Cornellis Island: Cornellis Island Paranormal Cozy Mysteries

By L.A. Boruff, Lia Davis and Lacey Carter

 

Summer Rigby has been contemplating her life choices lately. Her dad comes from a family of witches, but her mother wants her to take over her family's bar. In a way, it's as important of a legacy as the witchcraft.

But is it really what she wants to do?

While walking along the beach, Summer is hit with a powerful premonition, one she can't help but act on. Brandi Best must move to Cornellis Island, Summer must take over her mother's bar, and Summer is the one who is tasked with making these things happen.

So much for Summer's wants and needs. Her life is going in a direction she can't control, but it's not all bad. At least she has her elderly bestie, Maggie, and her visions keep life interesting.

On to the next adventure.

__________
Brandi Best has nothing tying her down. Nothing keeping her in Arizona. No kids, no husband, and her parents passed away years ago. When she finds out a town in Ireland will actually pay her to move there? Why not spend the second half of her life in a gorgeous country by the sea?

But things aren't all that they seem.

In preparing to move, Brandi discovers some big secrets about herself and her parents. First and foremost, that she's adopted. And then she finds a journal written in her father's handwriting claiming Brandi was found in that same Irish town she's heading to.

Is it a coincidence, or something more?

Still, starting over is everything she hoped for and more. An exotic location, new friends, and new adventures working in the local bar. Things are going really well... until she falls into the ocean. Touching salt water for the first time does something to her. Something... fishy.

And her life gets even more confusing when she meets the handsome descendant of a pirate who swears he can help her find the truth about her past. All it'll take? More adventure. More danger. And a hunt for an incredible treasure.
Brandi doesn't know what to believe, but she's going to have to figure something out soon, or she's going to have one whopper of a tail to tell.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.A. Boruff
• Release date: Oct 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223489443

L.A. Boruff

L.A. Boruff lives in East Tennessee with her husband, three children, and an ever growing number of cats. She loves reading, watching TV, and procrastinating by browsing Facebook. L.A.’s passions include vampires, food, and listening to heavy metal music. She once won a Harry Potter trivia contest based on the books, and lost one based on the movies. She has two bands on her bucket list that she still hasn’t seen: AC/DC and Alice Cooper. Feel free to send tickets.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

For a witch with prophetic visions, you’d think that little could blindside me. Yet, after fifty-five years walking this Earth, I found myself at an unforeseen impasse. Perhaps I could chalk it up to being only a half-witch. The human half came from my mother, whose recent passage into the great beyond happened quite suddenly and without warning.

With my hands in the pockets of my overcoat—formerly her overcoat—I strode along the coastline of Keem Beach on the western reach of the island. In mid-March, it was desolate, made all the more unappealing by an approaching storm. Its harbinger wasn’t so much the dark clouds looming overhead as it was the telling breeze sweeping inland from the ocean. Dark clouds were part and parcel of Ireland. As was rain, for that matter, but the elements conspired to deliver a real downpour before long. Cornellis Island would be sodden by nightfall.

I paused my shoes in the sand and peered out over the sea. Gusts churned powerful waves, etching white lines over the water. They curled into themselves before reaching the land where they frothed and extended as far as they could along the clean, near-white sand. They slid underneath the next wave to give it a go. It proved hypnotic, lulling me into reverie. Memories of my mother cropped up, as they had in the two weeks since her passing. I saw her as I did when I was a little girl, reading Irish folklore to me before bed. Curled in my mass of blankets, she enthralled me with a storyteller’s charm. If I cared to, I could probably trace my interest in teaching to those moments, when she cleverly relayed history in the form of a gripping yarn.

Then I saw her tending bar at No Tales, the family pub on the other side of the island. As my eyes glossed over, staring at the rhythmic motion of the water, I considered the possibility that it was a subconscious effort to distance myself from the pub that had brought me to Keem Beach on a blustery March afternoon. My mum owned No Tales, bestowed upon her as the last of her kin. Naturally, as her only child, it now passed into my ownership.

I dug the point of my shoe into the wet sand and then flicked it through the air. A clod arched before me then plopped against the beach with a soft, wet kerplunk. It formed a tiny mound that washed away with the surf. I hadn’t envisioned myself as a bar owner at any point during my life. In fact, it had been a fairly direct line from those nights in my childhood to my career as a schoolteacher. Rarely had I even entertained the notion of straying from that path. I loved teaching kids, and passing on a legacy of knowledge and Irish heritage to the next generation. People rarely left Cornellis Island. My earliest students grew up, got married, then had children of their own that also attended Ms. Summer’s class. Without any youngsters of my own, I enjoyed that. It was richly fulfilling, and now I had to consider trading curious little ones for drunkards. It seemed at odds with the trajectory of my life.

I turned around to trace my steps toward the grass. Little imprints in the sand led down the beach from the end of the verdant valley. The valley stretched between two rising cliffs that looked like giant, mossy sea turtles sloping into the ocean. The one to the south was covered in grass while the one to the north was patchy, exposing the stone underneath. I stood halfway between the two great mounds, where the trail of footprints stopped, some twenty feet from the water’s edge. It was here that I began to feel the familiar warning signs of an oncoming vision.

First, my cheeks flushed as heat built in my face. The air stilled around me, the refreshing sea breeze replaced by a pressure that squeezed in from all directions. This was followed by the gradual dissolution of the world around me. The ocean pulled back from the beach, and the sea turtles rolled away from me and dived into a sea of black. Only the beach remained but for just a short while longer. I watched while its edges gave way to the dark, as though a trap door beneath the beach slid open. The sand poured into the emptiness below as a shrinking circle retracted to its center point—me. Finally, with nothing left to give the abyss, I fell. Every time, it frightened me, tumbling through the seemingly endless nothingness. My body spun every which way, my dark hair cast before my face like a veil.

Then I stopped. Like a newborn baby, the world was fuzzy and bright. I blinked until the new environment gained definition. The light was fluorescent and oppressive. It shone upon a large room, the exact dimensions of which I couldn’t initially determine. My focus centered on a single figure seated in the middle of that space. I could tell immediately it was feminine, and in the same inexplicable way, that she was in a state of flux. In her lap, she twiddled her thumbs nervously. At a distance of perhaps six feet, I saw her clearly. She was a pretty, middle-aged woman with radiant olive skin, bright green eyes, and black hair, much like my own. She was a little shorter, a little curvier, and her shimmering, dark hair reached nearly to her navel. A disembodied voice rang out through the space. Now boarding, rows twenty-one through thirty. Airport, I gathered.

The vision transported me, following this woman’s journey as she flew over a large body of water. The ocean? A blonde stewardess delivered her a club soda and she received it with a kind smile. Thank you, she spoke. American by the accent. Small clues, things for me to remember when the vision was through with me.

But it wasn’t yet. Wherever the woman traveled, I went along with, tethered like a dog on a leash. This third tableau revealed less, my perspective closed in around her and some paperwork in front of her. Excitedly, she scrawled personal details across a form. What is it? I wished to adjust my position, but in a vision, I was like a ghost on a theme park ride. No one could see me, and there was no leaving the tracks. However, I was granted a split-second view of her name. It was a quick flash, but I spied her last name, comprising four letters. Best. It was such a strange, yet interesting last name, but I had little time to mull over the American lady’s surname before a new scene interjected.

The world smeared—like wet paint swept through with a brush—then into the abstract mess of colors a fourth tableau appeared. As its pieces gathered together, rearranging the world around me, I had a sense of the familiar. I was no longer the ghost but inhabiting my own body. Or, rather, I was an observer from the perspective of my future self. This future Summer was in high spirits. All around me was this overwhelming sense of contentment. Things felt right. Just as I wondered where I was, it was revealed.

There were the booths against the far wall, with their tall, wooden backs and green upholstered seats. The glow of a Smithwick’s beer sign reflected off the mirror behind me. Before me ran the length of the bar, and seated on the stool along the other side were friendly patrons, though I could not quite make out each face. I was not alone tending bar, either. Working alongside me in No Tales was another, with whom I sensed a great fraternity. I’ll retap the keg, bossman, they said teasingly.

Like a movie-goer at an otherwise empty matinee, I sat behind the eyes of my future self, staring out at what she saw, though the details were fuzzy. She laughed and chatted while polishing pint glasses, and in the back of my mind, I felt a sense of defeat. You see, visions were never flukes. It wasn’t something you could change. They didn’t function as warning signs: Beware, lest ye fall to ruin. or, in this case, lest ye take over the family pub. They were, invariably, scenes that would come to pass. My father taught me that at a young age and in all my five and a half decades, he was never proven wrong. What I saw eventually happened, every time.

The part of me that had shied away from taking over the bar pouted, but another part of me was intrigued at the prospect of such warm fellowship. Though their identities remained hidden from me by the vision, what came across stronger than any other element was the profound sense of camaraderie. That couldn’t be all bad, then, I reasoned while the world rearranged itself one last time.

The final segment of my vision took place in some distant cove. Just as I knew the American was a woman before I saw her, I knew this location existed someplace far away. As I settled into the vision, I understood that its distance was measured both in miles and in years. Decades into the past and placed across the ocean. The Atlantic, to be specific, lapped against the beach of this cove, crawling up its sand where a little paddle boat had been dragged ashore. A dark rockface formed a crescent around the little beach. Footprints in the sand led away from the boat, up the beach, and disappeared into the shadow of a cave.

Like a slow-moving roller coaster, I floated over the waves toward this cave, sweeping over the beach until I entered the shadow. Within, the dark was all-consuming. Only a faint light toward the furthest recess provided any focal point. It illuminated the face of a man. He was sweaty but excited, buzzing with the high of discovery. It occurred to me that he was some sort of explorer and had made his way into this cave with great difficulty. As a reward, he found a bit of treasure. What it was, I could not see, the illumination of his flashlight failing to reveal it. Instead, I was granted a taste of his elation, a giddy triumph that animated him to the mouth of the cave.

I turned and followed behind while he carried an object in his arms, wrapped in his brown leather jacket. He emerged into the light of day and craned his neck to the rockface above. It was then I recognized a climber scaling the cliff. They called out to him, Donald, what’ve you got there?

He only smiled back, lifting his eyebrows while panting from his sprint.

That was it. Three distinct sections, an uncharacteristically complex vision. I had no idea what to make of it as I lingered on that final image, the gentleman’s happy face. Did it connect with the other two? Had he anything to do with me? Who on Earth was I going to hire to work No Tales with me so that I didn’t abhor the work? Questions without answers, the parting gift of every vision when it dumps you into reality without so much as a recap.

The cave faded away as the valley returned. In my periphery, I saw the two cliffs flanking Keem Beach, and then directly before me appeared the deeply wrinkled face of a beaming eighty-year-old woman, cigarette tucked into the corner of her mouth.

CHAPTER TWO

Not that I don’t love this close and personal view of your lovely smile, but could you give me a few paces while I gather my head? I swept my hand through the smoke blown from her nostrils. She seemed not to notice my distaste for it.

Instead, her eyes lit up like a child on Christmas morning. You’ve had a vision, haven’t ya? What did you see this time, Summer?

Keem Beach was still sort of spinning in my vision, but my senses were regaining their bearings. I felt sand beneath my palms and realized that I was in a seated position. An improvement over my last vision, when I returned to the present supine and pained from an abrupt fall. I had apparently dropped like a chopped tree, according to Maggie, who had been around for that one, as well.

As I struggled onto my feet, she leaped back with the spryness of a lemur, the cigarette still dangling from her lips. By the time I was upright again and dusting the sand from the seat of my pants, she had a second cigarette pressed against the ember in the first. She transitioned to her second cigarette, extinguished the first against the sole of her running shoe, then deposited the butt into her fanny pack.

If only you had the same respect for your body as you do the beach.

Maggie sucked in a long drag, then expelled the resulting smoke from her flared nostrils like a dragon.

I do, Peaches. But the body’s not a temple, it’s a playground. Know how to use it.

She leaped and spread her legs, landing in a star formation to begin her stretches. As she bent at the waist to meet fingertips to toes, she continued her lecture, A little basic maintenance to keep all systems running smoothly and you’re good to go.

Maggie was a slight creature, her narrow limbs displayed in a skintight running onesie. I’d be lucky to have her energy and lithe figure at eighty if I even made it that far.

You know a storm’s coming, right?

With her body folded in half, her eyes gazing at me from upside down, she replied, So?

You’re going to get caught in it if you start jogging now.

Her upper body unfolded, then went to the other foot without any of the groans or creaks that would have resulted had it been me stretching. "Nature’s shower. I hope I do get caught in it. Nothing more invigorating than running in the rain."

If it’s a thunderstorm?

Her eyes lit up. You think it will be? That’d be quite a show.

You’re on open ground here.

She rose and planted her hands at her hips. And? Have you forgotten I’m an electric mage, Peaches?

I flashed her a look. That’s a lot of power for someone so tiny, don’t you think?

She shrugged. If I get struck and I can’t absorb it, could you think of a cooler way to go?

I shook my head and laughed. Inside the eighty-year-old woman lives the soul of an eight-year-old boy.

That got a chuckle out of her. Who has more zest for life than an eight-year-old boy? I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you very much. She stepped forward and took hold of the muscles in my neck with a ferocious grip. When’s the last time you stretched? Do you feel the tension here? It’s bonkers. From her fingers came tiny, electric shocks that caused the muscles to jerk.

Ow. I brushed her off. If you want to give me a massage, Maggie, I’d prefer it if you put that ciggy out first. Maybe spare me the shock treatment.

She stepped back and finished the cigarette in one long drag. Without breaking the ash, she slipped it into her fanny pack. So are you going to tell me what this vision was about or what?

I rubbed my temples. I’m still piecing it together.

She wore her impatience on her face. How about a little taste?

I shook my head. You know my process by now. Give it a little time to congeal, then I promise, I’ll come right over and spill.

She lifted a finger. You’d better, Peaches. C’mon, one little taste.

Uh uh.

Bah. She waved her hand at me and then broke into a sprint, racing toward the steep, grassy slope. I watched in awe as she hustled up the grade, unfazed by the incline. Despite her claims, I was certain her impeccable shape was a result of her abilities. A mage of electricity was a rare thing, unlike the more common fire, water, or wind. That suited Maggie, a truly one-of-a-kind individual and one of my dearest friends.

The first rain droplets descended as she reached the peak, turning to gloat with her fists pumping the air. I gazed at the clouds. The downpour would be coming any minute now. Fog obscured the horizon. Waves rolled in from the mist, their crests rising higher. I stood on the beach a moment longer, admiring the view, an Irish beauty. My home.

The rain picked up and, preferring not to drive back completely soaked, I made for the car. I threw up my collar and pulled the overcoat tight around me. In it, the warmth of my mother’s memory kept the biting wind from cutting through me. Swirling gusts numbed my face, but my arms and body kept cozy underneath the wool. Carefully, I crawled over the piled stones that separated the beach from the grass. My sedan was parked in the turnout overlooking the beach. A crack of thunder introduced the storm’s heavier second stage as I closed the door behind me. Sheets of rain washed over the windshield, distorting the beach. That was close, I muttered, turning the key to start the engine. The car purred to life, and I twisted the heat. Raising my hands to the vent, I reflected on the vision. The storm helped—its white noise a pleasant, meditative ambiance. The woman. No Tales. A cave. Like a dream upon waking, I could already feel it disintegrating.

Quickly, I reached into the backseat where I kept my notebook. It was a leather-bound booklet a little larger than the size of my hand. I flipped the pages, passing hastily written notes and cartoons, until I reached the next clean page. I swept my palm across it and exhaled, summoning the images from their fading memories. Where to begin? At the start, of course. With the American woman at the airport.

I prepared to write, then realized I’d lost my pen. A moment’s frustration saw me twisting in my seat, digging my hands along the sides of the chair for the blue pen. It wasn’t until I’d started grumbling that I noticed it resting in the passenger seat beside me. Good job, Summer. I snatched it up and began scribbling.

If you were to read my notes, you likely wouldn’t understand them. Scrawled in an almost panicked state, they hardly made sense to my own eyes when I reviewed them after the fact. Ultimately, all I needed was to transcribe hints. Like breadcrumbs, recognizing enough of them on the page would lead me to the full recollection of the vision. A few words sprung immediately to mind: American, travel, excitement, job. Alongside this string of related words, I began a drawing. It started with an inelegant circle, upon which I draped the woman’s black hair. As I sketched her face, the big eyes and soft features, I conjured her visage. When I was finished with her crude depiction, I looked at it for a moment and thought something was missing. Ah. With a little arrow directed at the eyes, I labeled them green.

I flipped the page and jotted what I remembered then of the second portion, in which I saw through my own eyes looking out at No Tales Pub. I sketched its facade, the wood-carved title over the door, then curved an arrow toward it to indicate, In here. I wrote employee and friendship. What else was there?

Another flash of lightning diverted my attention toward the beach. The rain pummeled the sand, forming little craters with each heavy drop. Off to the right, I could see the tiny figure of Maggie performing jumping jacks atop the cliff. She faced the ocean, a living portrait that might have called forth the melancholy of a seaman’s widow had it not been for the robust exercise.

Focus, Summer!

Right. I returned to my task, flipping the page to write out everything I remembered from the final setting. Cave, I wrote, followed by explorer. As best I could, I drew him as he emerged from the cave’s maw, swaddling some unseen object with his jacket. Above him, I drew a plain figure hanging off the side of the cliff. Their details I couldn’t remember, only that they’d greeted him when he returned.

That was it, the total sum of my recollection.

Oh, wait. Bubbling to the fore was a name, its relation to the vision I couldn’t quite remember, except it was attached in some way. Donald Best. I wrote it in cursive at the bottom of the last page like a signature, imbuing it with a special significance. Perhaps it was the key. Uncovering the background of a vision often resulted from a single thread. Following it revealed the greater picture, which was always the goal. Every vision was like a little mystery. Had I the stomach for it, I probably could have made a fine detective. Instead, I settled for my own personal sleuthing, chasing down the meaning of these instances of foresight. It was easier for other witches, full-blooded seers. They received visions with greater regularity and bearing more clues, whereas mine came and went quickly and without warning, sometimes days apart, other times months. No matter how long a lull between visions lasted, however, that there would be another was always guaranteed.

Suddenly, a bright light descended from the heavens. A spear of lightning shot through the air, cutting a diagonal line from the clouds to the cliff. It connected with Maggie, illuminating her in an eerie, white glow. I gasped as her body lurched, limbs stiff and extended. It only lasted a moment, but the awesome sight seemed to carry on much longer. The lightning appeared as a vein suspended in the sky, throbbing with electricity that pumped directly into the eighty-year-old mage. When it finished, I sat in silence, my breath held, my hand raised to my open mouth.

But then Maggie shook it off, wiggling her short body in the rain, then began dancing. Faintly, I saw her body traced with electric blue, turning her into a living neon sign. I shook my head. Crazy old bat, I muttered, smiling.

I pulled away from the turnout and headed for town. The road kept near the ocean, providing a spectacular view of the storm’s full power. Waves crashed against the rocks, casting white water into the air. The clouds over the ocean occasionally flashed with lightning. All the while, I kept safe in my heated vehicle, driving at a cautious speed through the villages dotting Cornellis Island. At Dooagh, all the white houses with gray roofs had their lights on, their windows offering a peek into their warm interiors. They stretched into the short, rolling hills, disappearing beneath them. At Keel, the road curved away from the ocean, cutting through the island. The entirety of the drive took no more than half an hour to return to The Points. Before pulling up to my house, I detoured through Cornellis Sound, along the road that fed into the Michael Davitt Bridge and the mainland. I pulled up alongside No Tales. It sat quietly, a little sign posted on the front door that read Temporarily Closed. The whole island knew why, as they knew the uncertainty of its reopening.

Except what they didn’t know was that it was no longer uncertain. I was going to reopen No Tales and manage the family pub.

CHAPTER THREE

I traveled the narrow road leading to my house. On my right, I passed the stone ruins of an old country house, three walls still standing, the floor now carpeted with overgrowth. Proceeding down the block, the street was hedged in closely by vegetation. Tallgrass, moss, and weeds, punctuated by purple flowers, mashed together as a thick wall that rose a meter high. While Cornellis Island contains great beauty, it is also essentially a bog. Lots of soggy ground and all the plant life that comes with it.

I pulled into my driveway and the one-car garage, then rushed to the front door, grateful I hadn’t locked it when I left. Inside, I removed the wool overcoat and hung it on the hook beside the entrance. Then I moseyed into the living room to start a fire. I piled fresh logs into the grate then stuffed pages of old newspapers around them and lit them with a match. As the fire gradually consumed the paper and started on the wood, I placed the box of matches onto the mantel and sat on the couch to watch the flames rise.

In my lap, I opened the notebook to review what I’d written at the beach. The cryptic scribblings resurrected the imagery of my latest vision. But where to begin? I flipped to the last page and my gaze fell on the name. Donald Best, I read aloud.

On a whim, I decided to give it a search. I pulled my laptop from the coffee table, covered myself with the blanket folded on the back of the couch, and opened the computer. As it booted up, I glanced through the window to my right where the rain continued pouring onto the street. I looked at the computer screen and opened an internet window.

Hold on, I told myself. Tea.

I set the computer aside and entered the kitchen, flipping on the kettle and retrieving my mug and tea bag. When the water was ready, I poured it over the English breakfast and dropped a sugar cube in. Now I was ready for some proper investigating.

I sat on the couch, draped the blanket over my lap, and settled the computer on top. Glancing at the open notebook beside me, I swiped my fingers across the keyboard and typed Donald Best. Upon striking enter, I was presented with about a hundred thousand results. I nodded. Right. A basic search would be essentially useless. Perhaps social media, I thought out loud.

Closing the search window, I pulled up all my personal accounts for every social website and began searching. The first two turned up nil, but the third showed a memorial page for a man named Donald. Its image revealed a man with similar features to the one from my vision but aged. I clicked and reviewed the post: It’s been many years, but I wanted to create a place for Donald that would last forever. He was my best friend, and I know he was loved by many. I’ve used a photo of his beautiful family, whom I haven’t spoken to in a long time, but I don’t think they’d object to my using it. Please share your memories, and if anyone is in touch with his wife or daughter, let them know.

It seemed to be put together by an elderly man, based on the profile picture of the admin. Another photo showed him as a younger man standing alongside the younger Donald. There, he looked just as I’d seen him in the cove. My eyes gravitated toward the family portrait, Donald with his wife and daughter. The daughter, a teenager standing between them, had striking features, green eyes, and long, dark hair.

I gasped. It’s her.

My elation at my early progress was quickly overshadowed by a dour mood that accompanied Raven through the door. I turned over the back of the couch to view her. She was a tall, slender girl of thirty, a model’s figure, though she would never attempt it—loyal to her goth roots. This week, her hair was dark blue, fitting for her present disposition.

I shut the computer and slid it onto the table, content to set aside the research for now. It looked like Raven needed some company. I’d taken her as my roommate when tragedy struck her family, making her an orphan at seventeen. She had struggled all her life, but I was happy to provide a bit of stability for my best friend’s daughter. In a sense, it helped me get over the loss.

I see a long face, and I don’t think it’s the rain.

A heavy sigh deflated her, curling her shoulders inward while she hung her head. I lost my job, she said.

Oh no, what happened? I stood to prepare her some tea.

She met me in the kitchen.

It wasn’t actually my fault this time, she said with a wry grin. Henrietta’s closing the store.

Having made myself a cup, the water was already prepared. I poured it over a bag of Earl Grey and passed it to her.

Why’s she doing that? I asked.

Raven held the mug close to her face, letting the steam roll over her reddened nose. Whether from the cold or crying or both, I couldn’t be sure, but I would’ve bet on both. Beneath that confident, rebellious facade lay a sensitive heart.

Apparently the bigger chain put a new grocery store down the road from the bridge. Folks from the island have been driving to the mainland to pick up their groceries instead. She can’t compete.

Why, those disloyal—

It’s not their fault, Summer.

I rubbed my hand against her arm, trying both to warm her and cheer her up. You’re right. It’s those rotten chains. Can’t let the little guy have any business.

Raven stared into her tea. Poor girl was completely dispirited. A string of menial jobs came and went, but she had enjoyed working for Henrietta at the local grocery store. It would be a shame to see it go.

I wondered then if Raven could see the worry on my face. I watched hers with perhaps a touch more scrutiny than was proper, concerned with the possible impact of her job loss. A little twitch of her eyebrow, the nearly imperceptible tightening of her lips, the flaring of her nostrils, all minute signs of a potential imminent break.

The way her mother, Diane, left this world was violent and traumatic, a sort of macabre tale uncommon to a sleepy community like Cornellis Island. It happened by her father’s hand: Terry, a man whose demons lay dormant for the initial years of their romance. Later on, he became unhinged, gradually ceding his mind to the dark forces tied to his soul. What they were, I’ll never know, but suffice it to say, I didn’t hate him, but neither could I summon the courage to pity him. Terry got hauled off to prison and his seventeen-year-old daughter was