CHAPTER ONE
FOUR YEARS LATER
He didn’t toss. He didn’t turn. But man did he dream.
But it wasn’t like a dream. It seemed so real, and so vivid, and so horrifyingly horrific that Grant McGraw, the chief of the Belgrave Police Department, flew open his large, bloodshot blue eyes and sat up in bed with a sudden lift up: resting on his elbows. His heart pounding, his breathing strangled and heavy, he realized at once it was another nightmare. Of another drowning. Another fire. Another shooting. Another car wreck. Another, another, another. Night after night after night. When would it ever end?
He laid back down onto his saturated pillow as sweat pierced his pores like a second skin. He lifted his cellphone from his nightstand to check the time. Just after three a.m. He had fallen asleep an hour ago, or maybe not even that long ago. He couldn’t remember. Now he was wide awake again. Sleepless in Belgrave again. When would it ever end ?
He threw the covers off of his naked body and got out of bed. After peeing, he put on his bathrobe, made his way downstairs past his huge living room, around his formal dining room, and into his gourmet kitchen of earth tones browns and grays. Grabbing a bottled beer out of the frig and opening it, he made his way outside onto his large wraparound southern front porch of his large, colonial brick home, leaving his door wide open to let fresh air blow through.
But the silence was startling to his ears. He could hear the wildlife alright. Who couldn’t hear the cicadas screaming their love across Florida? Or the crickets and the birds and the frogs and the bees? But he could also hear a leaf drop if it fell from one of the many maple trees in his front yard. Or a feather dropping from a bird. Because all the noise out there was devoid of human noise. Which made it lonely. And tiresome. And as if there was no noise at all .
He took a long gulp of his beer. Then he placed the cold bottle against his forehead. It was still springtime in Florida, but it was hot as hell even that time of morning. Not to mention that nightmare that drenched him, too, as if it had actually happened, even though it was just a dream.
Across the street were thick woods that used to feel comforting to Grant. Like his own isolated piece of the world where no one could bother him or people-watch him or blame him. But now as he sat in the dark in that early morning hour, those same woods felt ominous. Like they were closing in on him too. Like they wanted their pound of flesh from him too.
He looked up at the massive Tuscan columns on his front porch that redefined the architectural design of his home, and it suddenly seemed as if they could fall down and crush him at any moment. As if they could close in on him too. He was forty-eight years old, staring in the dark because he couldn’t find an hour’s peace in bed, and it felt as if this was as good as it was going to get for him. Sitting on his own front porch afraid of the woods and quietness. This was all? This was it ?
He drank all of his beer: he was drinking way too much and knew it. Wasn’t doing himself any favors and he knew that too. But he was getting to a place, or might already be there, where he just didn’t give a damn.
He went back inside, tossed his bottle in the trash filled with other empty bottles just like it, and showered and got ready for work.
At least he had work.