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“Terrence O’Tool. His office is in Newland. If you’re up for it, we can swing by there now.”

“Damn right I’m up for it.” Inwardly groaning. Newland meant back to Avery, a good hour and a quarter longer return to Charlotte.

I followed Ramsey. Whose driving shaved at least fifteen minutes off the trip. And my life.

We were almost to Newland when he surprised me by pulling to the shoulder. I followed suit and he walked back to my car. I lowered the window and he leaned down, one arm on the roof. To anyone passing it looked like I was getting a ticket. From a very careless cop.

“Check it out.” Ramsey tipped his head toward a large log cabin on the opposite side of the road. The front porch featured a pair of picnic tables, a life-size carved wooden bear, a plastic trash can, a rectangular tank that probably held bait during fishing season.

The cabin’s single window was covered with flyers curling from the inside of the glass. Above the door was a neon sign saying J.T.’S FILL UP AND FIX UP.

In front were two gas pumps. In back was a low, windowless structure made of corrugated tin. Running along its foundation was a paved area divided into rectangles by chain-link fencing.

I looked a question at Ramsey.

“John Teague’s entrepreneurial genius. Guidebooks, gum, and gas for passing motorists. Plaster, paint, and plywood for do-it-yourself locals.”

“What’s in back?”

“John’s kid trains dogs.”

“Owen Lee.”

“Yeah.”

“People send their pets to live in that dump?”

“I doubt these pooches are pets.”

“Still.”

“As I understand it, Owen Lee operated out of his home until the missus took issue with the barking and poop. Four summers back he built the eyesore you’re looking at and moved the operation here. He must have customers, because he’s still training dogs.”

I was about to ask a follow-up when the man in question rounded the building leading a German shepherd the size of a panzer. He paused on seeing us, face blank.

Ramsey flicked a wave. Ignoring the greeting, Owen Lee unlocked a gate and walked the dog inside an enclosure.

Ramsey slapped the roof of my car, then returned to his SUV. On the road again.

Newland, until its incorporation, was known as the Old Fields of Toe, named not for a digit but for the town’s location at the headwaters of the Toe River.

Today Newland’s main claim to fame is that it’s the highest county seat east of the Mississippi. There’s not much there—the courthouse and library, a few shops, the Shady Lawn Lodge, the Mason Jar Cafe. Out in the boonies, mile upon mile of Christmas tree farms.

Ramsey drove past the Avery County Courthouse and his departmental headquarters. After passing a feed store, a True Value hardware, and a pharmacy, he made a jigsaw pattern of turns, then pulled onto a patch of gravel fronting a two-story duplex that was brick on one side, frame on the other. Below the brick were broad picture windows stenciled with the name of a realtor.

The frame half was painted white and had an angled roof sloping down from left to right. Upstairs were two windows, both hung with closed blinds. Downstairs was another window, also covered on the inside, and two concrete steps leading to an aluminum door. A very small plaque identified the structure as the O’Tool Professional Building.

“Lofty,” I said.

“There are two of them in there. O’Tool, Cora Teague’s doctor, and a dentist.”

Ramsey and I got out and entered. It was like stepping into a time warp.

The waiting area contained several cracked vinyl chairs and laminate tables laden with ancient magazines. A coatrack. A toy box. A dusty plastic plant. The art consisted of posters warning about unwanted medical and dental conditions. Shingles and gingivitis seemed to be big.

A woman occupied one chair. Her sleeping baby looked patient. She did not. An elderly man occupied another, eyes glued to a dated copy of Field &Stream.

A staircase rose steeply on the left. A single door opened off the back wall. Between them was a reception counter staffed by a woman who had to be in her eighties. She had blue-white hair permed into tight little curls, bifocals, and a pink scrub top dotted with little blue bunnies.

The woman looked up at the sound of our entrance. Tracked our approach with an expression equal parts welcome and confusion. A white rectangle above her left pocket said MAE FOSTER, R.N.

“Deputy.” Foster’s smile revealed badly yellowed teeth.

“Ma’am.” Ramsey grinned and nodded. “We’d like to speak with Dr. O’Tool.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.” The tone made it clear that we did not need one.

“One moment, please.”

Foster left her post to disappear through the door, closing it carefully and quietly behind her. As we waited, I sensed interested eyes on our backs.

The door opened shortly, and Foster gestured us into the inner sanctum. I heard the woman with the baby cluck in annoyance.

“Please.” Foster herded us into an office. “Dr. O’Tool is seeing a patient but will be with you soon.”

Most of the office was taken up by a large wooden desk. Behind it was a Herman Miller Aeron chair that looked like it had taken a wrong turn from NASA. Behind that, a credenza pressed up to the wall.

Opposite the desk were two upholstered chairs. Ramsey and I each took one. Wordlessly, we looked around.

Bookcases were filled with journals and texts. The desktop was stacked with medical files, some thin, some thick as telephone books. On the credenza were a few framed photos, a glass trophy, and a small gold cross. I looked to see if Ramsey had noticed the latter. He had.

Above the credenza, a single framed diploma declared Terrence Patrick O’Tool a graduate of the Quillen College of Medicine, East Tennessee State University, class of 1963. I was doing the math on his age when the good doctor came hurrying in.

Before Ramsey and I could get to our feet, O’Tool circled the desk, dropped into the whiz-bang chair, and swiveled to face us. His hair was white and so sparse I could see right through to his scalp. His skin was saggy below his eyes, shiny on his forehead, chin, and cheeks, as though stretched too tightly over the bones.

Though a starchy lab coat hid his frame, I could tell O’Tool was small and lean. And obviously spry.

“I don’t know you, Deputy.” Implying this was an uncommon occurrence.

“Zeb Ramsey. I’m relatively new, sir. Dr. Brennan is from Charlotte.”

“Welcome.” A long way from warm. Or curious. A fellow professional, yet not a single question about my background or area of expertise. “My nurse tells me this is urgent.”

“We won’t take up much of your time.”

“Saying that just did.”

Scratch the opening act. Ramsey got right to the point. John and Fatima Teague, Jesus Lord Holiness church, Cora’s disappearance, the theory that she left with Mason Gulley. As Ramsey talked, O’Tool kept nodding his head.

“Until she disappeared, Cora was your patient. Is that correct, sir?”

“Have Mr. or Mrs. Teague given you written permission allowing me to discuss their daughter’s medical history?”

“No.”

“If I did treat Cora, and I’m not confirming that I did, you know I’m bound by patient-doctor privilege.”

“Did?”

“Excuse me?”

“You used the past tense.”

“Did I?”

“I can get a warrant.”

“Perhaps you can.”

A beat, then Ramsey tried again. “Suppose I tell you that Cora and Mason may have come to harm.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“It’s a strong possibility.”

When O’Tool said nothing, Ramsey hit him with a zinger.

“Is it possible Cora Teague could be hurting others?”

The doctor’s eyes, unblinking, revealed nothing. I couldn’t tell if he was being cagey, or was simply obtuse.

“Cora’s brother Eli died at age twelve,” Ramsey continued.