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Before most people headed to work, Damien was traveling the backroads of northern Florida, following the serpentine two lane roads through dying towns and vast, open fields dotted with cattle.

He had thought of making this trek since high school, after Sanders placed Mark Kent into cuffs and confessed to his crimes.

His sentence? Death by lethal injection.

The video of Mark, dressed in a large orange jumpsuit that barely contained his rotund form, being escorted by armed guards to a prison van at the back of Hayeston’s jail, remained with Damien.

There was one moment, as Mark struggled with his cuffed hands, unable to grab the bar on the back of the van to help him step up and inside, where Damien’s elementary school friend glanced toward the camera, his expression that of the frightened child he once knew, confused and afraid, as his cramped cell on Florida’s death row was to become his reality.

That expression haunted Damien, for in it he saw his childhood playmate, not a serial killer.

No matter how many times he had read Dr. Jones’ psychological evaluation of Mark, or the transcripts of his confession, which were gruesome and lacking any empathy, there was a part of Damien that refused to accept the boy who loved playing with Damien’s collection of green army men or Ted’s matchbox cars could enjoy taking the life of a frightened young woman.

Those two versions of Mark’s personality remained fractured in Damien’s mind and he feared visiting his old friend, seeing him in a prison full of those as broken and demented as him, would fill the space between childhood Mark and death row Mark.

With Darlene’s death, the time of hiding from life’s unexpected tragedies had come to an end. It was time to look evil in the eye, even if it was from the gaze of his child- hood friend.

The Crown Vic’s engine hummed as Damien accelerated onto Interstate 10 near Live Oak. No more winding roads. The path to the Florida State Prison was now straight and direct.

His drive to visit Mark was inspired by impulse and gut instinct, but Damien wasn’t sure what he was going to say. He hadn’t requested an appointment. His Lieutenant hadn’t given him approval. And his partner didn’t know he’d left town.

None of this was by the book, but Damien needed answers, and if that cost him his career in law enforcement, so be it. Some things were more important than a paycheck.

Most things, actually.

Growing up in his broken home had taught Damien one important lesson – nothing was more painful than unanswered questions. Knowing may not bring closure, but it would allow the mental anguish to turn from an opened wound to a scar.

Damien looked out of his window and watched the Osceola National Forest pass by. Three hundred square miles of forest and plants, bobcats, panthers, raccoons, opossums and birds.

Why didn’t Mark bury them there?

Picking the right spot away from walking paths would almost guarantee the dead girls would remain missing, the bodies decomposing under the moist Florida soil or picked clean by the wildlife that called the forest home.

Damien shook his head.

He was thinking like Mark, not about saving lives, but hiding their murder. The thought made his skin crawl.

He’d never be like Mark. His childhood friend now reminded him too much of his father. Not because of the murders, but because of his callousness.
The day before Damien’s thirteenth birthday, as his father stepped into his semi-truck, he pleaded for his dad to stay one more day.

His father laughed at the request as if it was a combination of absurdity and stupidity.

“I’d rather be on the road than spend another day with you,” he said, then slammed the door shut. The grumbling of the loud Diesel engine drowned out the sound of Damien’s cries and he watched helplessly as his father drove away.

In that moment, Damien chiseled a decision in stone.

He’d never be like his father. He’d rather be dead than be that cruel.

Damien hated that children were hardwired to need their parent’s love and approval. That part of God’s design had caused him more pain than anything else. Jacob would tell him it was from our desire to be with our creator. Damien considered its execution devastatingly flawed.

When Raquel told Damien she was pregnant, he was filled with excitement and fear. His only role model for fatherhood was one he despised. He had no other training. How could he overcome a life of abusive dysfunction and become the man he wished lived in his childhood home? How much of his father’s behavior was in his DNA and how much of it was by choice?

The first time Damien’s father held him in his arms, he couldn’t have looked on him with love, but as another mouth to feed. Whatever parental connection most new fathers and mothers felt, it never seemed to click with Damien’s dad.

Would the same be true for Damien? Would his heart make room for that child as Raquel’s had for Damien or would that spark of affection never light?

Raquel was certain Damien was more than the pain of his childhood, that his survival was a sign of strength than of necessity.

Damien wasn’t sure, but he loved that she thought so. His wife showed him a life that could be, not one that was predestined. If he couldn’t cross that bridge by himself, at least he had her to guide him.

The exit for the town of MacClenny and State Road 121 was quickly approaching. Damien slowed and veered onto the off ramp, taking a right off the interstate, then down a quarter of a mile, where he turned onto State Road 16.

Two more miles to go.

Damien’s palms began to sweat as he drove over an unnamed creek and passed the Union of Correction Officers building. In the distance he spotted the tall metal fences surrounding the Florida State Prison, around which were acres of short, well maintained grass. The flat terrain dissuaded any convict considering escape. Beyond the numerous prison monitoring systems, there was no where to hide for over a mile outside the enclosed grounds.

The Crown Vic slowed as he turned into the prison entrance and under the arched Florida State Prison sign, its white letters bright against the black arched metal. The foundation of the entryway consisted of small rooms on either side of the road, both covered with decorative white and tan coral stone. Damien wasn’t sure if they were for storage or previously used by guards. Now abandoned, their gray metal doors remained closed and what looked like thin embrasures the width of a rifle had been covered by glass.

The road curved ahead and ended at the prison welcome center. The parking lot outside the white building near the fenced grounds was empty, except for one car.

Sanders was already there.