“And Aunt Jamie is hurt. She’s bleeding, too.”

Mason felt a wave of relief that the woman was still alive. But what hell were he and Ray about to walk into?

Two local police units pulled in, lights flashing, sirens adding to the din. Mason took Brian’s hand and led him to the officer stepping out of the car.

“I want two of you with me and—”

“Someone’s coming out!” an officer at the second car yelled.

All the men turned to the house, weapons ready, eyes sharp. Mason pushed Brian behind him and squinted at the figure at the door. It was female.

“We need an ambulance!” Jamie shouted. “At least three!”

Two Months Later.

Jamie followed the two men single file through the woods. The air was warm, but she could smell fall creeping into the air. A few more weeks and a definite chill would permeate the forest. She concentrated on placing her feet as she walked. If this was a trail, it didn’t get much use. Chris had been the only one to track it a few times. Maybe some deer.

Chris and Michael moved silently ahead of her, glancing back occasionally to see if she was keeping up. Or to make certain she didn’t vanish. The three of them had a hard time being out of each other’s sight for very long. There were daily phone calls or texts, simple check-ins for no reason, other than the mental well-being that their loved ones were still safe.

The Ghostman was dead.

The police had linked several cold cases to Gary Hinkes, aka Gerald Prentice, with the governor’s help. The crimes ranged from murder to rape. Katy Darby and the others in the pit from the forest had been just a few of the bodies he’d left in his invisible wake. The local and national media had gone on about the Ghostman for weeks, hounding Chris and Jamie. They’d refused all comments and tried to live normal lives. Michael and the senator had made statements to the media requesting privacy for a family who’d been to hell and back.

The governor sat in the county jail. He’d confessed to the death of the woman in his office twenty years before, and his lawyers were arguing over what to do next. His confession had solved a cold case involving a woman’s body who’d been dumped near the capitol building. The senator had spent a week in the hospital after surgery to repair his femoral artery. Luckily, the artery was only nicked, and the governor’s fast action with his belt as a tourniquet on his brother’s thigh had probably saved his life.

Michael’s family struggled to comprehend that a beloved relative had their son murdered and then had callously let them wallow in depression and grief for two decades. Helping to save his brother hadn’t redeemed Phillip in his family’s eyes, especially since he’d nearly killed him first. Armchair psychiatrists claimed Phillip suffered from a God complex, believing he was privileged and his actions unquestionably correct. His family abandoned all contact with the governor.

Jamie glanced ahead at her brother, leading the way. If Chris was suffering emotionally, he never showed it. He’d stayed at her house for the first two weeks and then moved into a rental close by. She’d loved having Brian in her home. He’d brought a light into the house that had never existed before. He loved to talk to his aunt. They talked for hours at her kitchen table, and Jamie had learned he was smart as a whip. School started in a week, and he was both excited and nervous to attend public school for the first time. Chris hated the idea but hadn’t fought her; deep down he knew school was the right place for his son. Brian would be at Jamie’s school, and she’d sworn to check in on him several times a day.

The nights had been silent, not like the nights she recalled as a kid with her brother waking up the household with his screams. She’d immediately put Brian in counseling with the best child therapist she knew. Brian had blossomed and seemed to put his incident with the Ghostman behind him. He’d talked freely to Jamie about “the bad man” and accepted his father’s need to have him in sight most of the time. Jamie knew he’d do well in school. Chris was the one who would struggle with his son out from under his wing. She urged Chris to see a therapist too.

“We’ll see,” he’d answered with a half smile. She’d brought it up two more times and then given up. She had a hunch he was seeing a therapist on his own, not wanting to discuss it with family. He never said a word about the Ghostman, but Jamie would catch him studying his surroundings and faces of strangers when they were out in public, searching for something. He maintained a high level of constant alertness that had to be exhausting.

At the hospital, Michael had told his parents who Chris really was. Both Cecilia and her husband had stared from Michael to Chris and back again. Cecilia burst into tears and nearly collapsed onto her husband’s hospital bed. The senator had reached out a hand to Chris.

“Is it true?” he’d asked.

Jamie heard his voice shake and watched him scan Chris’s face, gripping his hand, searching for a hint of the boy he’d known. He must have found it, because recognition suddenly shone in his eyes.

“Daniel,” he whispered.

Cecilia rushed him, wrapping her arms around him and wiping tears on Chris’s shirt.

“I…I think I need to go by Chris,” Chris mumbled. He slowly wrapped his arms around his mother and closed his eyes.

His arms trembled slightly, and Jamie felt the pain of how hard that intimate contact was for her reclusive brother.

“I don’t care what you want to be called,” Cecilia stated. “You’re back. I always knew you’d come back. I never gave up hope. Never!”