And if she really was innocent? The thought made me cringe.

I was about halfway home when I noticed headlights in my rearview mirror. They were approaching fast. I thought about pulling over and letting whoever was in such a hurry pass, but I was on a narrow, curvy stretch of road with steep slopes on both sides.

To my right were rocky cliffs, and to my left, thirty feet below, was the lake.

The vehicle behind me turned its headlights on bright when it got to within fifty feet or so. I had to turn the rearview mirror down to keep from being blinded. I slowed and looked in the side-view mirror.

The vehicle was right on my tail.

I started tapping the brakes to try to get whoever it was to back off. They didnt. I sped up around a sharp curve but almost lost control in a patch of gravel. When I got the truck straightened back out, the vehicle bumped me.

"Why, you sorry sonofabitch . . ." I slammed on the brakes, and the truck skidded to a halt in the middle of a short straightaway. I kept an old aluminum baseball bat under the seat, and I fully intended to use it on the person behind me. I reached down and felt for the bat, hoping whoever it was didnt have a gun.

With a sudden loud crash, my truck jerked forward. I twisted around and looked out the rear windshield over the bed. I could tell that the vehicle silhouetted behind me was a pickup, bigger than mine, but between the surrounding darkness and the glare of the headlights, I couldnt make out the color.

It was pushing me along the road.

I turned back and grabbed the wheel, trying to hold the truck straight and pushing on the brakes with all my strength. The tires screamed, but the truck began slowly to turn towards the lake. I tried to turn hard to the right, but the truck behind me had gotten its bumper into my left rear fender and was turning me. I was moving faster by the second, and I had absolutely no control.

A moment later, I felt the right front tire drop off the embankment. Id been turned almost one hundred eighty degrees. I looked and at last caught a glimpse of the truck that was pushing me. It was a silver Dodge. Then the right rear dropped, and my truck was rolling. My head slammed into the steering wheel and I saw a flash of bright light. I felt a brief sense of dizziness. I thought I heard a splash, then an explosion, and then I thought I was being smothered.

And then it was silent and still. I felt fingers gently rubbing across my forehead.

"Joe," a voice said. "Joe, honey, its time to wake up. Cmon, baby, you have to wake up." It was Carolines voice.

I awoke to the sound of a rushing waterfall. It was dark, and my wife was nowhere to be found. I looked around. I was leaning hard to my right and being restrained by something. I reached down and realized it was a seat belt. Something was pushing against my face. An air bag. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I remembered that the Dodge had pushed me over the embankment. I was in the lake, and the sound I heard wasnt a waterfall; it was the lake rushing in through the open passenger window.

As I struggled with the seat belt, the truck began to level off and more water started pouring in through the drivers side.

"I am not going to drown!" I said out loud. "I am not going to drown in this fucking lake!"

I got the belt off, scooted out from beneath the air bag, and crouched in the middle of the seat. Water was pouring in so fast on either side of me that there was no way I could get out. I knew Id have to wait until the truck was submerged. I looked around frantically. The headlights were still on. I could see bubbles rising as the truck sank in the water. I pulled my shoes off. The water continued to pour and roar.

And then it was black. The water began to cover me. It was so cold I could barely breathe. My face was nearly against the roof as the cab finally filled.

I took a deep breath and pushed myself through the passenger side window. The truck had started to roll in the water, and for a second, I had no idea which direction to swim.

I thought about the bubbles in the headlights. Bubbles rise, Joe. Follow the bubbles. I let out some air and felt the bubbles rise across my face. I kicked for my life, and a few seconds later, I broke the surface.

It was eerily quiet, but the moon gave off enough light that I could make out the features of the landscape around me. I was only about twenty feet from the steep, rocky bank where Id gone over. I looked up to see whether whoever tried to kill me"and I knew it had to be Junior Tester"was still there. I couldnt see or hear anyone.

Boone is a mountain lake, and the water was bone chilling. My teeth started chattering and my hands and feet were already beginning to tingle. I knew I had to get out fast. I swam for the bank, got hold of some overhanging brush, and pulled myself up onto the rocks. I sat there for a couple of minutes, caught my breath, and tried to compose myself.

I took inventory of my body first. I didnt seem to be hurt too badly. My ribs and chest were sore, but I didnt think I had any broken bones. All of my joints seemed to be in working order and I didnt have any trouble making a fist with either hand. I noticed something warm running down my face and touched it. I was bleeding from a cut above my left eye. It was tender and beginning to swell, but I didnt think it was too serious. I looked up the bank and realized how far the truck had fallen. I was lucky to be alive.

It took me at least ten minutes to crawl up the rocky slope to the road. I crouched in some brush for several minutes. A couple of cars went by, but I was afraid to stand up and wave for fear that Junior might come back. I finally mustered the courage to get up and start walking down the asphalt road. I knew there were houses about a mile away. After about a quarter mile, I found myself wishing I hadnt shed my shoes.

As I walked down the road with my socks squishing and the warm blood running down the side of my face, I wondered if Junior thought hed succeeded in killing me. What about Caroline and Lilly? Would he be crazy enough to go after one of them? I felt my heart quicken, and I began to jog.

A short time later, I made my way to a farmhouse set about a hundred yards off the road. Nearly every light in the house was on. As I climbed the steps, I looked down and noticed the front of my shirt was soaked with blood. I wondered what kind of reception Id get when whoever answered the door saw a blood-soaked stranger wearing a tie and no shoes standing on the porch.

I knocked. A small dog immediately started yapping, and a woman who looked to be around seventy soon appeared at the door. She pulled the curtain aside and peered up at me through oval-shaped glasses. Her gray hair was pulled into a tight bun. A look of horror immediately came over her face"I must have looked even worse than I felt.

"What do ye want?" she yelled through the door.

"Ive been in an accident," I said. "I need to use your phone."

"Air ye drunk?"

"No, maam."

She looked me up and down. "Soaking wet and ye aint got no shoes. Wheres yer shoes?"

"In the lake," I said. "My car went into the lake.

I had to swim out."

"Ye drove yer car into the lake? Whatd ye do a damn fool thing like that fer?"

"I didnt mean to, maam. It was an accident.

Please, if you could just hand the phone out the door, Id really appreciate it."

"Yer bleeding like a stuck hog."

"I know. I hit my head."

"Got a name?"

"Dillard. My name is Joe Dillard."

"Dillard? Any kin to Hobie and Rena Dillard out Sulphur Springs?"

"I dont think so. Please, maam, do you have a phone I can use?"

"Well, I reckon," she said after a thoughtful moment. "Ye dont look like a hoodlum."

She opened the door and I stumbled in. It must have been the tie.

June 16 11:00 p.m.

Id called Caroline from the mountain womans house, and she and Lilly had come to pick me up.

Lilly started crying when she saw me. After I got into the car and things settled down a little, I told Caroline what happened and who I thought had pushed me into the lake.

"What are you going to do?" she said.

"Im not sure. Guess Ill start by calling the police."

I used Carolines cell phone to call 911 from the car. Mine was at the bottom of Boone Lake in the console of my truck. I told the dispatcher what had happened and that I was headed to the emergency room. She said theyd send someone up.

Since the attack had occurred in the county, jurisdiction for my attempted murder fell to the Washington County sheriffs department. An investigator showed up and stood beside the gurney while a doctor stitched up my eye.

The damage amounted to a bruised sternum, a few bruised ribs, and a two-inch gash above the orbital bone that surrounded my left eye. The doctor covered the eye while he stitched, so I could see the investigator whod been dispatched to talk to me only out of my right eye. His name was Sam Wiseman. Sam was almost seven feet tall and had to weigh in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds.

He was a surly man, and he had no compunction about letting me know that he didnt like me. His feelings stemmed from a case Id defended a couple of years earlier. A group of teenagers had vandalized a Baptist church in the county. They broke every pane of glass in the place and threw paint and mustard and anything else they could find all over the sanctuary. By the time they were finished, theyd done more than fifty thousand dollars worth of damage. Sam caught the case, and unfortunately for my client, a fifteen-year-old girl named Delores McKinney, the church they vandalized happened to be the church that Sam attended every Sunday with his mother.

Sam insisted that every one of the juveniles go off to detention for at least a year, a demand I considered unreasonable since my client was a good student, had no record whatsoever, admitted what shed done after she sobered up, and her parents were more than willing to reimburse the church for her share of the damages. She pleaded guilty to vandalism, and I hired a psychologist for the sentencing hearing. When the juvenile court judge heard how much the kids had to drink, heard that they stole the booze and the pills they took from their own parents, and heard the shrink testify about peer pressure and gang mentality, she put them all on probation. Sam blamed it on me.

As I lay on the gurney, I ran back through the nights events for Sam and told him about Testers son and what had happened in the courtroom at Angels arraignment. The problem was that I hadnt actually seen the person driving the truck either time.

I didnt even have a tag number.

"I cant get a warrant based on what youve told me," Sam said.

"I know."

"I can find out where he lives and see if the sheriff will let me go down and talk to him tomorrow."

"I doubt hell admit to anything."

"There might be some damage on his truck, but you have to understand itll be damned hard to prove anything. If youre going to accuse a sheriffs deputy of doing something this crazy, youre going to need more than suspicion."

"I understand."

Sam finished taking his notes and gruffly told me hed make sure my insurance company got a copy of his report. The doctor finished stitching me up, and Caroline, Lilly, and I walked out the door. We started home in silence.

"What are you going to do?" Caroline asked again about ten minutes later.

"Im not sure, but you and Lilly have to be extra careful now, do you understand? Maybe you should go away for a couple of weeks."

"Im not about to let some lunatic run me out of my home," Caroline said.

"Hes a dangerous lunatic, Caroline. Arent you just a little afraid?"

"A little, but if he comes anywhere near the house, Rio will tear his leg off, and if he gets past Rio, I have a big strong Ranger to take care of me."

"He almost got the best of your big strong Ranger tonight."

"But he didnt, did he? My Ranger lives to fight another day."

It was past midnight when we got home, and I was sore and tired. Lilly was still upset, so I told her to sleep in our bed. After we were sure she was asleep, I double-checked to make sure all the doors and windows were locked. Caroline had taken a seat on the couch in the den, and I went in and lay down with my head in her lap.

"You saved my life tonight," I said as she stroked my forehead.

"Really? How?"

"When I went over the bank, I hit my head on the steering wheel. It knocked me out, but this voice kept telling me to wake up. It was your voice. You woke me up before I drowned."

She leaned over and kissed me softly.

"Ill always be there when you need me, babe,"

she said. "Always."

I closed my eyes with the taste of her mouth lingering, and somehow managed to drift off to sleep.

June 17 2:30 p.m.

I was so sore the next morning I could barely get off the couch, so I spent the day at home, looking out the window, worrying and wondering. I got hold of Jack a little before noon, but I didnt tell him anything about Junior Tester. Hed been invited to play baseball for Martinsville in the Coastal Plains League over the summer and was having the time of his life.

He said he was still hitting the ball great and had talked to several big league scouts. I promised him Id make it up there to see him play sometime soon.

Sam Wiseman called at two thirty in the afternoon and told me hed called the Cocke County sheriffs department and learned that Tester had taken a weeks vacation.

"I called his house, but nobody answered," Sam said.

"Are you planning to go down there?"

"I ran it by my supervisor. He said since you didnt see the driver and dont have a tag number, itd be a waste of time."

"What if the front end of his truck is banged up like you said at the hospital? What if it has paint on it the same color as my truck?"

"You know how it is around here. Weve only got five investigators to cover three shifts. Theres been a string of burglaries were working, and the boss wants me to keep concentrating on that. He said he cant let me go chasing around Cocke County on a case I dont have much chance of making."

"This is bullshit, Sam. What about my family?"

"What about them?"

"Cant you spare anyone to look out for them? At least for a few days."

"We barely have enough road deputies to cover patrols. Besides, you havent exactly . . ." His voice trailed off without finishing the sentence, but the tone alarmed me.

"I havent exactly what, Sam?"

"You havent exactly made a bunch of friends around here over the years, you know. Not many people here are willing to go out of their way to help you."

"So youre telling me that the sheriffs department wont help me because Im a defense lawyer?"

"Im telling you we only have five investigators to cover three shifts, we dont have enough patrol deputies to provide security for one family, we have a lot of other cases, and youre accusing a law enforcement officer of a serious crime with no real evidence to back it up. Im afraid there isnt much I can do."

"So what the hell am I supposed to do? Wait for him to come back?"

"Maybe you ought to buy a gun."

"I already have guns. I was hoping you guys would do something so I wouldnt have to use them."

"Sorry. Like I said, were not going to be able to do anything right now."