Blood is Black

BLOOD IS BLACK A LEGAL THRILLER SCOTT PRATT © 2023 Phoenix Flying LLC All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Created with Vellum CONTENTS Acknowledgments Kristy Preface Prologue I. Twenty Years Later Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Part II Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Part III Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Epilogue Last Resort SCOTT PRATT Acknowledgments Kristy Preface The Summer Before Part I 1. Tuesday, April 12 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 5. Five Days Later About the Author Also by Scott Pratt ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to Dan Pratt and Travis Johns for helping me bring this manuscript to completion after Dad’s death. It was a long, difficult road. To Mom and Dad - Save me a seat by the lake and have a Bud Light waiting on me if it isn’t too much trouble. In a bottle. I’ll find you when the time is right. I loved you both before I was born, and I’ll love you both after I’m long gone. -Dylan Pratt KRISTY This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit, and to her inspirational courage. I loved her before I was born and I’ll love her after I’m long gone. -Scott Pratt PREFACE “To the victor belongs the spoils.” —New York Senator William L. Marcy, referring to the election of Tennessee’s Andrew Jackson in the presidential election of 1828. PROLOGUE My name is Presley Myers. I’m in bed, a twelve-year-old girl with twelve-year-old girl problems. I’ve just gotten my period, which frightens me a bit and makes me confused, embarrassed, and irritable. Anyway, it’s close to 1:00 a.m., and I’ve been in bed since ten thirty. It’s a Wednesday, and I have to go to school in the morning. I’ve barely closed my eyes, and I can still hear my younger brother, Aaron, breathing heavily across the hall. He’s afraid of the dark, so he sleeps with a night light and his bedroom door open, but once he falls asleep, there is no waking him. I can hear a breeze blowing outside. A tree branch scratches the house as it moves back and forth in the wind. I get up to go to the bathroom and see my mother turn out the light in my parents’ room. I walk over to the top of the steps and look down. A dim light slips out from beneath the door of my father’s study. His name is William Myers, but everyone calls him Bill. He’s a lawyer who practices criminal defense and often works late. I rub my eyes, finally feeling sleepy, and go back to bed. A little after two in the morning, I hear footsteps on the wooden deck outside the front door. My heart rate accelerates when the hinges on the front door creak. The footsteps are now in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs, moving in the direction of my dad’s study. My gut tightens as I roll out of bed and creep toward the landing. I hear muffled voices—my father’s voice and the voice of another man—as I creep silently down the stairs. It’s a short conversation. And then the gun blast. One shot. It reverberates through the house like a cannon. I freeze. Then a tall man wearing a long black overcoat and a black ski mask walks out of daddy’s office. The sight of him petrifies me. He squares his shoulders to me once he realizes I’m there, and I can see the outline of a pistol hanging loosely from his right hand. I know for sure he is going to shoot me. I lower my eyes and wait for it. But there is no loud bang. No pain. Only footsteps as he approaches and pats my head. It feels gentle, pure, and honest. Like he cares. It confuses me, so I look up. The two holes in the man’s mask focus my attention on his eyes, and that’s when I see it. One eye, bright blue. The other, dark brown. It’s just a glimpse, because almost as soon as our eyes meet, the man walks quickly out of our house. Taking my life as I know it with him. It doesn’t take long after the shot for the house to explode with movement. My mother hurries down the stairs and asks if I’m okay. I can’t form an answer, but the nod of my head reassures her enough that she continues into the study. That’s when I hear her scream. It raises goosebumps on my skin and hairs on my neck. And, like the gunshot, there is only one. Then the quiet. That’s when