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I closed my eyes and started making a mental list of what I needed to do when I got to Nashville. My final destination was Jasper Creek. But first I needed to do some recon and prep work. I’d already procured some wheels, just needed to pick those up. American made, four-wheel-drive and manual transmission. What more could a man ask for?

I’d already checked birth records for twin boys in Tennessee with the first names Brady and Grady. I was stunned to find four sets of twins born the year before, the year of, and the year after I was born with the names Brady and Grady. I’d checked the years before and after, just in case dear old dad had forged my birth year as well as my name on my birth certificate.

It didn’t take much detective work. There were Grady and Brady Beaumont who were born in Gatlinburg, but their residence was Jasper Creek. A little more digging showed that Brady and Arthur Beaumont went missing when Brady was four years old. The missing persons case was still open.

I dug deeper and found that my mom, Rose Beaumont died when I was eighteen, and my brother Grady enlisted in the Marines.

So, I’d fly into Nashville, pick up my truck. Buy some clothes that would help me fit in a bit more, then look up some places online to stay in Jasper Creek, then get in my truck and drive.

I don’t know when I drifted off to sleep, but I did.

It was one of the two dreams that plagued me almost every night.

* * *

I was sitting on the bottom step using a big branch to hit the dirt. I liked seeing the clouds of dirt float up.

“You’re getting dirty. Mama wib be mad.”

He was sitting up on the red porch swing so his church pants don’t getted dirty. He always

minded Mama. “So?” I grinned over my shoulder at Grady.

Grady laughed. So did I. Mama always laughed too. This wasn’t a big bad. I never did big bads, just little bads. And anyway, our dad wasn’t around, so we were safe.

“Brady. Grady. Time to go,” Mama called from inside.

* * *

“I’m going,” a different voice said. I woke up. I was in Atlanta. The USO.

Kate was saying goodbye to all of us. She stopped at the door of the library where all of us injured had been camping out. She looked at me.

“Just remember whatever Blessing told you today. Do it. Don’t second-guess her. It will make your life so much easier.”

She tapped on the door and stared directly at me. “Do it,” she repeated. Then she was gone.

I pulled the tech magazine from my rucksack because I sure as hell didn’t want to go back to sleep. The last thing I needed to do was have a nightmare in front of everybody here. I got lost in all the new gadgets featured in the Mobile World Congress. After all, who doesn’t need a bendable Smartphone that you can wrap around your wrist?

I don’t know how much time went by before my non-bendable phone buzzed. All the other guys had left but me, and now I saw that my plane finally had worked out a crew, so it would board soon. I gathered up my stuff.

“Oh, I see you got word.”

I looked up to see Blessing smiling at me from the doorway to the library.

“I did. It looks like they’ll start the boarding process in about forty-five minutes.”

“Take some food to go. For those shorter flights, they have nothing but a bag of nuts or two little cookies.”

“I just might do that.”

I winced as I got up out of the chair. I really needed a pain pill, but for some reason I didn’t want to take one in front of Blessing, which was horseshit. It shouldn’t matter. Mike would kick my ass. He always said to stay in front of the pain. I pulled the prescription bottle out of my rucksack and shook my head when I saw Blessing holding out a bottle of water.

“Do you always know what’s going to happen before it happens?”

“I just have a habit of reading situations. Most times I read them accurately.” She shrugged as I took the bottle and popped the pill into my mouth.

“I hope you feel better by the time you board the plane,” she said.