May 14
Dear Mr Dixon,
You don't know me, but I'm writing to you because I don't know what else to do. I'm not one of those crazy girls who write to prison inmates looking for romance, so please don't think that.
Eight months ago my sister Maggie Greene went missing. Disappeared clean off the earth leaving barely a trace. The police say there's nothing they can do as she's an adult. They don't even think she was kidnapped because she'd had a fight with daddy the night before she disappeared. Not even daddy believes it. But you have to believe me, Mr Dixon:
My sister was taken.
Maggie would never just leave without telling me. We live on a farm with many hectares. It's a lonely part of Georgia. A person could just walk away and get lost in the woods if they weren't careful. Or they could be taken under cover of darkness and there would be no witnesses.
I haven't been able to find out much, but I did find out that you and your brother used to hunt in those woods and I have to know: did you see anything unusual last September? Did you hear about anything that could help me? I know you were on the outside at the time. Don't think that by me saying that it means that I think you were involved in any way.
I am at my wit's end, Mr Dixon, and I don't know where else to turn. You're my last hope.
Yours sincerely,
Beth Greene
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Daryl Dixon finished the letter and looked up at the cell wall. It was the only letter he'd received in the three months he'd been at the West Georgia Correctional Facility. Merle sure has hell didn't write to him. His brother didn't even come to visit him since he'd been sentenced to ten years for voluntary manslaughter.
It had been voluntary all right. In fact it was a miracle he wasn't on death row right now.
Some of the inmates, the more infamous ones, got letters by every post. He'd seen 'em. Pink envelopes reeking of cheap perfume. He hadn't understood women on the outside and he understood 'em on the inside even less. What sort of female wrote to a convicted criminal?
He glanced down at the letter in his hand. This wasn't that sort of letter, thank God, but it wasn't much better.
I know you were on the outside at the time.
It read as an accusation. She'd tried to assure him she didn't think he had anything to do with it, but she couldn't know for sure. And here he was a convicted criminal and all.
He thought he remembered the farm. A real doll's house of home, standing on acres of grazing land. He'd only glimpsed it from a distance but it was pretty as a picture. The sort of place that smelled of fresh-baked bread and had glossy horses in the stables. It couldn't have been more different from the house he'd grown up in: a place of fear and squalor, thin walls and cold winters.
Daryl would have thought that anyone living in that farmhouse would live a charmed life. 'Just goes to show you can't take anything for granted, sweetheart,' he murmured at the letter. How old was this girl, anyway? She said her sister was grown, but they were both still living at home. Her writing was a loopy cursive, and it seemed to have been written with an old-fashioned fountain pen.
He and Merle had lived about fifteen miles from the farm on the other side of the woods. They'd go on hunting trips that would last for days on end and take them to every corner of those woods. They'd seen people. Other hunters. Hikers. Nothing unusual. No girls, just rough men like they were. If he thought hard he might be able to remember some of their faces. He had a sharp eye and a good memory. But what would be the point? That wouldn't help the girl.
You're my last hope.
That line glared up at him, and he didn't like it. He'd never been anyone's last hope before. No one had ever relied on him, and he'd never relied on anyone else. That's the way he liked things to be.
Daryl screwed up the letter and threw it into a corner of his cell.
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Three weeks later
'Beth, honey, there's a letter for you.'
Hershel was frowning down at the long white envelope. They were sitting at the table together over breakfast. Outside the birds were chirping in the warm, early summer sunshine.
'Can I see it?' Beth asked when he didn't pass it over.
Hershel looked up, tapping the letter against his palm. 'Why would an inmate of the West Georgia Correctional Facility be writing to you?' He held the letter up to show her. In a strong, slanted script was her own name and address. Stamped in the top right-hand corner we the words MAILED FROM WEST GEORGIA CORRECTIONAL FACILITY.
Beth felt her eyes go wide. Daryl Dixon, the inmate she'd written to – it had to be a letter from him. She'd given up hope that he'd ever write back.
'I wrote to him,' she said. 'I thought he might know something about Maggie. One of the officers on the case told me him and his brother used to hunt in the woods.'
Hershel sighed. Suddenly he looked very tired. 'Honey, we talked about this. Maggie's gone. She packed up her things and she left.'
Her things, Beth thought sullenly. One bag. One change of clothes. That wasn't gone-for-good. That was an overnight trip.
'I can't have you corresponding with a convicted criminal,' Hershel said. 'Do you even know what he's been imprisoned for?'
Beth panicked. He wasn't going to give her the letter. It might hold the answer to Maggie's disappearance. 'No, I didn't think it polite to ask Mr Dixon or try to find out. It doesn't matter what he's done if he can help us find Maggie. Please, daddy. Let me read it. It's just a letter.'
Hershel shook his head. 'I don't like it. He could be dangerous.'
'He's behind bars. How dangerous could he be?' She saw that this wasn't persuading her father. 'I'm eighteen. I have a right to some privacy. Y'all have given up on Maggie but I never intend to.' She couldn't maintain her severe expression. 'Please, daddy,' she said, imploring him. 'I ain't hurting anyone. Let me have this. I need it.'
The only thing that had been keeping her going these last eight – almost nine – months was the thought that she'd get her sister back, somehow, someway. No lead was too insignificant. She'd had to be smart about things, though. She was eighteen, but her daddy didn't like her 'runnin' all over the countryside' as he put it, and she tried to keep her inquiries a secret from him and limit herself to things like phone calls and letters. She respected his wishes because with Maggie gone and mama dead these past three years he didn't have anyone but her. She didn't want to hurt him even more. But she couldn't just do nothing.
Hershel still didn't look like he thought it was a good idea, but he handed the letter over. Beth took it calmly and put it in the pocket of her jeans and slowly finished her breakfast. She wanted to open it right there and then but it wouldn't be a good idea to seem too eager.
'I'm going to work on my composition now,' she said as she cleared the breakfast things away. Beth had adopted the front room where the piano forte was as a sort of studio where she worked each day, composing songs.
When she was finally sat at the piano and Hershel had gone out to the stables, she tore open Mr Dixon's letter:
June 3
Miss Greene,
If your sister has been gone eight months then she ain't coming back. I'm sorry to say it but there it is. You holding on to hope and clutching at straws is just going to ruin your life as well. I believe you when you say she was taken. But that's why you gotta to give up. Bad things happen to good people.
Hoping you find peace, one way or another.
Daryl
Beth felt the crushing weight of disappointment. He hadn't even tried to help her or ask for any details about Maggie's disappearance. Why had he waited so long if he was just going to disappoint her? It seemed unusually cruel. He might know something and not even know it was important. A face. A sound. Anything.
She stared out the window for several long minutes. She had nothing else to go on. She'd meant it when she'd said it to Mr Dixon that he was her last hope.
Beth wasn't about to give up that easily. She went over to the desk and picked up her pen.
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