CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Connor was crossing the sheriff’s department parking lot when he heard it.
Selena made it as far as turning the key before the trouble announced itself.
The engine gave a dry, useless churn, then died.
She tried again. Same result. The rental shuddered once beneath her and fell still.
He looked over in time to see her sit back in the driver’s seat with both hands still on the wheel, as if stubbornness alone might get the thing moving on the third try.
It didn’t.
He changed direction and headed for her car.
By the time he reached the driver’s side window, Selena had already rolled it down, which told him she knew exactly what this looked like and hated it.
“Gremlins?” he asked with a grin.
Her mouth tightened. “No. I just enjoy sitting in parking lots going nowhere.”
Connor rested one hand on the window frame and glanced at the dash. “Try it again.”
She turned the key. The engine coughed weakly, caught for half a second, then gave up.
Connor nodded once. “Pop the hood.”
Selena looked at him for a second too long before pulling the release.
He walked around the front, lifted the hood, and leaned in.
He was no mechanic, but years in a county this size taught a man enough to spot the obvious.
Battery looked secure. No glaring loose cable.
He checked a connection, tightened one clamp by hand, then rapped lightly against the housing with the side of his fist more out of experience than confidence.
“You got roadside through the rental company?” he asked.
“I’m sure I do. Somewhere in the glove compartment under a thousand pages telling me not to drink the windshield fluid.”
“They obviously know you.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her almost smile, then think better of it.
Connor bent lower, moved one wire, then straightened. “Try it now.”
Selena turned the key again.
This time the engine sputtered harder, rose for a second, then died with a dull choking sound.
Connor let the hood down halfway, then stopped it with one hand. “All right. It’s not dead dead. But it’s not going anywhere right now either.”
Selena leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes briefly. Not dramatic. Just a tired little surrender she probably wished he hadn’t seen.
“I’ll get a mechanic to swing by and have a look,” he said.
“That could take hours.” She sounded agitated.
“Probably.”
He shut the hood properly and came back to her window.
“We’re still going north to the revival,” he said. “I’ll give you a lift.”
The words hung there between them.
Selena looked at him, then past him toward the station, then back again. He knew that expression. Calculation first. Reluctance second. The understanding that refusing would be childish, accepting would be awkward, and neither option came free. It reminded him of the divorce proceedings.
“Sure,” she finally said.
Connor stepped back from the window. “Bring what you need. I’ll call the mechanic from inside.”
She nodded and reached for her bag, but not before he caught the flicker on her face. Not anger exactly. More like dread arriving ahead of the drive itself. An hour in a car with him meant space enough for talk, and space enough for silence, too. Sometimes silence did worse things.
She got out, shut the rental door, and stood beside the car with her coat pulled close against the wind moving through the lot. Connor took one more glance at the dead rental, already running through which mechanic was least likely to take all afternoon, then led the way toward his SUV.
Neither of them said much as they got in.
“I’ll just send a message to Cheryl to sort out the mechanic,” he said, holding his phone.
“She doesn’t like me,” Selena said.
“She’s just territorial,” Connor replied.
Once that was done, Connor started the engine. He patted the dashboard and said, “Good old Harlan County property never fails, just like me.”
“I hope you won’t keep up with those jokes for the whole hour.”
“No promises,” he said, still smiling. They pulled out of the parking lot and headed out, hoping to meet the revival before dark.
Selena sat in the passenger seat with her laptop closed now, a notebook on her knee, one hand resting over it as they took the county road toward the state line.
Fields opened on either side. Brown grass mixed with green in places.
Farmhouses set back from the road with trucks in the drive and bikes left near porches.
For the first few miles they kept to work.
“If we’re on the right track,” Selena said, looking through the windshield, “the killer could still be using the circuit without belonging to it. We should check the movement with the killings.”
“I already know,” Connor answered. “The flyer showed they were around the county, so just driving distance to each scene.”
“Could just be a regular follower, too,” Selena reminded him. “Someone who likes the atmosphere and keeps coming back.”
Connor nodded. “Which means we don’t just watch the platform. We watch the crowd.”
“And the edges of it,” she said. “Men hanging back. Men who don’t sing, don’t pray, don’t really engage. Men who are there to watch people, not worship.”
He glanced over. “You’ve done this kind of thing before?”
“Crowd predators?” She gave a small shrug. “Not exactly this version. Close enough.”
That told him plenty.
The road bent west for a stretch, then north again, taking them close enough to Selena’s mom’s old place of work. The old landmarks started showing themselves whether Connor wanted them to or not. Feed mill. Closed gas station. The turnoff toward their old school disappearing on the right.
Selena saw it, too. He knew she did because her hand tightened once over the notebook.
“How’s your dad?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
Silence held a second too long.
“I can’t tell,” she said at last. “Better than he was a few weeks ago by the sound of it. But still worse than I thought he’d be. No one told me about the pneumonia.”
Connor nodded. “Yeah, he goes up and down. But he’s a trouper.”
She turned to look at him. “You’ve seen him recently?”
No point sidestepping it.
“Eh… Yeah… I go over once a week.”
He felt her stare before he heard anything from her.
“For what?”
“To check on him. Fix what needs fixing. Sit awhile.” Connor shifted one hand on the wheel. “Gives Diane a break, too. It isn’t easy working and looking after a sick parent.”
Selena said nothing.
He let the quiet stay where it was. The truth did not need dressing up. Robert Raven had gotten older. Diane had too much on her. Connor lived nearby, knew the place, and had never found a good reason not to help.
After another stretch of road, Selena said, “You do that every week?”
“Most weeks.”
“Why?”
Connor almost smiled at that. “Because your dad shouldn’t be on his own that much. Because Diane can’t do everything herself. Because Robert still thinks he can get on a ladder when nobody’s watching. And… we used to be family before the divorce, didn’t we?”
That finally shifted the subtle shock from her expression.
“He always did think he was indestructible.”
“He’s not,” Connor said. “But he still beats me at cards and tells me otherwise.”
She looked down at her notebook then, though he doubted she was reading a word on it. “Diane never told me he’d gotten sick again.”
“Oh.” He tried to sound surprised. “Maybe she felt like it wasn’t something she needed to report.”
Another pause.
“Thank you for keeping an eye on him,” Selena said, and the words sounded as if she had to dig them out.
Connor kept his gaze on the road. “Wasn’t doing it for thanks.”
“I know. But thanks anyway.”
That answer seemed less guarded.
He gave her space after that. A grain truck thundered past in the opposite lane. The radio played low, something old and country neither of them cared enough to touch. Sunlight leaned further west, warmer now as it slanted across the hood.
A few miles later Selena said, “I was actually on my way to see Jessie the other night when I got caught in a detour.”
Connor glanced over. “Were you?” He didn’t know whether it was true or not. But he did think it would be good for them to reconnect while she was in town.
“There were roadworks. I ended up at Dad’s instead.”
“Jessie’ll take that personally if she hears about it.” He let out a chuckle.
“She takes most things personally. At least, she used to.”
That stung a little. He couldn’t help but feel protective of Jessie. She’d been through hell. But Selena clearly didn’t know that. “That’s because most things around here are personal.”
Selena let out a short breath that might have been a laugh. “So it seems.”
Connor let that sit a second, then said, “You still planning to see her?”
“I don’t know.”
That sounded more honest than he had expected.
“She ask you to come by?”
“No.”
“I thought she might have. She knows you’re here. If she didn’t ask, then why were you going?”
Selena shifted in the seat. “Because I was in town. Because I kept thinking about it. Because after a while not seeing someone starts to look deliberate when you’re so close.”
“It usually is deliberate.”
She gave him a look. “You always did enjoy saying things like that.”
“You always got irritated when I said them.”
“That’s because you sounded so pleased with yourself.”
Connor smiled despite himself. “Sometimes I was.”
A trace of old rhythm moved through the car at that. Not comfort, not yet, but something close enough to remember.
Selena looked back through the windshield. “You know things didn’t go well between me and Jessie when I left.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean we properly fell out. I’m sure she’s told you.”
Connor waited.
“She thought I handled the divorce badly,” Selena said.
“You did.”
Her head turned sharply. “Excuse me?”
“You said it like you wanted an answer.”
“I wasn’t asking.” He could see her shift back into defensive mode by the way her body seemed more rigid now.
“You two are more alike than you care to admit,” Connor said. He didn’t want an argument. Not about this. It was important to him that Jessie and Selena reconnect. It might help both of them.
She stared at him, then looked away again. “Jessie had opinions about everything back then.”
Connor sighed. “She still does. And so did you.”
“That doesn’t make them always useful.”
Connor took the next bend slower than he needed to. “Well, don’t hold it against her. She was angry.”
“At me?”
“At both of us.”
Selena frowned. “You got it too?”
That answer came easier than he expected. “When we fell apart, it hit more than just us. Jessie looked up to what we had. I guess when it went sour between us, it was like the illusion was over and maybe she didn’t believe in that sort of love anymore.”
Selena went quiet after that, watching the countryside roll by in the evening sun. It was clear she had tired of the trip down memory lane. Connor knew when to back off. Selena was capable of kindness like he’d never known, but she had a temper to match it when pushed.
By the time they crossed into Benton County, the sun had dropped low enough to turn the fields copper. More cars started appearing on the road, most of them pickups and aging sedans heading in the same direction. Enough of them to tell their own story.
“Looks popular,” Selena finally said.
“That’s going to make it harder to spot something unusual,” Connor replied. “I’ve driven past it before when it’s passed through the county, but the last time I did it wasn’t this size.”
People wanted to see this preacher, Elias Croft. They were coming in droves. Sheep to the shepherd.
Connor followed the line of vehicles off the highway onto a narrower road leading toward the county fairgrounds.
Ahead, beyond a stand of bare trees, temporary lights had begun to glow against the deepening evening.
A white shape rose above them that had to be the roof of the revival tent.
Music carried faintly through the closed windows, organ and drums and a voice warming up the crowd.
A generator was running, too. Connor could hear its steady drone under the music.
Selena leaned slightly forward in her seat.
The fairground lot came into view in pieces.
Parked trucks. Folding signs staked at the entrance.
Families walking in clusters toward the tent.
Men alone, collars buttoned. Women in long skirts and women in jeans.
A kid dragging at his mother’s hand. A teenage girl hanging back near the fence as if not sure whether to go in.
Connor saw the same look on several faces.
Tired people willing to be surprised by hope.
A bus sat off to one side of the tent. Long. Cream and blue. Polished enough to catch the last of the sunset across its windows. The gold script on the side flashed as they passed the first row of parked vehicles.
Mercy Road Ministries.
He pulled into a spot near the edge of the lot and killed the engine.
Diesel hung in the air from the generator and the bus. Folding chairs scraped somewhere under the tent. A woman laughed too loudly, then stopped. The music swelled as someone on the microphone told the crowd they were right on time for the Lord.
For a moment neither of them moved.
Then Selena spoke, as though she had been holding the thought in and had to let it go or she’d explode. She said, “You seem to know a lot about how Jessie felt.”
Connor kept one hand on the wheel. The bus stood beyond the windshield. Beyond that, the white tent and the crowd and whatever waited inside it.
He looked at the bus, then at the tent, then finally at her.
“I do wish you and Jessie would smooth things over,” he said. “After all, she is my sister.”