The Last Breath. Kimberly Belle

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      Ray raised his glass in the air, jiggled it around. Dangit. Still a good two fingers left.

      She whipped her head around to Allison. “More ice water?”

      But Ray wasn’t to be distracted, and he turned back to Dean, his tone and stance on edge. “I’m not saying the insurance system isn’t broken, Dean. Just that the healthcare system is fine as it is, and the Clintons should concentrate on what’s really ailing this country—the economy.”

      “Then what do you suggest for families like mine?” Dean’s voice was as amiable as ever. “One whose employers drop the dependents from their insurance plan when one of their employee’s family members is diagnosed with a chronic or life-threatening illness.”

      Before Ray could respond, Ella Mae stepped in front of him, blocking his view of Dean and reaching for his still full glass, and giving him a look that left no doubt as to how quickly he needed to stop picking a fight with the neighbor. “How about I refresh y’all’s glasses?”

      “That’s all right, darlin’.” Ray clenched his jaw and stood, snatching back his glass. “I’ll go in and do it myself.”

      And then he went inside without another word, without catching the screen door so it didn’t slam shut behind him.

      Ella Mae sank back into her chair, and the three fell into an awkward silence punctuated by the angry cry of a cicada.

      Allison broke it first, standing, smoothing her skirt. “I better get back to Caroline. Thank you for a lovely night, Ella Mae. Will you thank Ray for me, as well?”

      Ella Mae cleared her throat. “Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

      At the bottom step to the side yard, Allison paused. “You coming, Dean?”

      Dean pushed off the railing to go and then thought better of it. “I’ll be over in just a minute. I want to wait for Ray, apologize for getting him so riled up.”

      “Oh. Okay, then.” Allison glanced at Ella Mae, smiled stiffly and then disappeared, swallowed up into the shadows. “Don’t be long,” came her voice from across the yard.

      “I won’t.” Dean’s answer was distracted. His attention was elsewhere. On Ella Mae elsewhere.

      Ella Mae went as still as an opossum on a country road. Across the lawn, a door squeaked, fell shut with a click. Inside Ella Mae’s house, the low notes of a TV hummed. Ella Mae was breathless. Her heart might have even stopped beating. She was alone with Dean Sullivan on the porch, and something about the way he looked at her made her think he’d been waiting all night for this moment.

      “Seems we chased everybody away,” Dean said.

      “Not that far away.” Ella Mae’s tone held a note of reckless warning, her eyes a flash of daring. Daring him, and maybe also herself.

      A breeze kicked up on the front lawn, chilling Ella Mae’s skin and tickling her nose with the scent of honeysuckle. This was the tipping point, Ella Mae knew. Dean could get up now and walk away, go home to his new house and boring wife and sleeping daughters, or he could send them both into a frenzy.

      He turned and leaned his elbows onto the railing, staring off into the black night. “I love it here already. And that view is sure something else.” He glanced at Ella Mae over his shoulder. “Too bad we can’t see it now because it’s pretty spectacular, don’t you think? Especially now the leaves are about to change.”

      Ella Mae said nothing.

      He straightened and whirled back around, and his dark gaze found hers immediately. “Principal Whitehead told me I’ve not lived until I’ve seen Great Smoky Mountains Park. Are the trees there as pretty as he says?”

      Trees? He was really talking about trees? Disappointment spread across her skin like a bruise, and she reprimanded herself for it. “He’s right. They are pretty.”

      “What’s that, about a forty-five-minute drive?”

      She bit her lip, nodded again.

      And then his mouth rode up into a wicked smile. “Do you think that’d be far enough?”

      Ella Mae’s heart took off in a wild gallop.

      Frenzy. Definitely frenzy.

       4

      IN MANY RESPECTS, returning to Rogersville after all these years feels a lot like my life in the field. Families torn apart by tragedy. A disaster that’s at best chaotic and unpredictable and far, far out of my control. And at the end of the day, an almost desperate quest for distraction from the doom brewing all around me, even if only for a few hours.

      I squeeze my rental between an ancient Chevy and a mud-encrusted truck, wriggle myself out and peer over its roof at my destination. Square and stout, the building’s restored bricks and a fresh coat of paint gleam under old-fashioned gas lamps and the fading evening light. My gaze travels to the thick white letters painted across the picture window to the right of the door. Roadkill Bar and Grill.

      Distraction in the form of cold beer and flattened rodents.

      The door swings open with a blast of country music and the scent of something delicious. Truffles, maybe. Truffles? A couple steps out onto the sidewalk, their jackets hanging open as if it were fifty degrees out instead of hovering somewhere just above twenty. At the edge of the sidewalk, the man stops to dig around in his pockets for his keys.

      “But hasn’t he already been punished enough?” his date says, picking up their conversation with a toss of her drugstore dye-job hair. “I mean, he is dying of cancer.”

      “Good,” the man says. “He murdered that woman, and now he deserves to die. An eye for an eye and all that.”

      A high-pitched giggle. “This is America, not Afghanistan.”

      I don’t want to hear this conversation. I don’t want to hear it, and yet I can’t seem to stop listening. It’s as if I’m rendered powerless by the spectacle unfolding in front of me, like staring into a black hole or accidentally discovering the hotel TV offers free porn. Curiosity takes over, and I have to stay until the very end. I duck my head and pretend to search through my bag, my ears practically flapping off my head.

      I hear what can only be the sound of male spit hitting pavement. “Damn straight, this is America. And this here’s American justice at its finest. That old man is getting exactly what he has coming to him.”

      “I don’t think you can credit the justice system for giving an old man cancer. Jesus Christ, maybe, but not the justice system.”

      “Freeing a convicted murderer ain’t justice, that’s for damn sure.” Keys jingle, and their footsteps take off in my direction. “In my book, life in prison means dying in prison.”

      Another giggle followed by a playful slap. “Tommy Aldean, since when did you write a book?”

      “I’m the next Dan Brown, sweetheart. Guaran-damn-teed to be a bestseller.”

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