Glancing to the left, Jeff was surprised to see the small, white church sitting a hundred feet off Highway 85 in the middle of a field of bright, yellow daffodils. He had never seen so many daffodils in his life. There was nothing around except for the small church in the daffodil-laden field, a parking lot to the rear. He wasn’t sure if he had ever seen a whiter church, it seemed almost to glow in a reflective yellow. The illuminated message sign by the highway is what really captured his attention.

Not a cloud in the blue Atlanta sky, Jeffrey Ross made his morning visit to the Dunwoody Starbucks, expecting this day to be like any other. It wouldn’t. Samarra Russell left her meeting at Emory Medical Center after receiving the strange call and wondered if it had anything to do with her immunology research at CDC. It was a secret, or was supposed to be. Going home as instructed, Samarra opened the box of Valentine candy on the kitchen counter and collapsed. Before losing her balance, Samarra recognized the small finger, severed and still wearing the tiny ring she gave him for his 7th birthday. Her precious son. She opened the note after regaining limited senses and read. If she didn’t want to receive young Thomas Russell’s head in a box, she would do as instructed.,br. And she did.