
“I did feel that way until a few years ago. “I figured you’d be like Daddy and not allow a dog in the house.” As the beagle sniffed her hand, Maggie lifted her eyes toward Randy. “Well, hello, there,” Maggie bent down and presented her hand to the dog. He and a barking beagle greeted Maggie at the front door of the cabin. He didn’t uphold his boys, but he didn’t turn his back on them, either. A man known for his dedication to hard work and clean living, Randy Mullins had watched both his sons turn to drugs and, as a result, a life of crime. When Kevin was a boy, his mother had run off to Ohio with a much younger man, leaving Kevin’s dad to raise their two sons by himself. Kevin and his dad lived about a mile up the hollow in a log cabin that had blackened with age. Instead, she continued toward Little Elm Fork. But when she reached the mouth of Caldonia Road, she didn’t make the turn. She turned off her computer, walked to her car, and headed toward Sugar Creek.


That’s probably a junk email account, she said to herself, and I should have known better than to think I’d get a response. By the end of her work day, Maggie hadn’t received an answer in response to her email.
