Chapter One:
The day matched the occasion. Smoke-gray clouds encased the cemetery. A murder of crows sat in a nearby maple tree, stripped of its leaves. A row of black sentinels, uncharacteristically silent. Watching.
In the gloom of the gray day, no one smiled. For fifty years the town of Lazy Rivers had alternated between the hope that Zach Nelson was still alive and resignation that Zach had died.
Now it was settled. Zach had died. Not at the hands of a kidnapper, but from the cruelty of a disease that couldn’t be outrun. No one was happy.
The three Rivers women stood together, their breath making puffs of air in the cold. Serenity stood between her mother and her daughter Samantha, their linked hands providing strength as they worked to block the flood of images and emotions radiating from the mourners.
Some memories slipped through despite their efforts. A young Zach teaching Alex to ride a bike. Someone slapping dinner down on a table in anger. But strongest of all were the ones people had of Zach’s last weeks, when he’d finally come home to die in the town he’d spent a lifetime avoiding.
Elizabeth Rivers squeezed her daughter’s hand as another wave of memories threatened to break through. She was stronger now than she’d been last summer when she’d feigned serious illness to bring Serenity and Samantha home.
But today’s gathering tested the limits of her recovery. Still, she wouldn’t leave. The Rivers women were no longer running away.
On Serenity’s other side, Samantha struggled to maintain her own barriers. Of the three, she was the least practiced at controlling their shared gift. Growing up, Samantha had run from crowds just as generations of Rivers women had done. But things were different now.
A few townspeople still looked at them with suspicion, still whispered “witches” behind their backs. But others understood, or at least accepted. Those were the ones who recognized how much courage it took for the Rivers women to be part of a gathering that overflowed with five decades of memories, all centered on the man they were laying to rest.
On the other side of the grave, Mama Tate stood with her son Tom and his husband, Brad, keeping watch over her friend Elizabeth Rivers. They were two groups of three, forming their own small island in the sea of mourners.
Mama’s heart swelled with gratitude that Lizzy wasn’t the one they were burying today. It could have been. Last summer’s “illness” might have become real if Lizzy’s plan to bring her daughter home hadn’t worked.
But it had. More than any of them could have imagined. Serenity and Sam’s return had started something—like a stone dropped in the still waters of Lazy Rivers, sending ripples that brought others home.
Matthew Nelson, John Carver, and finally Zach himself had returned. Each return had uncovered another layer of the town’s buried secrets, until the truth about the missing boys had finally surfaced.
Now, watching Matthew Nelson standing behind Lizzy, Mama felt a flutter of hope. He was the first man in generations to refuse to accept the Rivers women’s practice of isolation.
“Some memories are worth the risk,” he’d told Lizzy when he returned. The love between them was visible to everyone, although they still lived apart—a compromise for now.
Tom leaned in closer, as if reading her thoughts and wanting to provide comfort. Her son had his own experience with choosing love over fear. He and Brad had walked that path in Lazy Rivers years ago.
Now they ran the nursery together, the place where so many of last summer’s revelations had begun. The old oak tree still stood at the edge of the property, its carved symbol a reminder of how the past reaches into the present.
Brad leaned in closer to whisper, “Randy’s watching Sam again.”
Mama followed his gaze to where John Carver’s son stood, trying not to be obvious about his attention to Serenity’s daughter. Randy reminded her of his father—though John’s long-held love for Mama had remained unspoken. Maybe Randy would be braver. The way he looked at Sam was the same way Matthew looked at Lizzy—as if no gift or curse could be stronger than love.
But today wasn’t for romance. Today was for saying goodbye to a man who’d spent fifty years trying to save other boys from the fate he’d escaped, never realizing that his own brother needed saving from the pain of his absence.
At least they’d had these last few months together, Mama thought. She had seen how Alex came alive during those last months, as if finding his brother had filled a hole he never thought could be filled.
But what would he do now?
In the back of the gathering, Joseph and Betty Jean stood together, their hands openly clasped. No more hiding their love in the shadows of the diner after hours. Unconsciously, they moved closer together as the song began. They knew how secrets could either destroy or heal, depending on how they were brought to light, but they had survived the revealing of their secrets.
But they couldn’t stay away. Zach had been part of their lives, too. Actually, more than anyone else’s here, since they were his contacts while he was gone. Betty Jean hoped that one day Alex would come to them and ask for more information about his brother.
Joseph and Betty Jean looked younger, as if the weight of decades of secrets had been physically lifted from their shoulders. Their part in helping the missing boys had been reduced to probation after the grown men they had helped testified about being saved from abusive homes, along with Jimmy Hunter’s safe return, they had been given a second chance at life.
The truth about Joseph’s father, Big Mike, and his misguided mission to “save” boys from their families had finally come to light. With those revelations, the town had released a collective breath they’d been holding for fifty years, finally free from the whispered fears of a killer in their midst.
Still, there was something in the air today besides grief. Lizzy felt it—a tension that had nothing to do with Zach’s passing.
Something had changed, and it was coming directly towards her. Lifting her head, Lizzy saw a young man moving quietly through the cemetery, purposeful but hesitant, as if he carried a message he both needed to deliver and dreaded sharing.
A shiver ran through her, and Serenity put her arm around her, thinking Lizzy was cold. But she hadn’t shivered from the cold, but from the edges of the memory the man was bringing.
