When Devils Sing(24)

Isaiah balled his fists at his sides, a reflexive habit he had when he wanted to challenge his father. But there was a time and a place, and this wasn’t it. “It’s not playing, Dad. You know that farm means the world to them.”

Laurence stepped toward the desk, looking over Isaiah with inscrutable brown eyes. “If it weren’t for me, that land would’ve been clear-cut and turned into a poultry factory by now, and they’d be without a home.”

Isaiah tried not to roll his eyes. “They know that.”

“It’s best you prioritize this internship over running around on that farm.” His father brushed a bit of lint off Isaiah’s shirt. “Big things are on the horizon for us both.”

“Yes, sir,” Isaiah said, his cheeks turning warm. “I understand.”

Laurence gazed at Isaiah for a long moment, then pulled him into a hug. Isaiah relaxed as he embraced his father. “I’ve missed you, Dad,” he said into his shoulder.

Laurence pulled away, his lips set in a tight line. “I’ve missed you, too.”

Isaiah hadn’t seen him in several weeks. With his parents officially separated, Laurence spent more and more time working. Isaiah thought being in Carrion for the summer would mean more quality time with his father, as he recently purchased a summer home on the lake, but so far, that hadn’t been the case.

“This internship could open a lot of doors for you, son,” Laurence said as he gathered his briefcase. “Don’t squander it.”

His father didn’t give him a chance to respond before he was gone. Once Laurence’s Tesla pulled out of the parking lot, Isaiah locked the front door, hovering for a breath. His head spun as he thought again of the email.

Isaiah turned on the flat-screen that sat in the common room of the firm, switching to the local Carrion news station for background noise. He almost expected there to be a report on Dawson, but there wasn’t anything of note.

As Isaiah went through the usual tasks as an intern—water the plants, scan case law—a phone began to trill in the room across the hall. Isaiah jumped at the sudden noise, waiting for it to end. It was coming from Leblanc’s office. The phone rang and rang, then stopped. A moment later, it rang again. Three calls passed and he had enough.

Annoyed, Isaiah stood, abandoning the watering can on the floor. He crossed the hall to Leblanc’s office, walking on soft, creeping feet, even though no one was around. As he opened the office door, it finally cut to voicemail.

A pause.

Then the answering machine beeped. Of course, this old Southern law firm hadn’t updated its phones in about twenty years.

“Casey … Casey Leblanc,” a woman’s slurred voice hissed over the line, echoing through the empty building. “You can’t hide behind those gates forever. You gotta face me sometime.” There was shuffling, followed by a long pause. “I know about you and my son. No one else has to know if you just bring my baby back to me. Please … where is he?”

The woman’s desperate, hissing voice made the hairs on his arms prickle.

“What the hell?” Isaiah whispered to himself, as he played the message again, then again. When it ended, he took out his own phone and recorded the voicemail as an audio file: a reflexive gesture when it came to his podcast.

He had no idea who the woman was. Who her son was. But the pain in the woman’s voice was unmistakable. He saved the recording and scrolled through the caller ID history. The number had a local area code, and she’d called Leblanc dozens of times in the past few days.

So much for spam calls, Isaiah thought. Leblanc clearly didn’t want him to know about the calls, but he hadn’t accounted for the possibility of voicemail.

He pulled out his own phone again and typed the unknown number into Google. The first page of results pulled up nothing. He kept scrolling. Nothing but useless links claiming they could do reverse number lookups—those never worked. And then something different: a result for a public Facebook Marketplace post containing the woman’s number.

The number belonged to a woman named Andrea Sumter.

A familiar pinprick of recognition crawled down Isaiah’s neck.

The email from Dawson Sumter.

>If you’re receiving this email, it means something bad happened to me.

Was Dawson Andrea’s son? What did Leblanc have to do with any of it? Isaiah struggled to make sense of the pieces. Composing himself, he looked around Leblanc’s office, taking in the space with fresh eyes.

Everything was painfully normal. A desk, filing cabinets, a bookshelf lined with leatherback texts, a Harvard Law degree hanging on the wall. A framed photo of his family on a boat—Leblanc and his wife, two small daughters, each with a designer dog in their laps.

As he shuffled through a stack of papers on Leblanc’s desk, a gold-embossed envelope peeked out from underneath. It had already been opened, the contents half spilling out. An invitation, also embossed in gold and written in delicate, hand-lettered cursive. It read:

Please join the Langley family for a luncheon honoring the arrival of the cicadas of Carrion and the town’s creation.

June 28

1 p.m. at the Langley Plantation

Note: A twenty-four-hour fast is required to attend. One’s body must be cleansed before partaking in the celebration.



Isaiah snapped a photo of the invitation, then put it back in its place, feeling more confused than ever before.