House of Reckoning (34 page)

“This is Mitch Garvey. I’m on my way home on the main highway and there’s something burning off to the north. I just turned onto Fox Hollow Road, and it looks a little bit east.”

“A house?”

“Can’t be—no houses out here. Think it’s got to be on the old dirt road. Maybe a car or something.”

“We’ll send a truck right away.”

Mitch closed his phone and slowed the pickup as he approached
the turnoff onto the old construction road, then made the right turn onto the narrow road, which was already covered with snow. Mitch sighed—for years the town had been dithering about turning this into a jogging and biking path, but year after year nothing happened, and more kids came out here to get into mischief.

And practically every year, at least one of the girls came home pregnant. Still, at least he didn’t need to worry about that—Tiffany was a good God-fearing girl.

The glow in the sky was getting brighter. Mitch slowed even more, came around a turn, and there it was. A car—or at least what started out as a car—was on fire. It was slewed crosswise, its front crushed against the retaining wall, the rest of it almost completely blocking the road. The windshield was shattered and the one door he could see was flung wide open, its window as ruined as the windshield.

He pulled as close as was safe, then got out of his truck.

And recognized the car
.

Acid flowed into his belly and up his chest as he watched it burn, the usual excitement of seeing flames clawing at the night sky fading quickly away.

A bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, Mitch backed away from the intense heat, opened his phone again and dialed Dan West’s home.

The first faint wailings of the fire engine’s siren floated through the night as he leaned against the front fender of his truck while he waited for either Dan or Andrea West to answer.

Ed Crane couldn’t get Mitch Garvey out of his mind.

More than an hour ago he’d put his empty chow tray onto the conveyor belt that took it back into the kitchen and started toward the common room. He was looking for nothing more than an empty seat to watch some television before going back to his cell for the night.

He caught a glimpse of a dark blue uniform out of the corner of his eye, but hadn’t thought much about it until a hand landed hard on his shoulder and pulled him backward, spun him around, and slammed him into the wall.

It was Mitch Garvey, who put a palm on his chest, keeping him pinned to the wall. Prisoners filed by, and Ed didn’t have to look at
them to know their eyes were staring straight ahead, none of them willing to get involved with whatever was going on between him and the screw.

“Sarah’s becoming a problem,” Mitch said, his voice low and his face too close to Ed’s. “And you’re part of Sarah’s problem. You and Bettina Philips.”

“How could I be a—”

“I’m doing the talking here,” Mitch interrupted, his face hard. “So listen up. Maybe I can’t keep you from seeing Sarah, but I can damn well keep you from seeing Bettina Philips. Problem is, I don’t want to have to fill out all that paperwork. So I’m telling you right now that if Bettina Philips comes here to see you again, you just refuse to see her. Got it?”

What the hell was he talking about? Ed wondered. How could Sarah’s art teacher be part of whatever “problem” Sarah might be causing?

Then he’d gotten it: she wasn’t a problem for Sarah—she was a problem for Mitch Garvey.

“I don’t think I—” Ed began.

“Listen to me!”
Mitch said through clenched teeth as he pressed Ed even harder into the wall. “Maybe we can’t stop her from going to art class, but that’s it! There’s something wrong with the Philips woman. She’s not Christian, and I won’t have your brat having anything to do with her. Not as long as she’s under my roof. Got it?”

Ed had gotten it, but his nod apparently hadn’t satisfied Garvey.

“You want her safe and happy, right?”

Ed nodded again.

“Then you do as I say.”

Ed nodded a third time, and after staring into Ed’s eyes for a few more seconds, Garvey abruptly dropped his hand away from Ed’s chest and sauntered down the hall.

Ed had watched him go, barely contained rage threatening to send him after the guard and at least take a shot at beating him senseless.

But that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Instead, he went to the common room, where a half-dozen inmates sat in a semicircle watching a sitcom. But whatever was on the set couldn’t penetrate his fury. A few men were playing cards, and a chess game was going on over in the corner, but Ed couldn’t get interested in either one.

So he’d sat in a chair at a table, alone, and stared at his hands, outwardly calm, waiting for his fury to subside.

It finally did, and then he knew exactly what he had to do.

Somehow, some way, he had to get Sarah out of the Garveys’ house, and there was only one person who could do that.

He jumped up from the table, went back to his cell and retrieved the business card he’d forgotten he even had until yesterday when he’d found it stuffed in his Bible, the only book they’d let him keep in his cell. He grabbed the card, then walked down the hallway to the cubicle where the prisoners’ phones were kept.

“Too late,” the guard said as he pointed at the clock.

“What do you mean?” Ed asked, looking up at it.

7:01.

“I mean it’s too late. Phones close at seven. Make your call tomorrow.”

“But it’s important,” Ed said.

The guard snorted. “It’s always important. It can be important tomorrow, too.”

His shoulders slumped as, for at least the twentieth time that day, the full weight of life in prison descended on him. Yet again he felt the infuriating powerlessness, the absolute impotence, the complete lack of control he held over anything.

And now he couldn’t even make a phone call to the one person who could make sure that his little girl was safe.

“N
ick, stop!” Sarah grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, gasping for breath. “I can’t go this fast or I’ll trip and fall.”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Nick said. “C’mon, I’ll help you.”

“Slow down!” Sarah gulped air into her burning lungs. “Where are we going?”

“Away from there,” Nick said, pointing back at the firelight still filtering through the trees. “We’re going to be blamed for that, just like we were blamed for killing Conner’s dog.”

“But it wasn’t our fault,” Sarah argued. “Conner was going to run over us.”

“We both saw what happened, Sarah,” Nick said, his eyes fixing on hers.

She knew exactly what he meant, but shook her head. “He hit the wall,” she insisted. “He went off the road and then his gas tank exploded or something.”

Now it was Nick who shook his head. “If anybody finds out we were there, nobody’s going to be looking at his gas tank.”

Sarah’s voice took on a desperate note. “We can’t just walk around in the woods all night. We need to go back to Bettina’s.”

“No way,” Nick said. “My dad—”

Now they heard the faint sound of a siren in the distance, and Sarah knew in an instant what it meant. “Hear that? That’s a fire truck, Nick. And there’s going to be more. We have to go back to Bettina’s. We’ll tell her what happened, and she’ll know what to do.”

“But my dad—” Nick began again, and once more Sarah cut him off.

“We don’t even know if your dad was really coming out here. At least we should go back to Bettina’s and see. If his car’s there, we’ll decide what to do then.”

Still Nick hesitated, but even as he tried to think of something that might be better than what Sarah wanted to do, he knew she was right. There wasn’t any way they could get back to town now without being spotted, unless they tried to go all the way through the woods, and even though he knew where they were right now, he didn’t have any real idea how to find the way back to town.

Shutters, yes—it wasn’t that far away.

But home?

At least a mile through the forest, with no trail, and the wind-driven snow starting to sting their faces. Sarah was right.

Turning away from the glow of Conner’s burning car, he started leading her back toward the old mansion overlooking the lake.

Shep Dunnigan opened the kitchen cabinet and pulled out two glasses.

“I’ll get those,” Lily said a little too quickly. “Just go sit down and I’ll bring you your plate and a beer.” She quickly added some sautéed string beans to the fried pork chop and a helping of mashed potatoes. If anything could improve Shep’s mood, it was pork chops and mashed potatoes, but so far even the promise of his favorite meal hadn’t cooled his simmering anger.

“I
got
them,” he snapped, turning to glare at her. “What’s going on with you, Lil? Is there something you’re not telling me?” When she came up with no answer, he shook his head in a gesture that clearly told her he was resigned to having a wife so stupid she couldn’t answer the simplest question. “Just put the plates on the table, Lily,” he said. “Think you can do that? I’ll be there in a sec.”

Lily picked up their plates and went to the dining room, leaving the third plate, covered with plastic wrap, in the microwave, ready to be reheated when Nick finally came home. But she was beginning to think maybe it was time to call the police or the hospital or something, rather than just wait while Shep got madder and madder. Except any call she might make would only make him even angrier, and when he got mad—

She cut the thought short, not even wanting to think about what he might do.

Shep, left alone in the kitchen, set the glasses on the counter, opened the refrigerator, and was just reaching for a beer for him and a Coke for Lily when he saw the corner of a plastic bag sticking out from behind the coffee canister.

He frowned.

Lily knew he hated it when she left anything but the canisters on the counter. Closing the refrigerator again, he pulled the offending Ziploc bag clear of the canister and held it up.

Inside was about an inch of dried leafy green stuff.

What the hell? It almost looked like pot. But what would Lily be doing with something like that? “Lil!” he called out in a tone that left no doubt he wanted her in the kitchen and he wanted her there now. A moment later she appeared in the doorway, and he held up the plastic bag. “What the hell is this?”

Her eyes widened. “J-Just tea,” she stammered, then went to the refrigerator herself to get the beer and Coke Shep had been after only a moment before.

Shep slammed the door shut before she had it more than halfway open and spun her around to face him. “Doesn’t look like any tea I’ve ever seen. Where did you get it?”

“It’s for Nick,” she said, knowing if she tried to lie, Shep would recognize it right away. “It’s just herbs to calm him down. I—I thought it might help with his … well, you know,” she finished lamely.

Shep glowered down at her. “You and who else thought it might help?” he demanded. “You didn’t just dream this up by yourself!”

She thought fast, but not fast enough.

“Don’t make me ask you again, Lily.” His voice was dangerously low and the vein in his forehead was throbbing.

“Th-There’s nothing wrong with me wanting to help my son.”

Shep leaned closer, towering over her, his clenched fist rising above her face.
“Who, Lily? Who gave you this stuff?”

Her eyes widened with terror, and she saw no escape. “Bettina Philips,” she whispered.

“You got this stuff from
that witch?”
Shep bellowed. “You go to that evil woman’s house and talk about our
son
with her? You heard me telling
him
to stay away from her! Did you think I didn’t mean you, too? Christ!” He opened the bag and smelled. “Do you even know what’s in here?”

“She said—”

“I don’t give a shit what
she
said.” He wadded up the bag and threw it at her. It hit her in the face, then dropped to the kitchen floor. What the hell was she thinking? What if someone had seen her going out there? And what the hell was Bettina Philips doing, giving Lily drugs to give Nick? Well, enough was finally enough—he’d fix Bettina Philips right now!

Maybe he’d even fix her permanently.

Hurling Lily against the wall hard enough to make her cry out, Shep Dunnigan spun around, grabbed his keys and his coat, picked the Baggie up off the floor, and slammed the back door behind him.

When he’d called Bettina earlier, it had mostly been a bluff. But not this time.

This time it was serious.

Dead serious.

The flashing red and blue lights of a fire truck and an ambulance lit up the snowy night and refracted off the layer of snow already accumulating on the dirt road. Dan West expertly braked to a stop without even a hint of a skid, turned off the ignition and jumped out of his patrol car, his heart pounding as he prayed that Mitch Garvey had been wrong, that whatever happened out here had nothing to do with Conner or his car. But even though the fire truck blocked his view of the burning car, the look on the fire chief’s face as he grabbed Dan’s arm to keep him from rounding the end of the truck was enough to tell him that Mitch hadn’t been mistaken.

“Don’t go over there, Dan,” Harvey Miller said. “That’s not something you need to see.” Dan tried to shake Miller off, but the fire chief
only shook his head. “Go home, Dan,” Harvey said. “Go home to Andrea.”

Dan searched Harvey’s eyes for any hint, no matter how slight, that might give him hope, but there was nothing.

Nothing but sympathy.

“There’s no possibility it’s not Conner’s car?” he choked out.

“It’s his,” Miller replied. “I double-checked the plates myself. As for Conner …” His voice trailed off for a moment, then: “The coroner won’t get here for another hour.”

Once again Dan tried to shake Miller’s grip from his arm. “Let me go,” he said. “I want to see—I
have
to see it myself.”

“It’s too late, Dan,” Harvey countered, shaking his head. “There’s nothing for you to do here. You need to be at home with Andrea.”

“I’m the sheriff—” Dan protested, but his voice broke and he felt his knees weaken as the truth of what had happened began to sink in.