Free The Grove by John Rector Page A

up, then glanced down at the body and backed away.
    “Don’t move,” I said. “Don’t you fucking move.”
    I picked up my pace, but it was too late. Jacob dropped the knife then turned and sprinted through the field toward the hills to the north.
    I followed, but I knew right away that I didn’t stand a chance of catching him. I didn’t have the angle. By the time I got halfway through the field, I saw him cresting the hill and disappearing down the other side.
    I stopped and bent forward, bracing my hands against my thighs. My lungs roared in my chest. Electric black flowers exploded behind my eyes. I dropped to my knees, then turned and collapsed onto my back, staring up at the pale blue sky.
    Jacob Tolliver?
    I stayed there for a while, letting my breath ease and my heart slow, trying to think of what to do next.
    My options seemed limited.
    Eventually, I pushed myself up and headed back across the field to the grove. As I got closer I saw Jessica pacing around the corn, her arms folded over her chest.
    When she saw me she stopped and stared at me.
    We had a lot to talk about.

CHAPTER 19
     
    “Where the hell did he come from?”
    I motioned toward the north. “He lives on Ezra’s property, just over those hills. The whole family is over there. They’ve got a trailer.”
    “Ezra?”
    I nodded. “Ezra Hays. Been there forever.”
    That wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Ezra was long past eighty, and he’d lived in the same house, working the same land, for as long as I could remember.
    The Tollivers were new, came with the spring.
    I don’t know how they’d met Ezra, but I knew he’d agreed to let them park their trailer on his property in exchange for helping with odd jobs around the farm.
    I doubted this was working out for Ezra. Frank Tolliver was a drinker. They’d been on Ezra’s property for a little over three months, and Greg had been out to their trailer several times already. He never told me why, but on the two occasions I saw Dorothy Tolliver, she’d had fresh bruises on her face. It wasn’t hard to guess.
    I thought there were two kids, both boys, but I wasn’t sure. The only one I’d met was Jacob. He’d come by once or twice looking for extra work. Normally I would’ve been impressed—it’s not too often you meet a kid who is willing to work hard—but there was something unsettling about Jacob.
    At first I thought it was the way he constantly fidgeted, or the way he wouldn’t look me in the eye when he spoke. I knew he was just a kid and that was how kids acted, but it was more than that.
    Watching Jacob was like watching something dirty.
    “Why was he out here?” Jessica asked.
    “Supper, it looks like.”
    The knife he’d dropped turned out to be a rusted lawnmower blade. I assumed he’d been using it to cut the ears away from the stalks.
    “Do you think he’ll say something?”
    I shrugged.
    “OK,” Jessica said, nodding. She crossed her arms over her chest and went back to pacing along the edge of the grove. “Then we have to get a plan together.”
    I took the bottle from my pocket and drank.
    “Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t tell anyone.”
    I laughed.
    “I’m serious,” she said. “Did you see the look on his face when he ran? He was terrified.”
    I didn’t think so.
    I’d startled the kid, sure, but I hadn’t terrified him. With a father like Frank Tolliver, it would take a lot more than me yelling to terrify him. This I knew firsthand.
    “You think he’ll tell someone, don’t you?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
    She stopped pacing and sat on the dirt with her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. “Oh my God.”
    I took another drink.
    “What are we going to do?”
    “What can we do? Wait, I guess.”
    “For him to tell the police?” She shook her head. “No, there has to be something.”
    I didn’t answer. My mind was somewhere else.
    She watched me for a moment. “What’s wrong with you?”
    I looked up. I wanted to