Excerpt of Chase the Moon by Dinah McCall

Chapter 1

New Zion, Kentucky
Present Day

Gracie Moon stood at the edge of the river, her fishing pole float bobbing in the water. Her blue jeans were old, her T-shirt soft and well-worn. Her hair was long and black, and this morning in honor of her fishing expedition, she wore it in a single braid down the middle of her back. She teetered back and forth on the tips of her toes, while her eldest brother, Brady, watched from the shore.

Suddenly the float went under, and she gave the pole a yank.

"I caught another one!" The fish came flying out of the water and up on the bank where it promptly unhooked itself and began to flop.

Brady laughed and ran to catch it before it got back in the water. Holding it firmly by the lip, he threaded the stringer through the fish gill, adding it to the stringer of fish that already caught. He held it up for inspection.

"Father is going to love breakfast this morning," he said. "Fresh panfried fish is his favorite.

"I know," Gracie said. "And fishing is my favorite thing. It works well together, don't you think?"

Droplets from the mist were clinging to Gracie's face and hair. Brady grinned down at her and tweaked her nose. Eleven years separated them in age, and he'd been her champion ever since she could remember.

"Remember the day you baited your first hook?" he asked.

Gracie laughed. "Yes, and you made sure I didn't forget it. Mother made spaghetti that night, and every time you took a bite, you held up the spaghetti noodles, dangling them like worms over your mouth before you slurped them down your throat."

"Didn't you know it's a brother's duty to aggravate younger siblings, especially sisters?" He hugged her, just because he could.

Gracie spun out of his arms and reached for her fish. "Come on," she said. "Father's probably wondering where I've gone."

Brady shook his head. "He won't worry. He knows I would never let anyone hurt you." A shadow darkened his eyes as he added, "Ever."

Gracie rolled her eyes. "Oh, Brady, you treat me as if I'm still a child."

She picked up her pole and the stringer of fish and started back up the mountain to the compound where her family dwelled.

Gracie's words were still echoing in Brady's head as he stared into the swiftly moving water. When he glanced up she was already out of sight. He sighed, picked up his rifle, and followed her up the path. She was right. Father would be waiting.

The sun was little more than a promise on the horizon when John Baretta stepped outside his small one-room cabin to greet the day Due to an early morning fog, visibility was almost nonexistent, and he knew by the time the sun came up and the moisture in the air began to rise, it would get worse before it got better.

Right now, he could almost appreciate the wisdom of an old man who'd uprooted his family and retreated to the uppermost regions of these Kentucky hills. Elijah Moon was a pacifist. A man who had created a community on these desolate mountains that he called New Zion. Fed Up with the world, and saddened by the loss of his wife of forty- eight years, he'd rejected everything except God and family.

John closed his eyes, savoring the softness of the mist upon his face. Here in the early morning quiet, it was almost as if the last one hundred years had never been. Far away from what Elijah called the rot of civilization, the peace on the mountains seemed close to holy.

But John Baretta knew that when the fog burned off, it would be impossible to hide the truth of what New Zion had become. In spite of the old man's dreams, his eldest son, Brady Moon, had turned New Zion into a hotbed of militia- minded people seeking revenge, and blaming everyone except themselves for their troubles.

Six weeks ago, John Baretta had arrived in little Rome, Kentucky, posing as the last surviving relative of the recently deceased, Lady Crockett. It wasn't the first time the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had sent him undercover, but this time it was proving to be one of the most difficult cases. However, like his brother, Jake, who worked for another agency of the federal government, John Baretta was very good at what he did.

Coming into Little Rome as Jake Crockett was easier than he'd imagined. The late Lady Crockett did have a grandson named Jacob Crockett. But she hadn't seen him since he was a baby, and neither had anyone else in Little Rome. So while the real Jake Crockett was safely behind bars in a California maximum security prison, John Baretta was living a lie behind a criminal's name.

To John, the irony of it all had been the name he was given to use. It wouldn't be hard to answer to the name Jake. As children, he and his twin had often traded identities. They were so identical that once in a while even their parents had to look twice to see which twin was which.

John inhaled slowly, savoring the clean, fresh scent of the piney woods and listening to the moisture dripping from the leaves on nearby trees.

In the last few weeks, he'd become a part of the group, almost by name alone. Lady Crockett's husband, like so many in this part of the country, had long been a vocal supporter of the right to bear arms. And Jake Crockett made no bones about having served time in prison. His antigovernment rhetoric alone had made him a welcome member of New Zion.

But as welcomed as he'd been, in a few days he planned to leave. He had seen and heard all he needed to have warrants issued and everyone connected with New Zion convicted and imprisoned. And while he felt satisfaction for a job well done, he knew he was going to have one regret, and that was Elijah Moons only daughter, Gracie. Because of where she lived, she was going to be brought down with the rest, and he would have bet his entire career that she was innocent of Brady Moons intrigue...