Emily's diagnosis came early, days after she was born. Her muscles, except for her most important muscle- her heart, would not function properly. This was apparent to everyone who held her in the neonatal intensive care unit. She was a heavily weighted rag doll when held. Hypotonia, is what the doctors called it. Hypotonia, poor muscle tone, was one of the first of hundreds of medical terms Sarah and Jacob would learn. The baby wouldn't eat properly at first, she had a hard time working her hypotonic tongue and lips to feed. Through intravenous feedings to keep her weight up and with the aid of very her first occupational therapist, the girl overcame her feeding difficulties in about a week.

Raising her head, rolling over, sitting up, crawling and walking would be a completely different and much longer story, filled with the complexities of various therapists, exercises and contraptions designed to get her mobile. Emily would rollover at the age of one year, struggle at belly crawling by two, sit up on her own at three, standing and balancing, while holding the arm of the couch at five and taking her first steps at the age seven. Jacob proudly gave her wheelchair away to the hospital when she turned eight. All of Emily's milestones occurred in the animated glow of the television, with her constant cartoons that never ceased to mesmerize the small immobile child.

If there was anything the child enjoyed more than television, it was movement. Traveling in a vehicle was most exciting to Emily, she would kick her feet, flap her arms and squeal with delight. It was in their travels that they would realize how aware of her surroundings the child actually was. She would become animated when they would make the turn onto their street, anticipating that they were almost home. She would become upset if they passed the nearby grocery store without stopping to shop, something they did with her quite often. Jacob would put the all windows down in the car and the girl would enjoy feeling wind on her face, even in the stifling heat of north Florida.

When Jacob brought home a bright red Russian motorcycle complete with sidecar for Emily, Sarah was not at all amused. He would lift his girl in and out of that sidecar before she could walk. The noise of the engine never bothered her and Emily would learn to accept the heavy helmet and googles of she wanted to "Go GO GO!" While Sarah would learn to accept that Emily loved riding in what would eventually fondly referred be to as: "The Beastie".

Jacob built a custom barrier just high enough to keep her curious young hands away from hot shiny chrome engine and had a large blue "Person in the Wheelchair" or handicap symbol, painted onto the nose of the sidecar at a local paint and body shop. Sarah would question his large special needs "advertisement" on the motorcycle, but Jacob soon discovered that as people stopped to admire the Beastie, some would ask about the symbol. Giving Jacob an opening to talk about his daughter- something that was never easy to do.

Jacob rolled the shiny red beastie out of the garage as Emilystood alone in the driveway. Her pinkbackpack filled with a just-in-case change of clothing as well as her lunch forthe day, which her father had prepared the night before. She climbed into the sidecar and he helped her with her helmet and goggles before speeding down the street and onto old A1A. The pair traveled over the high hump of a bridge spanning over the wide Matanzas intercoastal waterway. Emily would always squeal with delight when they traveled over the tall bridge; offering a spectacular distant view of downtown St. Augustine, with its skyline of college spires, the shimmering church dome and varied angles of historic architecture. Dozens of sailboat masts stood tall and stoic in the calm waters at the marina with a low drawbridge cutting across it as a backdrop. Farther to the east, the daymarked black and white striped lighthouse tower was visible above the green horizon of the hammock of trees.

The old town- the oldest town stood, over the Matanzas bay like a weary sailor longing to be recognized and tell its tales to anyone who would listen and lately more and more people were listening. “The oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States” founded by the Spanish in 1565 was emerging as a buzzing tourist destination with plenty of tales to tell.

After being a Spanish settlement and later growing into a fortified garrison town, the flags of Spain, later England and then Spain once again, claimed empire over the territory until the United States took possession. Florida would later become a state and except for the railroad development in the late 1800’s, the city of St. Augustine seemed to disappear into the category of a shallow harbored backwater, while the deeper and more navigable port cities of nearby Jacksonville, Miami and Havana would grow and thrive.

The wicked black southern stain of slavery did not spare many places in the south including the nation’s oldest city. In modern St.Augustine, a city counting heavily on its history, the enslavement of African souls was magnified, as was the laws of Jim Crow. The civil rights movement of the 1960’s had its share of spilled blood and struggle on the cobblestone streets of St. Augustine, the same streets where Dr. Martin Luther King protested peacefully and was arrested. The modern and diverse St. Augustine would embrace its past with open arms. The ancient city would measure its success by the number of hotel rooms booked and the receipts from the variety of tourist attractions.

Jacob dropped Emily off at the curb, where a teacher's aid was waiting for her. He continued on to his job, back tracking over the bridge to Irene's Coffee Shop. This had been is routine, sometimes without the Beastie, for several years.

The scent of fresh coffee and bagels overpowered the salty humid oceanic air before even entering the small shop at 8:30 am. The wooden windowed door was tight, swollen from the humidity, requiring a light yank to pull it open as the familiar bell rang announcing his entrance.

There was only a few local patrons at the coffee bar, sipping and listening to the county sheriff deputy speaking in his olive green uniform at a nearby table.

"Good Morning fellas. Blake, you're here early. I don't usually see you here until the afternoon," announced Jacob as the conversation paused.

"The sheriff had us out late, called in the airboats and had us search up and down Moultrie Creek all night," Blake responded

"But they found the boy, at what... 10pm?"

"Yep, but we were already out there so the sheriff decided we should check for anymore."

"Anymore?"

"There's a killer out there Jake and from what I've been hearing from forensics and FBI circles, the way Daniel was killed fits a pattern that's been happening through the Carolina's, into Georgia and now here; with multiple victims in the same location."

"But there's been no mention.."

"And there won't be any mention of any connection, hell most people here don't know about the murders farther north. It's a such wide timeline and large location. And with the celebration only months away the County Visitors Bureau doesn't want the possibility of a serial killer in our midst to overshadow stories of history, heritage and our pristine beaches."

Blake Anderson was a tall muscular graying man with a boyish face and a sometimes too serious demeanor. With the appearance of a square jawed seasoned Marine that had done several tours in Iraq, Blake actually fought the in longest war, the War on Drugs, while in the Coast Guard. He had a boyish grin at times also, whether spinning tall tales about the traffic stops of girls in short skirts, or telling sea stories about Caribbean rum and women.        

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