Page 3 of The Chain House

Warden Wren, up until the dreaded picture was sent to him via text, had been adamant that Sal Batise receive no interview before his death. When asked by reporters why he’d reversed his decision, he told them after receiving so many requests daily, now that the execution was on their doorstep, that he’d had a change of heart, pure and simple. Quickly adding, with a smile that even to him felt phony, that he’d prayed on it. And now here they were.

With his right hand covering what he’d written, Sal playfully slid the card back toward Warden Wren, who plucked it out from beneath the weight of Sal’s fingers.

It was written in calligraphy, just as he’d assumed, but instead of a major network or news outlet or famous reporter, Sal had written two words. A name.

Sam Harper.

Warden Wren said, “Is this a joke?”

“I don’t joke, Warden Wren.” He leaned back in the chair, smiled. “You know that.”

“Who is Sam Harper?”

Sal shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

CHAPTER1

THERE WERE PERKS to being the governor’s wife.

Too many, in fact, Beth Hawthorne remembered thinking several nights ago, tipsy from Moscato, in the final hours of their yearly August clambake on the grounds of the governor’s mansion, standing atop the bluff overlooking their in-ground pool and trellised flower gardens as fancily dressed guests roamed about with cocktails.

She too often felt guilty because of the perks, wondering if it was all too much, when so many still lived paycheck to paycheck, or in poverty, or even on the streets.

The ever-widening divide between the haves and the have-nots.

It was also why she was such a beloved First Lady.

She cared. Not only for the well-being of the people in their state of Kentucky, whether left wing or right wing and everything in between, but for people in general, and because of it she’d never been viewed in public or online as anything other than wholesome and genuine.

She and her husband, Governor Gavin Hawthorne, both Independents, were as middle of the road as politicians could get—she a psychiatrist originally from Boston, and he a former Major League baseball player from Louisville. But while the governor, at fifty, was known for his rakish good looks, his charm on the campaign trail, and his cheeky charisma during speeches, it was Dr. Bethany Brooks Hawthorne who often took the spotlight, and was, as Governor Hawthorne often admitted, not only the quarterback behind it all but his better in every way. For them, it truly was their teamwork that made their dream work, and their recent popularity as good-vibes-only vocal centrists in a country so divided by right and left had them rumored, now in their final year in their second term as Governor and First Lady, to be likely third party candidates for a presidential run in 2028.

Gavin’s answer, whenever asked about a possible White House run, was always the same: Sure, I think I’d make a pretty darn good First Gentleman, don’t you?

And for that reason, as Dr. Bethany Hawthorne liked to tease the security guard now tasked with accompanying her on morning runs, she had to stay in shape. Who knew what their future might hold? But the security guard, who’d begun to accompany them damn near everywhere they went, was a perk she’d grown tired of long ago. While she tended to win most arguments with the governor, discussion over her safety was a fight in which she didn’t engage. Gavin was protective of her to a fault, and the same went for their two grown children, Thomas and Sarah, if not more so.

And who could blame him?

Gavin Hawthorne knew tragedy all too well—back in 2003, in a three-year span, it had come at him as an unrelentingly cruel two-headed monster. Gavin was a rookie for the Cincinnati Reds, while he and Beth had two children in diapers, when his younger sister Emily, living the life of a happy, single twenty-five-year-old in Manhattan, disappeared a month after her promotion as a fiction acquisitions editor at the prestigious Stanton Publishing House. Emily, who had been Beth’s matron of honor at their wedding, had last been seen running through Central Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon in June—and was never seen again. Three years later, when Gavin was toiling through his floundering baseball career and becoming increasingly homesick from being away from his young family, a horrible attack left four of his family members dead and Beth grievously wounded in what would come to be called the Hawthorne murders.

On a warm Saturday evening in May 2006, members of Sal Batise’s cult, The Collective, had emerged soundlessly from the surrounding woods masked in balaclavas and swarmed a private party at the Hawthorne mansion armed with machetes, murdering nine in a matter of minutes. The list of dead included four from Gavin’s family, including his cousin Justin Hawthorne, who had been the man of the hour that night, celebrating the publication of his debut novel, The Craze, a horror thriller—which went on to hit the New York Times best-seller list and stayed there until Sal and three other cult members from The Collective were found guilty nearly a year later. Sal, even though not present that night, was sentenced to death. Nancy Tanner, Sylvia Purell, and Annie Blackburn were sentenced to life in prison without parole. The fourth cult member’s identity that evening was unknown, with only one of the survivors remembering seeing a man in a tuxedo wearing white gloves and a Guy Fawkes mask, his weapon of choice the sharpened corkscrew end of a wine bottle opener.

Beth Hawthorne still had scars from that encounter—she was the survivor of the mystery cult member’s attack that night, seeing him casually walking through the house as chaos reigned all around, his boots, big and dirty and brown, in contrast to the slick black pants of his tuxedo, his footfalls heavy on the old wood floors, all as dozens of guests screamed in panic, attempting to flee as the three women in balaclava masks butchered anyone within reach. But while Nancy Tanner, Sylvia Purell, and Annie Blackburn seemed to be killing at random, this man moved with cold, calculated purpose, stopping only when he spotted Beth hiding behind a fancy sofa in the cigar room as if she had been his lone target. He’d grabbed her by the ankle and started stabbing relentlessly with the corkscrew, first in her left calf, and then her right thigh, before moving upward with near-fatal blows to her abdomen and chest and the left side of her neck. The last she remembered was him straddling her waist, pinning her hands to the hardwood floor. She’d lost too much blood by then to fight, and he was too strong. His face lowered to within inches of hers, his eyes dark as coal, gleaming wet through the holes of the Guy Fawkes mask.

That was when she blacked out, only to wake up the next morning in the ICU, connected by wires and IV drips to machines, her husband bedside and holding a hand she could no longer feel.

At trial, when asked about the fourth member of their crew that night, Sylvia Purell and Annie Blackburn both categorically denied anyone other than the three of them—who called themselves Sal’s Angels—being at the mansion. Nancy Tanner, historically considered the weakest link of the Angels, mentioned a man by the name of Justice Minks. He was a wisp, Nancy had said on the stand under oath, adding, almost playfully, that Justice Minks was like fire smoke, in a way. One minute he was there and the next he was gone, with only a hint of him remaining, like a smell just to remind you something just got burned. She later recanted that part of her testimony, admitting she was under the influence of drugs somehow sneaked into the prison. By the time the authorities infiltrated the Freedom Ranch to arrest Sal Batise and his Angels, most members of The Collective had fled, but no evidence of the existence of the mystery man, Justice Minks, was found. Of the dozens of cult members who stayed behind to fight for their cause or for questioning, not one admitted to knowing a man named Justice Minks. And in each of the dozens of interviews during Sal Batise’s time on death row, he either denied the man’s existence or referred to him as “fire smoke,” just as Nancy Tanner had at trial.

Beth, a thirty-year-old doctor at the time of the attack, had nearly died before the ambulances arrived, and had suffered deeply from survivor’s guilt, going to great pains to make sure none of her scars could be seen in public. But in recent years, and especially during Gavin’s early campaign trails, she began to wear dresses and outfits that didn’t conceal her scars, as reminders to never forget that horrifying evening. Gavin had been on the road pitching that night in Atlanta, and sat bedside at the hospital for two weeks as Beth convalesced, then retired abruptly from baseball. A year later, he began his career as a politician, and he never shied away from his outspoken views in favor of capital punishment while Sal Batise continued to live and breathe on death row, as flippant and unapologetic as he’d been when he was first convicted and sentenced.

With Batise set to die in less than two days by lethal injection, Beth didn’t fight the extra security her husband demanded. The ramped-up media coverage nationwide had brought out the protesters at the new Kentucky State Penitentiary at Twisted Tree, including some vocally active crazies with threats on the family. Governor Hawthorne didn’t want to take any chances.

Due to a judge-issued injunction blocking executions back in 2010, no death row inmates had been executed in Kentucky since 2008. But during the first year of Governor Hawthorne’s first term, the injunction was lifted on the grounds that the previous concerns had been revised and addressed, and the wheel of capital punishment started rotating again. Sal Batise, the psychotic cult leader, the so-called Breaker of Chains, became the face of it.

But with no more apparent tricks up his sleeve and with all appeals exhausted, Batise, for the first time since his arrest, appeared to have lost the flair that had kept him alive. He appeared, according to Warden Wren at the Twisted Tree State Penitentiary, to finally be ready to meet his Maker, almost contently so. Beth had heard he’d agreed to one last interview, and if rumors were true, Sal was to pick which network as early as today. But with Governor Hawthorne repeatedly refusing clemency no matter how many threats he received from the thousands of Sal Batise’s fans from across the country, it appeared Batise would finally die by lethal injection.

So Beth no longer took her morning jog alone.

She only wished the security could keep up.