Chapter 1

Half a Pack

He seemed to float across the cement floor of the River Weave Plant's basement like a phantom haunting the plant's smoking booths. Behind thick glasses, his eyes stared beyond the dust-covered basement wall, bright with tears that would, knowing the man, never fall. Wrinkles carved tiny canyons from the corners of his eyes and mouth across his pale face.

The same question that had woken him circled through his mind again as he walked. With every step, the rubber handle of the long flathead screwdriver in his back pocket worked a little farther free. Moments later it clattered onto the concrete. He didn't notice.

He had wanted to be alone. He wanted to sit and think about what in the hell he was going to say when his boss arrived.

What was he going to say?

The bench at the smoker in the weave room basement was naked, so he lowered himself down onto it. He stared at the dyed blue cotton dust that clung to the basement's cement walls like scabs on torn-up knees. If he was going to think, why not do it as he burned one? Hell, maybe the nicotine would help get the thinking process started. The cigarette would be his brain's version of jumper cables.

He reached into the breast pocket of his work shirt and pulled out what he hoped would be the answer. He flicked his lighter and let his Ridgefield burn.

Upstairs, the men who remained on his crew worked in silence, wearing the same stunned expression their foreman carried.

Something in his back pocket poked him in the ass.

He stuck the butt in his mouth and reached back, pulling out a worn-out pair of pliers. The tattered rubber grips were still blue, just not the deep blue they'd been nearly twenty years earlier. He rubbed his dirty thumbnail across the work-scarred grips, feeling every scar beneath it. The man sitting at the smoker had bought that pair nearly twenty years earlier. He'd bought two pairs that day.

Remembering that, holding that battered, scarred tool softened him a little.

He sat there hiding behind the smoke that rose from the cigarette's burning head, and a tear did run down his face, but only one. He was a man, and his father had told him that a man, a real man, never cried.

He couldn't help it, though.

Besides, he was alone.

No one would see. He could spare at least one tear for Mitchell.

He'd given the second pair of pliers to Mitchell Carrington on his second day on the job, back when Mitchell was still just a green helper. They'd been friends ever since. Until this morning. The call had come just as he was about to check on Robbie. It was Reggie Stanford, the man over the River Weave Plant's maintenance shop.

Reggie told him that he needed to get there as soon as he could, that there had been an accident.

A bad one.

Before that day, Jennings Ashby had never had a single lost-time accident in the construction game.

Not one.

Jennings had been able to get in touch with Jimmy, the owner of the company, but he didn't know exactly what had happened.

Now he sat there finishing his Ridgefield, wondering what he was going to tell his boss when he asked him how Mitchell had died.

How could Mitchell be gone?

Why had he taken two others with him?

It was beyond words.

He had none.

But he had three hours before he'd have to try to explain, and had a little over half a pack.

JENNINGS ASHBY ON MITCHELL CARRINGTON AFTER THE INCIDENT AT THE RIVER WEAVE PLANT:

"There are a lot of stories about Mitchell. Everybody that has ever met him would have one. I was working in Siler City, North Carolina. I had five men working with me, and one of them was Mitchell. At that time, he had been working for about five years.

"That was before Winnie disappeared.

"Anyway, I was in our project trailer talking to Jimmy about the upcoming shutdown and what all needed to be done. Scott Roberts, a new helper on the job, came into the trailer. I hung up the phone and decided that I would talk to him, see how much he knew, if he was worth what he was making.

(Mr. Ashby laughs.)

"Scott looked confused. I asked him what was wrong.

"He looked at me and said, 'That boy ain't right, is he?'

"'Who?' I asked, already knowing he meant Mitchell.

"'The blond fella, the big guy.'

"'You mean Mitchell?'

"'I guess,' he said.

"'Why?' I asked.

"Scott said he'd been out getting some three-inch conduit out from under the trailer when Mitchell walked up to him and said, 'I give my dawg a bath.'

"Scott told him, 'So what, I do too.'

"Then Mitchell said, 'I play with my dawg's balls.'

"Scott just stood there, not knowing what to say.

"I just laughed.

(Mr. Ashby laughs.)

"Apparently that was the first time that Scott had ever met Mitchell."