Chapter 13 - The Fire on the Ridge
The handwriting didn't belong to Rhonda. Rhonda wrote in looping, dramatic cursive with pink or purple gel pens.
This was written with brutal, angular pressure, the lead digging so deep into the paper that it had torn through the fibers on the cross of the *T*.
"Who else did Arlin owe money to?" Aaron asked, his jaw set in a hard, grim line as he inspected the heavy serrated knife.
"Nobody," I said, my mind racing through every ledger, every court docket, every auction sheet I had combed through over the past month. "Unless... unless it wasn't Arlin's debt."
The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water.
"Dwayne," I whispered.
Aaron looked up, his eyes widening. "Rhonda’s ex-husband? He’s supposed to be doing federal time in Texas for interstate trafficking."
"Supposed to be," I said, my hands trembling as I pulled out my phone and dialed Sheriff Miller’s direct line. "He went up four years ago. With good behavior and overcrowding..."
Miller answered on the second ring.
"Sheriff," I said without greeting him. "Where is Dwayne Vance?"
There was a long, terrible silence on the other end of the line. The kind of silence that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up before a tornado sirens sound.
"Crystal," Miller said, his voice unusually strained. "I was just about to drive out to your place. We got a teletype from Huntsville this morning. Dwayne made parole three weeks ago. We didn't think he’d come back to Oklahoma—his parole conditions restricted him to Dallas County."
"He’s here," I said, staring at the knife on the table. "He left a note on our back gate."
"Pack Callie up," Miller ordered, his tone suddenly urgent. "Get in your truck and drive into town right now. Come straight to the station. Dwayne Vance isn't Toby. That man was a career enforcer before they sent him down, and he thinks your family stole his children."
"We're on our way," I said.
I hung up, turned to Aaron, and shouted, "Get Callie’s shoes!"
Before Aaron could cross the threshold into the hallway, the sky to the west—directly over the high timber ridge where Arlin’s old homestead sat—suddenly turned an unnatural, flickering orange.
A massive column of thick, black smoke began billowing into the twilight air, blotting out the evening stars.
Then, from the direction of the south pasture, the sudden, violent roar of a high-displacement V8 engine shattered the country quiet.
Tires screeched on the blacktop.
A heavy steel bumper crashed directly through our front gate, splintering the wooden posts into kindling, and careened straight down our driveway, crushing the first row of blooming sunflowers under its massive wheels.
The old Pontiac slid to a halt fifty feet from our porch, bathed in the dancing, terrifying glow of the fire on the ridge.
The driver’s door kicked open.
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A massive, hulking figure stepped out into the dust, silhouetted against the roaring flames behind him, holding a heavy iron pry bar in one hand and something ticking softly in the other.
"Crystal!" a gravelly, guttural voice roared through the smoke. "Come out here and pay your bill!"
