Chapter 14

Cora woke the next morning feeling restless and untethered, like when she was getting ready for a vacation to someplace new and couldn’t wait for it to start. Her phone, now charged, had no messages from work on it.

Coffee was the first order of business, as always. Once her extra-large mug was full, Cora stepped out the back door. She loved coming out to the flagstone patio in the mornings, chatting with her retired neighbors as they tended their gardens, breathing in the fresh mountain air before it reached late-summer’s sauna temperatures. Her neighbors were her favorite company, besides Lynessa. Something about their fastidious nature and their predictable routines appealed to her.

She hadn’t taken two steps before something caught her eye. Boot prints, big ones, in the flowerbeds next to her kitchen windows. Cora stepped closer, examining the prints with worry growing in her heart.

Next to her size six shoes, the prints were enormous, their soles deeply corrugated in the manner she associated with heavy work boots. Had she seen that pattern before? In her classroom, maybe, where she often saw the bottoms of her students’ shoes? No. Must be one of her neighbors coming to check on her when she’d been gone all weekend, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing such big, sturdy shoes on any of them.

She checked the door as she retreated to her kitchen; no scratches or any indication anyone had tried to get inside. All the windows on the first floor were locked. Cora took a deep breath and laughed at herself. It was nothing. She wouldn’t imagine anything that wasn’t there. She was sane. Maybe.

But that meant there were questions that needed answering. She freshened her coffee, grabbed her laptop, and snuggled into her overstuffed couch to dig for answers to them. Work could wait. She wasn’t supposed to be in at all until her tenure hearing. She had until then to decide what the hell to do, if no one from the college contacted her first.

Easy enough to find the councilman she’d attacked. She winced as the first search engine response to the query she typed in screamed:

Councilman Attacked by Crazed Woman on Shady Pines Campus.

Perfect. Great. What happened to “mentally ill”, or was that only for lone gunmen now? Cora scanned the article, finding no mention of her name, just crazed woman. But there, at the bottom, was a picture with the name Mitch Garner beneath it.

A frisson of hatred coursed through her as she studied the picture, quickening her heart rate, causing bile to rise in her throat. She held her hand up to cover her mouth as she read the councilman’s bio and tried to make sense of what she was feeling.

Mitch Garner was new on the political scene, a wildly successful businessman. Now in his late thirties, he’d spent his early career as a hedge fund manager who’d shorted the housing bubble before it burst. While most Americans were floundering, Garner had walked away millions of dollars richer.

Garner had used his wealth to scavenge businesses that were failing in the harsh climate of the Great Recession. In the last decade he’d bought furniture factories, apartment buildings, adult bookstores; anything with previous owners who were up their ears in debt and desperate to sell. Six months ago he’d joined the Victory Party, whatever that was. Two months before, he’d run uncontested and been elected to serve on the Shady Pines city council.

She moved her hand. Garner’s campaign photo came into view and Cora’s adrenaline spiked again, her heartbeat accelerating, her hands itching to rip at his skin. She tore her eyes away and searched the room for her purse. The numbers to the therapists were in there. She would call one. Today.

She scrolled quickly down the page, away from the picture, and found a link for the Victory Party. She’d heard of them, probably in the break room at the college, where the news played all day long. She hadn’t paid much attention and didn’t know what their platform was about. Their website didn’t add anything of note, most of it a repetitive mish-mash of watchwords- patriotism, integrity, national purpose- that didn’t give a clue to their politics. What was clear was that it was the first party to give Republicans and Democrats actual competition in… ever.

An hour passed as Cora delved in head first, like she always did, scrolling past pictures of Garner when possible, holding her hand over them when it wasn’t.

The Victory party itself had been formed eighteen months ago, but in that short time their candidates had won every race they’d entered. Running her finger down the list, Coralie counted at least two dozen victories, from city officials all the way to a Senator who’d been voted in by special election after his predecessor resigned.

Conspiracy theory much? But she’d never heard of anything like it, and the more she read, the more the one-sided victories scared her. She ran a wider search on the party. Page after page of results streamed back, news articles and interviews, the writers almost invariably gushing about the altruistic motives of the Victory candidate they were covering.

That didn’t sound anything like the American politics she knew. Cora’s gut twisted with a vague apprehension. She freshened her coffee yet again, then sat back down and limited her search further, focusing on the Victory Party’s presence in her own state. A new result popped up that was the first she’d seen with an opposing view. “Triumph Over Victory,” it read.

Jackpot! The link led to a simple one-page site, directed at those who weren’t “feeling the love” for Victory Party that most of the nation appeared to have. They held frequent meetings to discuss the party, and there was one that very evening in Turner’s Mill, just on the other side of Nantahala Gorge.

She would be there.

A notification popped up on her screen. A message from Thorn. She ignored it, not able to deal with him at that moment, but her eyes flitted across the room nonetheless, to the most prized piece he’d acquired for her. A small traveling case with worn leather, brass buckles, and a velvet lining. Inside was a wooden stake and vials that were said to have contained holy water and garlic oil.

Thorn had resented finding her the kit, classifying it as more pop culture prop than work of art, talking like its very existence offended his highbrow sensibilities. But he’d offered it and taken her money anyway, and she always thought of that kit when she thought of him.

She shoved her phone away, needing to think, to figure this out. She would exercise, maybe something would come to her while she was out. A run and then a good stretch was exactly what her aching body needed. A quick change and she was out the door, covering three miles before she even settled into her pace.

Three miles later her head cleared of anxiety, her body responding to the steady rhythm with a gradual release of tension. Too bad she felt watched again.

The sensation followed her home, a tingling sting between her shoulder blades that made her want to keep checking her back even though she knew there was nobody there. Once inside her house she double-checked the locks, closed the curtains, and tried not to think about any of it.

She had a meeting to go to, and even if it was a long shot for answers, it was better than sitting at home and waiting to hear she was fired, her future destroyed.