Now he was back home.
To finally face his demons.
9:50P.M.
BRENT LEFT THE CEMETERY AND CRUISED THROUGH DOWNTOWN.
Concord had been designed by practical men two hundred years ago with little imagination, its streets laid out in parallel gridsthat once served as an orderly transition from thick forest to town proper. A blue water tower remained the tallest structure. Brick row buildings with turn-of-the-century façades dominated, most the result of an extensive remodeling that occurred during Hank’s tenure at city hall. Persecuted Lutherans, who fled Germany for Georgia in 1734, first settled the area. His father’s family, the Walkers, were direct descendants of those Salzburgers. Every kid at Concord Elementary was taught about the two Revolutionary War battles that had raged nearby, the county named for General Robert Woods who led the local militia against the British. During the Civil War, Sherman miraculously spared most of it from burning on his way to Savannah, its tranquil laziness offering his soldiers a rest before their final assault to the sea. First Street was part of the old Quaker road James Oglethorpe himself used to connect his colonial towns. It was once home to a cotton gin and gristmill, and a railroad depot eventually came. Now all three were local museums, the depot’s centerpiece a historical marker commemorating George Washington’s visit in 1791.
He turned off First Street onto Live Oak Lane.
Another right and two blocks later he was home.
His parents bought the two-story Victorian home thirty years ago, its front façade dominated by a generous covered porch, its side by a detached two-story garage. The neighborhood had been part of Concord for decades, the homes first constructed when the old Republic Board moved people into the area sixty years back. Once a haven for managers and superintendents, the solitude now provided comfort to retirees, or families just starting out with the time and energy to tend to a demanding old house.
He turned in at the brick mailbox marked 328. His hybrid Lincoln was parked in the drive, his mother’s Prius nestled behind. He wheeled around both vehicles and deposited the Jeep in the garage, then he walked back toward the front porch and noticed someone standing in the driveway.
A woman.
Dressed casually. Her empty hands at her side.
In the penumbra of light from the street he saw she was about his age, short-haired, her face a mask of no emotion.
Like a ghost.
If he was still in Atlanta he would be much more cautious. But this was Concord. Home. So he approached her. “Can I help you?”
“Are you Brent Walker?”
The voice was low, nearly a whisper, as if someone might be listening.
He considered lying, but decided not to. “I am.”
“We don’t know each other, nor is it important that we do. But I came to tell you to watch yourself.”
He was surprised. “From what?”
“Your job. Be careful. It’s not what you think it is.”
Now he had questions. Lots of them.
But without another word she turned and walked toward a Tahoe parked across the street at the curb, beneath one of the streetlights. He hustled after her and reached for her arm.
Which he gently grabbed. “Excuse me.”
She did not resist or cry out as he turned her around. Instead, her eyes bore into him. “Heed Proverbs 22:3. And may God have mercy on you.”
He was stunned.
She wrestled her arm free, climbed into the vehicle, and drove off. He watched the Tahoe turn the corner down the street and vanish.
What in the world?
He stood there a moment and gathered himself, then walked back to the house, the sweet aroma of the nearby white magnolias nearly overpowering. Inside, he found his mother in the kitchen cleaning up. Hard to believe she would be sixty-six on her next birthday. Her silver hair was close-cropped, her eyes a sparkling sapphire. Bean-pole-thin and perpetually happy, she would always be, in his mind, a woman who could never sit still.
He decided to keep what just happened to himself, as he really did not know what to make of it. Instead, he told her about dinnerand the union meeting, finishing with, “It’s good to see some things never change. Hank is still the same.”
“Most people around here fish or hunt as a hobby. Hank plays politics.”
