car.Her stomach clenched with each familiar curve—past the dip where the creek bed had chewed away more of the asphalt, past a trailer perched on cinder blocks where the Mitchells’ house used to be.Behind it, the old place was nothing but a blackened skeleton.Then the Bartlett place, a washing machine rusting in the yard.The Farley’s house, half the roof caved in and abandoned.Each landmark ticking past like notes on a scale, marking her way home.
Then the last bend came and went…and there it was.
