The scent of wet wood was everywhere, it got in a man's clothes, got into his soul and stayed there like smell of the sea on Lake Earl Drive where you could feel the storm rolling in. Down the road, past the one good post office, not far from Pelican Bay State Prison itself, sat a blue trimmed house with a circular gravel drive and the broken remains of a huge redwood tree too massive to take out.

Some kid had taken a key saw to a part of it at one time, maybe before he got there and fuchsia blossoms hung from the eaves of his house, bobbing in the breeze as he walked out the door onto the wide wraparound porch. The summer air hit his face, heavy with the scent of rain.

He knew before he got to his mailbox there was something in it.

His hands turned the plain white envelope over in his hands, over and over as he walked past his mailbox. There was something dead in it again. Again. Detective Patrick Ballantine closed his eyes just for a moment and kept walking. He walked right down the road past an old twisted tree, past the smell of horses two houses over. Gravel was stuck to the bottom of his shoe and he sighed as it scraped against the worn asphalt at the side of the road.

An old faded blue Mercedes passed him as thunder rumbled threateningly and he kept walking until he came to the post office. Twenty minutes until it was a downpour.

"Mel," Ballantine rumbed quietly, leaning into the counter. "I wanna get this off quick. Overnight. You can do that, right?"

"Sure thing, Bally," Mel said, a broad smile crossing his lips. He scrubbed at his white hair for a moment and Ballantine realized he was clutching the letter. He put it down on the counter and stared at it a moment, reading his Sharpie pen scrawl.

Dani Reese, it read along with her address, open immediately upon receipt.

There was no way he could afford to call her. Not now. Not even when this whole godforsaken thing began. He only hoped she'd be able to help before it was too late. She was the last thing he had hope in.

Mel's fingers shook mostly with the arthritis he'd been suffering from for the last few years. Ballantine watched the letter get metered for overnight delivery and let out a sigh.

It was time to get the fuck out of Crescent City.