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I don’t want to do this anymore.

The first time, it was a grandma. She was old and her heart stopped beating and that happens to old grandmas. The family was crying, but they were supposed to cry and they weren’t my family.

The second time, it was a dad. He wasn’t so old and his family cried louder but sometimes dads go too and it still wasn’t my family.

Then came the kids.

Seventeen. Suicide by hanging.

Thirteen. Five-year-old brother playing with a gun.

Three. Bathtub.

And the newborns in the garbage can because mom was a kid, too.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

“Medic 11, you have a run.”

Sales were up for the third of four quarters
This was despite the agreed-upon borders
The owner was glee, all a-thrill and elated
The enforcement of law in his ambit abated.

A deal was signaled: “this far and no more.
And if you comply we will simply ignore
Transgressions you may or may not have committed.
They stand wholly separate from cash you remitted.”

If some of that cash was returned in a sale
That the upstanding, ethical men had enabled
It really was not for the votes to decide
If business and politics neatly collide.

For folks who cast ballots are blindingly dumb
And those they are cast for are morally numb
But always aware of society’s rules
They did what was best for the ignorant fools.

Their public appearances justly condemned
The acts from which half of their income had stemmed.
The ethics in question were gilded with mold,
While women and children were trafficked and sold.

Auggie looked at the boy suspiciously. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.” His red coat was faded from the long Virginia summer.

“The hell you don’t. I walked outside this morning and found my favorite fruit tree hugging the grass.”

“The one near the Rappahannock River? Just up from the mill?”

“You know any other gean trees of mine? It’s a very special place to me. Mary Ball and I…” he trailed off. Her illness was getting worse.

Or was it his illness? He couldn’t remember anymore.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe the beavers decided to make a cherry dam. That is the spring thing, you know?”

“Is Great Bridge for sale, too?” Auggie asked.

“Which bridge?” General confusion.

“Never you mind. I sincerely doubt a 10-year-old boy has paid attention to the building habits of beavers and their choice of lumber. Besides, David Weems says he saw you heading that way. With an axe.”

The boy twiddled his thumbs and took in the grass. He knew his father was dying.

Nodding almost to himself after a long moment, he looked up at his father.

“I cannot tell a lie,” George said.

Scientists called it “auditory exclusion.” Aubrey Johnson would discover that later when she began obsessively researching. It started with Google “why wasn’t the gunshot loud” and ended with a thirty-nine-page research paper by Pilson, Myers, et al.

But all of that would come later, after she dealt with the now.

Now was limited by “visual exclusion,” another term that she would later learn was far more commonly known as “tunnel vision.” All she could see was the body on the floor. Somewhere in the back of her brain was a little voice telling her there was screaming, but she couldn’t worry about that now.

Aubrey focused her eyes on the man’s back, a surprisingly small hole in his black t-shirt. She squinted her eyes in the anemic glow coming through the window from the streetlight—itself obscured by an oak tree—to see if respiration was causing any rise and fall. The pool of blood spreading across the hardwood floor from underneath him seemed to be all the story she needed, but Aubrey had watched enough television to know better.

He could be faking.

She looked down. The blood was coming near to her bare feet, lively, yellow-painted toenails contrasting with the coppery creep of apparent death. She stepped back with a start, running into Dana.

Both of them shrieked as Aubrey dropped the gun on the floor, glancing in panic at the black-shirted stranger and scrambling to pick up the gun before he could lunge for it and murder them all.

She heard a whisper. “Mom.” A hand on her shoulder, shaking. Turning to look at Dana, Aubrey didn’t understand how her daughter looked like a scream, but sounded like a whisper. It was even lower than a whisper now. Call 9–1–1, Dana mouthed.

Aubrey turned back to the living room. The pool was spreading, which was a shame because she’d just had the original hardwood refurbished. She was halfway into her savings for the new siding, but it looked like that was going to be pushed back. She couldn’t live with blood on her floors.

“…7367 Tamiami Dr. A man broke into our house, and I think he’s dead. My mom shot him. Please hurry.”

 I shot him? Aubrey thought to herself and then remembered the gun in her hand. Where did that come from?

Glass break sensor. Front door sensor. The annunciator on her phone. She burst from her bed, making it to the safe in one long step. 4–3–0–0–7. Their anniversary. The spring-loaded door smacked down as she reached inside and felt the indifferent polymer of the Glock 19. Her instructor’s voice hammered through her head, fighting for screen time with a mother’s brain.

Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.

Where is Dana?

Point the firearm in a safe direction at all times.

She opened the door with her left hand, right preparing to bring the gun up if a threat was present.

Nothing.

She swung around the open doorway into the hallway; the flashlight mounted underneath brought virtual daylight to the 2am interior.

Dana’s door is still closed. Her sleep machine is playing. Almost a sigh of relief.

Immediate and decisive action is required if you feel that your life is in danger. It won’t be fun. It won’t be natural. But you’ll be alive.

Blue eyes flashed in the light, twenty feet away. He stood just inside the door, the security lock hanging off the wall like a tether ball that had been hit too hard too many times. His face was almost a smile as he raised his knife.

“Stop! I have a gun. Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

He laughed, just a little. “Flashlight trick? I know there’s no gun behind it. Just a scared little woman who’s going to do what I say, Aubrey.”

He made it two steps forward before she fired. Fell like someone dropped him from an airplane. No parachute.

Shoot until the threat is neutralized.

She walked closer to him, vaguely registering the bedroom door opening just behind her.

“Mom!” Dana was huddled next to her mother, trying not to look.

A discordant symphony of sirens played a crescendo as quiet red and blue lights scattered gently off the street, becoming ever more insistent until the world was two colors, and that was all.

A stranger yelled inside. “Parma Police! Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air!” Two impossibly bright flashlights—or maybe it was one, she couldn’t tell—spilled through the storm door and lit Aubrey and Dana up like they were in a studio shoot for a pajama ad.

Aubrey thought the voice sounded far too young to be a police officer. Behind the flashlights, she could just make out the red light bar of an ambulance. She wondered if they would send another for her.

Dana was pressing down on her right hand. “Put the gun down, Mom. It’s OK. The police are here.” Aubrey resisted for a moment, finally understood. She had a gun. Police didn’t want that.

“Do you want me to unload it first?” she asked.

The strange young voice was a little gentler. “No, ma’am. Please, just slowly put it on the floor and step away.”

“I don’t want him to get it. He might still be alive.” She looked at the body. In the illumination from their flashlights, the jeans were almost forest green. No blood on them, though.

“What’s your name?” the officer asked.

“Aubrey. Aubrey Johnson.”

“Ms. Johnson, you’re going to have to trust me here. We have our guns drawn and we are covering the man on the floor. If you will please step back a few feet and put your gun down, I promise you it will all work out. You can even step on it to make sure it’s secure until we come in.”

“Mom! They’re going to shoot if you don’t put it down! Please!” Dana’s face was wedding white.

Aubrey nodded. Stepped back. Slowly, slowly, put the gun on the floor. Looked at the body again, waiting for a gasp. A twitch. A groan.

Nothing.

She looked up and raised her hands.

“I’m ready.”

It really was a thing of beauty. A fountain of clear water, spurting cold and clean, the sunlight scattering every which way. Even when it hit the blood—bright red arterial pulsing—the solar illumination was a picture waiting to be captured. Ansel Adams would have made millions.

Stunning as the clear fountain was, I was drawn much more to the ruddy one, and not only because it was my femoral artery putting on the show. I was intrigued by the way each blast was at the mercy of the prevailing winds. More, the consistent fade from each pump was intoxicating.

Full bright, all color, lighting just right.

Some bright, most color, lighting just fading.

Bit of bright, fair color, lighting just there.

Hazy now, black and white, lighting I guess?

Arresting, no fight. Black, no white. Death, no

When given an inch, I consider it rude not to take the entire mile.

So, when my grenade lady offered a BOGO, I decided it was time to stock up.

She normally retailed them at $300—her wholesaler was an African warlord’s angry wife, or so she claimed. But TODAY ONLY!, your average purchaser of grenades could exchange three pictures of Ulysses S. Grant for one M67 fragmentation grenade.

It’s important you know I was not Ye Ævyrage Purchasyr, because my father taught me long ago that bulk buying and negotiation are two bullets in a magazine. I hadn’t paid retail grenade prices in years. I’ll admit, Marie was a sharp negotiator, and despite the stunning figure she cut in that dress, the K-Bar strapped to her inner thigh—so the legend went—was always on your mind.

But she’d taken a liking to yours truly, it seems, and after asking the last three times, she finally gave in. I think she liked me.

“I can’t actually stand you, Horace.” We were in a warehouse just off one of the plethora of waterways in Miami. They all led to the Gulf, eventually. This one was empty, and our voices echoed off everything. She had two guys in sunglasses flanking her, both straight out of Central Casting. Gray slacks, black shirts with vertical stripes that showed off their genetically annoying bodies.

“But you’re the only customer I have who hasn’t blown himself up, fingered me to the cops, or tried to kill me more than once. Who knew grenade sales could bring repeat customers?”

I smiled. “Marie, baby, I’m here for all of it. Don’t you think I’ve earned a discount? Shall we say…$100 a pop?”

She barked out a laugh. “I’m not your mother. I’ll come down fifty bucks, and that’s only because your face makes me cry.”

“$250? Come on, baby. I know you can do better than that. How about $150? For me?” I tightened my upper body to show off my 18-pack and A-cup man boobs. She wanted it bad.

She stared at me. “$250.”

I shook my head and frowned. “I guess I’ll just have to go see Wei.” I turned to leave. Sunglasses Number One angry-walked around me to block my path, a 250-pound stop sign.

“Wei!” she yelled, her voice cracking. “You know damn well the Type 67s are shit.”

I turned to look back at Marie.

“They might be shit, but they still go boom. In my business, that’s enough. Now, if you’ll kindly ask Thing One to back off, I will take my leave.”

“Fine! $200 is the best I can do, and I’m practically losing money.”

I gave her a satisfied grin. “Wonderful! I’ll take ten.”

That had been almost three years ago, and now that tête-à-tête was about to pay out like a forged scratch-off. I’d decided that I would stop killing people, you see, but bills don’t care about your newly discovered morals. Murderer or Mormon, a kilowatt hour costs the same. So I needed money, and this was it.

One of my colleagues in Hoboken knew a man in the north of England who was friends with a German Pakistani named Bilal Becker. Turns out Bilal was an undercover investigator for Interpol, on loan from the BKA. He made it his personal mission to buy as many American grenades as he could after his hamster was unceremoniously exploded by the aforementioned Hobokenite in an assassination attempt.

When he got wind of a massive shipment available for purchase, he thought he’d stumbled on the sting of the century. It was actually my retirement party.

My bank accounts were emptied; I’d sold all my guns except the Hi-Point—hard to part with a classic—and I’d even cashed in the twelve shares of IBM stock Grandma bought for me when I was born. All in, I was sitting on $525,600, which, at my rate, bought me 5,256 grenades.

Sold for $900 each—wily agent Becker had beat me down from my $1200 asking—I was going to be walking away with around four million dollars after expenses.

In Cuenca, Ecuador, four million might as well have been eleventy billion. For a lousy $800,000, I was getting five thousand square feet of house. On the water. Furnishings included. The interest on the remaining three million would pay for my chef, my butler, my maid, and a very nice 2012 Honda with just under 72,000 miles. Carlos was waiting for my call.

But Horace, who owns over 5,000 grenades? Marie. She had more grenades than the Pentagon’s lost-and-found. Bragged about it constantly. Her continued freedom was practically the Eighth Wonder of the World.

“I can get my hands on a hundred thousand if you’re going to war, Horace.” She was in a bikini this time, what with me crashing her sun tanning on Miami Beach and all. Turns out the K-Bar was real. The teal scabbard complemented her two-piece.

“Actually, I just need 5,256.” She held her hand over her eyes as she looked up at me. Going only on the position of my head’s shadow, I imagined I looked like an angel to her, the Florida sun making a halo around me.

“You have a million for me? Cash?” Her eyes darted around, waiting for the Candid Camera guys to jump out.

“No. I have half a million for you, my love.” She turned her head to the side, looking like she might ralph on the sand. “Remember, I buy one, I get one.”

She sat up so fast that her left AirPod yeeted itself onto the beach. “Absolutely not. Offers may not be combined with any other discounts, coupons, or promotions.”

“Marie, baby, where else are you going to get this much business?”

“It’s not about business. It’s about I pay—” she stopped herself.

“You pay less than that? Is that what you were about to say, snookums?”

“No, I pay much more than that,” she sputtered.

“Now pumpkin, let’s not bring prevarication into our relationship just yet. I had a very enlightening phone call with Efua Mensah yesterday, and she told me that she’s been selling to you for sixty American dollars each. How can you turn down a profit of two hundred grand?”

Had she been a cartoon, steam would have blown from both ears. I had to settle for a red face and a vehement standing. She pointed to her lounger without a word, and Temu Bodyguard Dos folded it up before following her to the parking lot.

“Warehouse at nine,” she yelled to me over her shoulder. I couldn’t wait to tell the story to our grandkids.

At 8:47pm, I peeked my head over the transom and peered through the binoculars, in search of Marie-shaped reinforcements. She loved my money at least as much as she loved me, so I had to make sure this Very Big Score wasn’t going to be my Very Last Alive.

It seemed that Marie was an honorable woman, at least…as honorable as a drastically overpriced hawker of instruments of death could be. I detected nothing of interest. Which was saying something, me having graduated with honors from the citizen police academy in Dubuque.

I grabbed the bag of money and dove—by which I mean flopped—into the water and started hoarding armfuls of water in an effort to reach the dock. Pick an apple, put it in your pocket.

I climbed the ladder at the dock and walked confidently toward the warehouse. Marie was standing just inside the main door, smiling like she was ready to consummate our unspoken love. A crate the size of Rhode Island was sitting quietly next to her.

M67 FRAG – HANDLE WITH CARE – QTY 5000ish

She stepped forward and opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Dolph Lundgren Number One punched her in the back of the head. She dropped to the dirty cement floor like she’d been punched in the back of the head.

“What the hell, dude?” I protested.

“Red shirts! Thug Number Fours! Unnamed Bodyguards! This is for story functionaries ignored everywhere!” He looked across the river and nodded. Rifle fire began peppering the crate.

Explosion of approximately 5,256 grenades seen from International Space Station, the headline read.

The article didn’t even spell my name right.

The address led Rachel to a forgotten street. Ancient elm trees laced their branches overhead, casting a perpetual twilight over houses that had settled deep into their foundations, their paint peeling. Professor E.S. Ward’s house, number seventeen, was the most neglected. A low stone wall, half-swallowed by ivy, marked a yard where weeds had long claimed victory. A heavy stillness permeated the space, carrying the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, a smell that clung to Rachel’s coat.

She knocked. After a long moment, the door creaked open, revealing a sliver of darkness.

“Miss Hayes?” a voice rasped, dry as parchment.

“Professor Ward? Yes, it’s Rachel Hayes. Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

The door opened wider, and Rachel stepped into a vestibule that smelled of old paper. Professor Ward was a man of indeterminate age, his face a landscape of deep lines, his pale blue eyes holding an ancient weariness. His sparse hair, what little remained, was a wispy halo of faded red. He wore a tweed jacket that looked several sizes too large, its elbows shiny with age, smelling faintly of camphor and pipe tobacco.

“Come in, come in,” he murmured, his gaze sweeping over her with an unsettling intensity. His eyes, she noticed, were not merely pale, but seemed almost translucent, like ancient ice. “Rachel. That was my sister-in-law’s name, you know. A beautiful name.”

Rachel felt a prickle of unease. It was an odd thing to say. She offered a polite smile. “It’s a common enough name, I suppose.”

He didn’t return the smile. He turned and shuffled deeper into the house, his slippers whispering on worn Persian rugs. Rachel followed, her footsteps loud in the quiet. The house was a labyrinth of books. Shelves lined every wall, stacked from floor to ceiling, overflowing with faded, dusty volumes. The atmosphere was thick with the scent of aged paper and something mineral and cold, like a cave. Dust motes danced in sparse shafts of light, illuminating the space like slow-motion snowfall.

He led her to a small, cluttered study. A heavy wooden desk, dark with age, dominated the room, piled high with open books, papers, and fragments of ancient pottery etched with symbols. The scent of aged earth mingled with something metallic. A faint hum vibrated in the stillness.

“So,” Ward said, settling into a high-backed armchair that seemed to swallow him whole. Its velvet was worn smooth in places. “You wrote about a variant. Deuteronomy, was it?”

Rachel pulled out her notes, grateful for the familiar weight of her research, the crispness of the fresh paper a small anchor, a stark counterpoint to the pervasive scent of ancient dust and the silent hum of forgotten lineage. “Yes, Professor. Deuteronomy 26:5. The standard Masoretic text reads, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean.’ But in a fragment I encountered—a private collection, unfortunately, not publicly accessible—it read, ‘My father was a wandering Edomite.’ It’s a subtle but profound difference, given the historical context.”

This fragment, if proven authentic, could be the academic breakthrough Rachel desperately needed. Tenure was looming, and her previous work, while solid, hadn’t quite made the splash she craved. This wasn’t just a footnote; it was a potential earthquake in biblical studies, a chance to carve her name into the annals of scholarship. But the implications were terrifying. To challenge such a foundational text, to suggest a deliberate suppression of history, would invite ridicule, professional ostracization, and potentially end her career before it truly began. She needed this to be real, but a part of her also desperately hoped it was just a fascinating, isolated error.

Ward nodded slowly, his pale eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her feel he was reading her thoughts. “Indeed. A slight shift, a world of meaning. A single letter, a universe undone.”

“Precisely. At first, I assumed it was a scribal slip—resh and daleth are often confused in ancient Hebrew. A single faded stroke, and an Aramean becomes an Edomite. It’s a known copyist’s error. But the implications…”

She trailed off, sensing his intense scrutiny. He wasn’t just listening; he was absorbing her words with an almost personal gravity. His gaze seemed to bore into her, searching for something she couldn’t name.

“The implications,” he repeated, his voice a whisper that filled the room. “Yes. A father, a lineage, a destiny, all altered by a single stroke. A wandering Edomite. Does it not make you wonder, Miss Hayes, about the nature of truth itself? How easily it can be reshaped, forgotten, or simply… miswritten?” He leaned forward, his gaze piercing. “And what makes you think this fragment is anything more than a simple error, Miss Hayes? A mere anomaly?”

Her reputation, her entire academic future, hinged on proving this was more than an anomaly. Her engagement had collapsed after she chose a dig in the Negev over setting a wedding date. He’d packed the ring box with her field notes, mailed it to her hotel in Jerusalem, and never answered another call. To be dismissed as a fringe theorist now, to have her work discredited, was a constantly humming fear.

“The context,” Rachel explained, feeling a sudden, inexplicable need to justify her presence, her research. “The fragment itself seemed unusually well-preserved, the ink remarkably vibrant for its age, and the surrounding verses, while otherwise standard, seemed to… resonate with this particular variant in a way that felt deliberate. Almost as if the scribe was making a point, not just copying.” She felt a strange conviction, a need to be right and have Professor Ward tell her so.

Ward chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. “Scribes rarely make points, Miss Hayes. They copy. They transmit.” He paused, his gaze drifting to a dusty grandfather clock, its hands frozen. “Tell me, what do you know of the Edomites?”

“Descendants of Esau,” Rachel recited, feeling like a student caught off guard, her carefully prepared academic persona faltering under his intense gaze. “Jacob’s twin. They lived south of Israel—frequent conflict, tangled history.”

“And Esau himself?” Ward pressed, his voice softer now, almost wistful, carrying a faint tremor.

“The elder twin,” Rachel continued, recalling the familiar biblical narrative. “Red and hairy. A hunter. Sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.”

A flicker of something—pain? recognition?—crossed Ward’s face, deepening the lines around his eyes. “The stew,” he murmured, his voice laced with bitterness. “It wasn’t worth it. Some things, once given, can never truly be reclaimed. Not a birthright, not a blessing. Not even by a lifetime of wandering.” He looked at her then, a direct, unsettling gaze that seemed to hold the weight of centuries, the bitter aftertaste of a lingering past.

Rachel felt a chill. The conversation had veered sharply from academic discussion to something intensely personal, almost confessional. She shifted, trying to reconcile the scholarly recluse with the man speaking of ancient betrayals as if they were fresh wounds. She wanted to ask, Who is your uncle? But the words caught in her throat, replaced by a growing sense of unease.

Ward seemed to sense her discomfort, or perhaps he simply recognized the dawning realization in her eyes. He leaned back, his fingers tracing the edge of a small, intricately carved pomegranate on a nearby shelf. “Once,” he murmured, his voice a dry rustle, “I thought I could build something lasting, something to honor the divine. He paused, his pale eyes glinting with sorrow.

He rose with a grunt, shuffling towards a tall, narrow cabinet in a shadowed alcove. “You came to me because you heard I might have… unusual texts. Is that right?”

“Yes, Professor. My advisor mentioned your extensive private collection. He said you had a particular interest in… less conventional textual traditions. Manuscripts that challenge the established canon.”

“Unconventional,” Ward repeated, a faint smile playing on his lips. “A polite word for what others might call heresy. The forgotten voices, the suppressed histories.” He fumbled with a small brass key, his fingers surprisingly nimble. He opened the cabinet, revealing a stack of meticulously wrapped scrolls and codices. A wave of extreme age, of parchment, ink, and dust, emanated from within, thickening the atmosphere.

“The text you seek,” he said, his back to her, his voice a low murmur, “speaks of a different beginning, doesn’t it? A different father for a nation. What if the truth was always there, just… obscured? Like a faint red thread woven into a tapestry, visible only to those who truly look, those willing to see beyond the surface?” The phrase “red thread” hung in the stillness, imbued with a significance Rachel couldn’t yet grasp, though it stirred something deep within her.

He reached for a small, leather-bound codex, its cover intricately tooled, its edges frayed. He handled it with a tenderness that surprised Rachel, almost a reverence.

“This,” he said, turning, holding the codex out to her, his pale eyes fixed on hers, “is not the fragment you saw. But it contains the full text of that variant. A complete copy of Deuteronomy, with that… peculiar reading. A testament to a path not taken.”

Rachel took the codex. The leather was soft and cool, worn smooth. She opened it carefully, her breath catching. The script was ancient, elegant, and undeniably clear, each letter perfectly formed. And there, in Deuteronomy 26:5, was the word, unmistakable: Edomite.

“It’s… incredible,” she whispered, tracing the letters with a tentative finger, her academic curiosity warring with a growing sense of awe and apprehension. “The consistency…”

“Incredible, or inconvenient?” Ward’s voice was dry, a faint, sardonic note. “It changes the narrative, doesn’t it? The story we tell ourselves about who we are. A wandering Aramean, a land promised, a destiny fulfilled. A wandering Edomite… a different path. A path of struggle, of being cast out, of a birthright lost. Of a blessing denied. It speaks of perpetual exile, even within the land itself.”

He watched her, his pale eyes unblinking, observing her reaction.

“You can take it,” Ward said suddenly, startling her. “Study it. See what truths it whispers to you. It has waited long enough for someone to truly listen.”

He gave her no further instructions, no due date. He simply watched her, his gaze unwavering, as she carefully placed the codex into her carryall. As she stood to leave, a profound sense of unreality settled over her. The dust motes still danced, the clock remained frozen, and a strange, cold resonance still hummed throughout the house. Professor Ward offered a final, cryptic remark.

“Remember, Miss Hayes, the threads of history are often tangled. And sometimes, the most important ones are the ones stained red. They bleed through the fabric of time.”

Back in the university library, surrounded by the familiar scent of new books and stale coffee, Rachel tried to make sense of the codex. The sterile environment felt both comforting and jarring after Ward’s house. She spread the codex open on a large, oak table. The variant was consistent throughout Deuteronomy, not just in chapter 26. This was not a scribal error; it was a deliberate, alternative textual tradition, a parallel narrative that had survived canonical selection.

She spent hours cross-referencing the codex to other texts. No other known text contained this wholesale substitution. It was unique, an outlier, a solitary voice whispering a truth that rang louder that the vast chorus surrounding it.

Normally, such a contradiction would be dismissed. But this codex felt intentional, its script too deliberate, its age too alive. different, its age palpable, its script too deliberate. It was as if she had unearthed a hidden chamber in history, revealing a different foundation. Like finding a hidden wellspring, but the waters were bitter.

A profound disquiet settled over Rachel as she absorbed the full weight of the codex. If this text were true, if the patriarch of Israel was indeed Esau, it would shift the bedrock of an entire tradition. The story of Jacob would no longer be a tale of divine preference, but perhaps of cunning, folly, and manipulation. The ancient rivalry would blur into something far more complex, a perpetual struggle not just with an external enemy, but with a forgotten part of themselves. It was an unsettling kinship, a family secret writ large.

Rachel pulled up an article by Chad Bird, whose work on Hebrew nuance had long shaped her understanding. His writing was careful, incisive, often laced with a quiet poeticism that made even technical notes feel alive. She combed through his essays again, searching for any reference to the resh-daleth confusion, any trace of precedent for what the codex claimed.

She also scanned selections from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, whose commentaries offered clarity even where tradition blurred. His voice carried the weight of both scholarship and moral vision—a rare combination. He often seemed to see not just what the text said, but what it asked of you. But neither scholar, for all their insight, pointed in this direction. The consensus held. Aramean, not Edomite.

 The codex in front of her felt like a dissonant note in a carefully composed symphony.

The more she studied the codex, the more the professor’s words echoed in her mind. His profound understanding of the text, his comments on birthrights and blessings, his quiet bitterness. It was as if he was speaking from experience, not scholarship. As if the ancient narrative was the very fabric of his being. She couldn’t begin to understand how that would be.

Could it be? The idea was preposterous, impossible. Yet, a strange logic began to assert itself, weaving uncanny connections. The reclusive nature, the ancient house, the air of profound age about him. The way he spoke of the past as if he had witnessed every betrayal, every loss.

She remembered the biblical account of Esau. Born ruddy and hairy. And then she thought of Ward’s faded red hair, his gnarled and surprisingly strong hands, the faint redness beneath the thin skin, and the way his tweed jacket seemed to hang loosely, as if concealing a larger, more robust frame. And the redness. The red thread. Esau was born red, his very name derived from the Hebrew word for red, adom. His descendants, the Edomites, were associated with the color red, with the ruddy earth of their homeland. The red thread, indeed.

The cold certainty was exhilarating and terrifying. It meant everything she believed about history, about reality, was wrong. It meant her academic world, built on empirical evidence and peer-reviewed consensus, was a fragile illusion. To pursue this truth, to even whisper it, would be professional suicide. No one would believe her. She would be labeled delusional, her career irrevocably destroyed. But how could she unsee what she had seen? How could she ignore a truth that pulsed with such ancient, undeniable life?

Rachel returned to Ward’s house a week later. The codex, carefully re-wrapped, felt even heavier in her bag, its weight a physical manifestation of the impossible truth. She hadn’t been able to shake the uncanny certainty that had settled in her bones, reshaping her understanding of reality.

The elm trees still cast long shadows, a deeper twilight as late afternoon bled into evening. This time, when she knocked, the door opened almost immediately.

He stood in the doorway, his pale eyes seeming to peer into her soul, a faint, knowing glint in their depths. “You’ve come back,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Did the thread reveal itself, Miss Hayes? Did you finally see the color of it?”

Rachel stepped inside. “Professor,” she began, her voice trembling slightly. “The codex… it’s extraordinary. But I have to ask you something. Something… impossible.”

He led her back to the study, the silence thick with unspoken questions. He settled into his armchair, his gaze never leaving her, a profound stillness about him.

“Ask,” he prompted, his voice flat, yet with an underlying current of inevitability. “The truth, once seen, demands to be spoken. Even if it defies belief.”

“The variant,” Rachel said, holding the codex out to him, her hands steady despite the tremor in her voice. “The ‘Edomite’ reading. It’s so consistent. It’s not a mistake. It’s… an alternative history. A history that was deliberately suppressed.”

Ward took the codex and opened it to the familiar page, his eyes scanning the lines, not as a scholar, but as one who knew them by heart. “My father was a wandering Edomite,” he read aloud, his voice low and resonant, filled with an ancient sorrow. “A truth too inconvenient for the chosen narrative. It speaks of a shared beginning, doesn’t it? A common root, before the division, before the deception. Before the trickery that severed a family, a people, a destiny.”

Rachel swallowed, her throat dry, her heart pounding. “You speak of it as if… as if you were there, Professor. As if you lived it.”

He looked up, his pale eyes glinting in the dim light, catching the last rays of the setting sun. A faint red thread seemed to trace a line along his jaw, a subtle mark Rachel hadn’t noticed before. Now, it was undeniable, a stark confirmation.

“But of course you know that’s impossible,” he said, his voice now devoid of pretense.

He closed the codex with a soft thud, placing it carefully on the desk. His gaze was distant, fixed on something far beyond the walls of the dusty room, beyond time itself.

“I have spent countless years wanting to prove the record wrong,” he said, his voice a low, fierce whisper. “To shout the truth of that variant from the mountaintops, to burn down their carefully constructed history. To show them the texts, the evidence, the undeniable proof that their lineage is not as pure, their blessing not as singular. But what then? What would it achieve? It wouldn’t undo what’s been done. It would only make orphans of the faithful. It would shatter the very foundation of salvation’s story.”

Rachel reached into her bag and withdrew a Bible. “I want to read you something, Professor.”

She didn’t even open it. Just looked into his liminal eyes. “‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’”

He sighed, a sound of profound, ancient resignation. “Divine dis-election weighs heavily.”

He looked at Rachel, his pale eyes holding a complex mix of sorrow and grim reverence. He didn’t need to say anything more. The silence was absolute, heavy with the weight of ages, with the impossible truth. Rachel could only stare, the impossibility of it all crashing over her, yet undeniably real. The dust motes still danced in the shafts of light.

The sun colored them red.

Jen opened the door, enjoying the delicious feel of skin on cloth beneath the trench coat. Oh, sure, it was tropey as hell. But tropes existed for a reason, right? She closed it quietly behind her, the snick of the bolt a bright sound in the dark house. He was probably waiting upstairs, perhaps reading a book or some other mundane, domestic thing. She’d told Landon this was one of her fantasies, criminal-turned-lover, and he’d agreed after the last time to play it like that.

She snuck up the stairs, the carpeted steps silent beneath her bare feet. Robbers didn’t go unshod, but what the heck else was she supposed to wear? Heels made zero sense—again, because robber—and she’d feel downright silly being naked in a trench coat with a sensible pair of Doc Martens and black Dickies sticking out of them. The bedroom door was third on the right. Empty. Sitting room? she wondered to herself as she walked back downstairs, maybe just a little uneasy and not knowing why.

She walked through the darkened living room toward the back of the house. The plan was to go through the kitchen to the covered porch they used as a sitting room, but she didn’t make it past the kitchen because that’s where she found him. With a hole in his head.

Jen ran out of the house, across the driveway, and into her own kitchen. She couldn’t call the police dressed like this. With thoughts racing and plans whirling, she ascended her own staircase, into her own bedroom. She dressed quickly. Jeans. T-shirt. Too casual. She swapped the top for a green V-neck blouse, tied her hair back, and slipped on flats.

Looking herself over in the mirror, she walked back across the driveway and opened the front door to set the scene. She sat on the front porch and started shaking. Pulled out her phone and called 9-1-1.

“My neighbor has a hole in his head.” She gave the address and hung up. The cold of the cement porch seeped through her jeans and the damp November air took a tour through her blouse. She dialed, stopped, and stared at the juniper bushes lining the front yard. Took a deep breath and willed calm. Finished dialing.

✦

Parker grabbed her phone off the nightstand and answered. “Hey, Jen! What are you up to? I was just about—”

“You need to come home, Parker.”

“I can’t right now. I’m a little busy. Do you want to grab lunch tomorrow?”

“Now Parker. Right now.”

“Jen, what is going on? You’re scaring me.”

“It’s…It’s Landon.”

The way she said it told Parker everything. Logic, normal life, and expectations for the world be damned. Her husband was dead.

“I’m on my way.” Parker looked over at him. “I have to go.” He gave her an accusing look, but she couldn’t care right now.

She got off the bed and slipped her shoes on, glad they hadn’t had time for any further clothing removal. With her purse thrown over her shoulder, she walked out of the hotel room just as his phone rang.

✦

“Hi, honey.”

“Mikey! You need to come home. Right now!”

“Are you OK?”

“No. Landon is dead. Please come home.”

“What? What do you mean, he’s dead?”

“I didn’t suppose that a statement requiring explanation, Michael.” He could hear the disapproval in her voice.

“No, I guess not. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Where are you?”

He hung up and ran down to the parking garage.

✦

The strobe of the red and blue lights washed over everything, a tableau of despair and death. Parker slammed her car to a stop and jumped out, running for her front door. “Where is he!?” One of the many policemen on the scene stepped in front of her to slow her down and held his hands up.

“Ma’am, you can’t go in there.”

“That’s my house!”

“May I have your name, please?”

“Parker Card. What is happening?”

Jen walked across the lawn and grabbed Parker by the shoulders. “Parker, sweetie…he’s gone. Landon is dead.”

Parker started laughing. “Oh, I get it. Where are the hidden cameras? How much did they pay you, Jen? Who hired all these cops? When—” and she fell, Jen helping her to the ground.

Michael pulled up a moment later, doing a repeat of the Parker run, though he stopped without police assistance. “Is it true?” he asked the cop. “My best friend is dead?”

“If your best friend was Landon Card, then yes, sir. I’m very sorry for your loss.” Michael and Jen looked to the left at a man in his mid-thirties, gun, gold badge, and coffee announcing “detective.”

The paramedics arrived just as Parker regained consciousness, and she waved them away with an annoyed hand. Michael and Jen nodded at each other. “If it’s alright with you, Detective…” Jen started

“Swanson.”

“Detective Swanson, we’d like to take our friend over to our house and get her some water, take care of her.” Jen pointed to their house. “The door is open whenever you want to talk with us.” Swanson nodded his assent.

The threesome made their way to the Suter residence.

✦

Parker sipped her coffee and then collapsed back onto the granite. She found it hard to stay upright, harder still to stay awake, but she was trying. Jen sat next to her, rubbing her back and whispering soothing nothings. Michael was on the other side of the kitchen island, staring at the darkness decorating the windows.

There was a knock on the door—tap, tap, tap—not insistent, not waifish, just a knock. Jen looked up at Michael, told him silently to answer it. He traipsed through the living room to the front door, opened without even peeping, correctly expecting Detective Swanson, incorrectly assuming he would be alone.

“Good evening again, Mr. Suter. You’ll allow me the honor of introducing Detective Furman Stevens, my supervisor and partner. Is now a good time to talk?” Michael didn’t answer, just stepped back and let them in.

As the detectives walked into the kitchen, Stevens spoke to everyone. “I understand this is a difficult time and we’re not here to make it harder. We only want to find the person who killed Mr. Card and bring him to justice. That in mind, are you three willing to talk with us?”

They nodded. Michael dutifully, Parker absently, Jen eagerly.

“Wonderful. Mr. Suter, if you’ll join us in the sitting room.” Stevens led the way to the covered porch as if he owned the place.

Detective Stevens sat on the wicker couch facing the kitchen and asked Michael to close the door. Swanson stood behind the couch, holding his hand out to invite Michael to sit in the La-Z-Boy across from them.

“Now, Mr. Suter, I have to let you know first that this is merely an informal interview, but if you wish to have legal counsel present, that is your right.” Stevens’ eyes bored into Michael, daring him to request a lawyer.

“I have nothing to hide, sir. I’m happy to talk to you.” Michael shifted uncomfortably.

“Very good. First, where were you this evening before you arrived home?”

The interview continued for a few more minutes, Michael answering the questions as he thought he should.

✦

Jen sat down on the recliner, a sour look on her face. “Yes, no lawyer. Let’s get on with it.”

“To confirm, Mrs. Suter, you will talk to us without a lawyer present at this time?” Swanson took the lead now.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“Mrs. Suter—”

“Call me Jen.”

“Of course. Jen, please tell us how you came to discover the body of Mr. Card this evening.”

“I was going over to…” she paused. Looked down at her feet.

“Yes? You were going to do what?” Swanson prompted.

“Oh, hell. Is this confidential?” She looked at the sitting room door, verifying it was closed.

“Anything you tell us will be held in the strictest confidence.”

“OK, look. Landon and I were having an affair.”

“I see. Go on.” Swanson was unimpressed.

“Six months it’s been. One night I took a lasagna over for them. Parker was sick. He thanked me but said she was in the hospital. Next thing I knew, we were in bed. Not even sure how it happened.” Which was a lie. They’d been hinting to each other for years.

“And was a tryst on the menu tonight?” Detective Stevens somehow made it sound clinical.

“Yes. It wasn’t our usual night, but Michael had to work late and Parker was volunteering. He wanted me to be a robber.” She said it like it was normal.

“And you went over there tonight, found him calling Parker? Telling you it wasn’t going to work anymore? Insisting he must break it off? How did that make you feel?”

“What? No! When I went there, he was already dead.”

Swanson looked down at his phone. Made a few taps and then read, “‘My neighbor has a hole in his head.’ Such an odd phrasing for someone discovering a shooting victim, don’t you think?”

Jen’s mouth described a hard line. “Lawyer.”

✦

“Mrs. Card, I’m so very sorry for your loss. Anything you can tell us will help, but I can appreciate if you would like to wait until later or have someone present with you.” Stevens put a hand on her shoulder as she sat in the chair.

Parker took a breath. “No. I want to find out who killed him. However I can help.”

“We appreciate that, and we will do everything we can to ensure the killer is brought to justice. To begin, do you know of anyone who would have a reason to hurt your husband?”

“I should think not. If anyone didn’t like Landon, it was because they were blind. He was the epitome of kindness and giving. It’s the thing I love,” she paused, suppressed a sob, “loved most about him.”

“And do you have any reason to believe your husband was involved in anything…illicit?” Stevens stared at her, but she didn’t notice. Her eyes were still filled with tears.

“No. He smoked some weed when we were in college, but who didn’t? I can’t imagine him doing anything that would lead to someone murd—” Parker broke down completely, her wails so loud that Michael and Jen came in and hugged her.

Jen looked at the detectives. “I think this interview is over. I invite you to leave, gentlemen.” It sounded like “assholes.”

Stevens stood, followed by Swanson. Cards were handed over, “call us if” suggestions provided. They walked through the sitting room to the kitchen door, when Stevens turned suddenly, looking at Jen. “Please be sure to give us the contact information for your lawyer, Mrs. Suter.”

Michael and Jen helped Parker back to the kitchen, poured her some more coffee. She sat on the stool and looked at Jen. “You asked for a lawyer? Why would you do that?” She looked ready to attack.

“Easy, Parker,” Michael said. “You’re very hurt, very broken, and you want to lash out. I understand. But Jen is not your enemy.”

“Oh? Then how about you? You only spent ten minutes with them. How come? Pleaded the fifth and clammed up?”

“Parker, honey. We’re on your side.” Jen put her hand on Parker’s and was immediately rebuffed.

“Then stop acting like murderers,” Parker said, standing and walking tearfully into the night.

✦

He’s looking at me expectantly. “General Tso’s Chicken, large. Pork fried rice. Four egg rolls.” It’s not our usual order. He raises his eyebrows as I give the credit card info. Hopefully, he won’t mind that I used it. “Your order will be ready in thirty minutes,” the voice trills through the speakerphone.

The phone slaps down on the marble as I look across the island at him.

“What should we do while we wait?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and looking at my chest.

“Die?” I asked.

His brow was still furrowed in confusion when my bullets went through it.

I wonder if the cops will know that he was confused at the point of death.

I walk through the side door. No streetlights—thank you, cul-de-sac board—no people. I open the door and deposit the gun in the map pocket. Now I need to go get the food. Curbside pickup, of course. COVID wasn’t good for much, but it was good for hiding faces from cameras.

I parked in the garage and hefted the two bags as I stepped out and looked at my watch. 7:55. Perfect. I knew she’d done her job, because her son was dead if she hadn’t, and weren’t bratty kids just wonderful motivators?

Oh, you probably think me a heartless monster now. Who threatens to kill a nine-year-old boy for leverage?

I do.

✦

“It’s got to be Jen. Found out he wasn’t going to leave his wife and killed him. Why else would she be there? We already know they were involved.”

“I’m not sure,” Swanson said. “I’d like to think it was Parker. She learns of the affair and it pisses her off.”

“Great,” Steven replied. “How did she find out?”

Swanson threw up his hands as Detective Adam Ruiz walked in, having just eaten the canary. “You boys are going to want to see this.” He set his laptop on the conference room table, connected it to the big screen. “I ran the credit cards. Mr. Suter ordered Chinese. Oh, and he was at a hotel. Is that important?” Adam’s eyes shone like the sun.

They stared at him, waiting for the punchline. “Here’s the footage.” He looked up as the screen displayed the motion-stop-motion-stop video that low-end systems were famous for. Adam walked to the front of the room. “There’s Mr. Suter.” He pointed.

“Drumroll, please!?” he asked a non-existent drummer.

“And here, in the same hotel, at the same time, on the same date…is Mrs. Card.”

Ruiz smiled in gotcha as Parker appeared on the screen, stopping briefly at the front desk and then walking to the elevator. They kept watching on fast forward as Parker left ten minutes later and reappeared ten minutes after that, carrying a bag in each hand labeled “Mike Wang’s Chinese.”

“Well,” Detective Stevens said, “looks like we have three suspects now.”

Ruiz jumped in. “Actually sir, we don’t. ME reported the time of death as 7:45pm. This video shows Michael walking in to the hotel at 7:40, Parker at 7:45. Zero chance they were at both murder scene and hotel.”

“Oh!” Swanson now. “Then I guess we get a warrant for Jen.”

✦

It was the first time I’d ever been hired three weeks ahead of time. It was the second time a client had threatened my son, though this one came with a picture of him in his bedroom. I scrolled to look at the text on my phone. This had to be perfect. Desk. Elevator on the left. Room 318. 10 minutes. Leave. It was the most bizarre setup I’d ever had, which was saying something for a call girl of eighteen years. With Matty’s life in the balance, however, I wasn’t going to question anything.

I finished dressing as instructed, helpless against the feeling of being a pawn. Blond hair in a bob. Five inches. Red leather jacket. Loose black ankle dress, brown pumps. My John certainly wasn’t into fashion. I stopped at the desk and asked for the key to 318. Walked to the elevator and pushed “up.” The right elevator opened first. I couldn’t see how the left or right mattered, but I leaned in and pushed fifteen just in case, sending it as far as possible. When the left car arrived, I stepped on, pressed three.

I moved right off the elevator, found 318. Held my breath as I swiped my key, braced for a surprise behind the door, but it was empty. I sat on the bed and pulled out my phone. The ten-minute alarm I asked Siri for went off before I knew it, and I exited the room, wiping the doorknob on both sides, though I wasn’t sure why. Instinct?

I stepped off the left elevator, walked through the lobby, and turned right on the sidewalk.

I texted the number back. “Done.”

Now I just had to hope my Matty was OK. I crossed my fingers and said a prayer into the void. Maybe I’d light a candle, too.

✦

Jen sipped her wine and looked at Mikey across the table. Her dear, sweet Mikey. She was going to miss him if it all came crashing down. She poured him a Scotch. Neat, of course. He lifted it in a half-toast, half-accusation.

“I know how much you like Johnny Walker.” Jen said.

Michael agreed with his sipping, disagreed with his eyes. Looked up at the wane sunlight filtering through the dining room skylight. “How was work today?”

“I almost closed the Diamonds,” she said, excited to talk about not that.

“No kidding! I knew you could land that one!” More sipping.

“Is something wrong, babe?” Jen knew the answer, but she couldn’t stand to continue the feigned domestic banality.

Michael took another sip. Looked at her pitifully and tried to decide if now was the time for this fight. He couldn’t really think of a better time to have it.

“I know you were sleeping with him.” He might have been discussing a refinance option.

“That’s…I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” She knew it was weak, but she wasn’t prepared.

“I can forgive you for that. Especially now. Just…” He couldn’t say it.

“What, Michael? Just what?”

“I want to know if you killed him.”

She stood up, genuinely shocked or enacting a good approximation of it.

“You think I’d kill him? What about you? Maybe you were tired of him banging your wife and handled it. Are you glad he’s dead, Michael? Does that fit your plan? Go fuck yourself, Mikey, cause you’re sure as hell not fucking me anymore.” She spat it out, already walking toward the door.

“Go on, then. Run. Just what a murderer would do.”

The bang of the door slamming made him jump. He pulled out his phone and typed. Stopped. Typed again. Can we talk?

✦

They came around shortly after. Asked where she was. He said he didn’t know. They didn’t believe him. Paperwork was shown; lawyers were called. The search of the house was detailed; four hours. The search of the car was not. Four minutes before they found the gun. An arrest warrant was issued.

They picked Jen up, driving south toward Mexico in a rental car. She didn’t resist. When they got her into the box, it was all over but the shouting. “We searched your home, Jen,” Stevens said. She was unimpressed.

“We also searched your car.”

“I just rented it yesterday.”

“Not the rental. Your car.”

“Impossible. I asked for a lawyer and I sure as hell didn’t give you permission.”

“Ah, but there’s the beauty,” Swanson said, a satisfied smile on his face, “you didn’t have to. The car is in your husband’s name, and he did give us permission.”

She stopped talking then. They told her about the gun they found, how it matched the striations perfectly, and was undoubtedly Landon’s murder weapon. She sat quietly while they outlined the consequences she could expect to face. Death, mostly, because it was Missouri. She just laughed. “Whatever you say. I don’t do guns.”

Michael confirmed it, reluctantly. “I tried to tell her I was going to keep a gun in the safe for home defense and she lost her mind. Even the idea of a firearm made her nauseous.”

It didn’t matter. Motive, means, opportunity. A body and a murder weapon for good measure.

The jury was unanimous. Guilty. First-degree murder. Jen smiled at the verdict, glad to release her death-grip on hope.

✦

The sun was enough to enchant me. The sparkling sand, the blue water that stretched to forever, and the private beach were icing. I sat on the deck of the beach house, drink in hand. What a beautiful Belizean day. I saw the news, of course. Jen looked guilty as hell, and the latest news was the search for Michael. He’d given interviews every day of the trial until the last, when he was just gone.

You should know it wasn’t about the affair. I didn’t even know about that until the news story broke. Anyway, who murders her husband for an affair when she’s having one, too? That would be crazy. It was all about cash. One point two five million dollars, to be exact, and it was the easiest money I ever made.

I could live down here, free of extradition and guilt, for decades to come.

Not that they’d ever figure it out. Jen was in jail for the murder I committed, largely thanks to the gun and lack of alibi. My double had worn the clothes I’d ordered, and her son had lived to see another day. Joy in Mudville, all around.

Since “I” was in the hotel and couldn’t possibly have murdered my husband, the life insurance was quick about paying out. They’d even sent a nice letter with the check, blathering about their condolences. Everyone always thinks it’s about love, betrayal, emotion. They never think about the massive amounts of money.

The funny thing? I did love Landon. Just not $1.25 million dollars’ worth.

I stood and poured my new husband another drink as I brushed a kiss across his cheek. “I love you,” I said.

Michael smiled like he understood.