“Where’s this cousin now?”

“Who cares? I never want to see him again—or Katie, either.”

So that was why they’d lost touch. It all made sense now. “But what if Joe didn’t do it?” Claire asked. “He has to have done it. He and Mom were so upset that day.”

Claire thought of Don Salter burning everything in their mother’s case files. “Can you name one reason Don Salter might have any interest in our mother?”

Leanne blinked several times. “Did you say Don Salter? No. Except…he and Dad used to be close. Have you asked Dad about him?”

“Not yet.” But it was interesting that Don had a stronger tie to Tug than he did to Joe, at least back then. “Do you know if Joe and Don are or were ever friends?”

“They weren’t before, but…these days Joe and I pretty much avoid each other, so I have no idea who he might be friends with. Why?”

“I found a copy of our mother’s case files in the studio the night I was attacked. David had them. His handwriting was all over the interviews and stuff. I brought them here, but they went missing during the break-in. Don was seen burning them the day of the fire.”

Leanne’s jaw dropped. “So you think…Don Salter did this?” She waved at the door to indicate the wreckage beyond it.

“We don’t know. We only know that he burned the files.”

“I can’t tell you any more. Jeremy’s the only Salter I’m really familiar with, and that’s mainly because he has one heck of a crush on you. He’s been stalking you for so long I don’t even notice him anymore. But I bet, for five minutes of your time, he’d tell you anything you want. You should give him a call.”

Claire glanced at the clock. “Maybe in a little while. He’s not there, but he has to come home sometime, right?

The phone kept ringing. The doorbell, too. So far Detective Davis, Sheriff King, Deputy Clegg, Tug, Joe, Isaac and Claire had all come by. The noise and the threat of someone barging in and finding that he wasn’t really gone made Jeremy’s head swim. He couldn’t even come out of his father’s bedroom for fear someone would knock at the door. Or the phone would start up again.

Did the police know his father was dead?

They couldn’t. People who’d come had called out for Don as if he was alive. But why did they suddenly want to talk to him? Jeremy’s father hadn’t had this many people come to see him in years.

Covering his ears, Jeremy mumbled, “They can’t know. They can’t. How could they?” Maybe he wasn’t the smartest person in the world, but Mrs. Hattie was his closest neighbor, and she lived clear down by the highway. No way could she have heard the gunshot. Jeremy helped plant her garden every spring. At eighty-one, she couldn’t hear him talking even when he was standing right beside her.

So maybe it wasn’t that they thought his father was hurt or…or worse. Maybe they planned to ask about something else—like the fire. Was Detective Davis trying to reach him about that? Because Don couldn’t have set it. He was dead before it started. Jeremy got confused sometimes, but he was sure of that.

Unless he did it as a zombie…

No, Jeremy had to remember what was real and what wasn’t. Zombies weren’t real. His father had told him that. And something not real couldn’t set fires.

Which meant someone else did it. But who? The same man his father had hired to kill David?

Just thinking about the possibility that David’s murderer was back in Pineview made Jeremy curl up even tighter on his father’s bed. What his father had done was bad. Really bad. What made it worse was that he said he’d done it for Jeremy. Because that couldn’t be true.

“You’re a liar, Dad. Liar, liar, pants on fire.” He’d never wanted anyone to get hurt.

There was another knock at the door. Hugging a pillow to his chest, Jeremy squeezed his eyes closed. “Please go away,” he whispered.

“Don? Don, you there?” It was a man’s voice. “It’s Detective Davis. I’m here on official business.”

Again! Davis kept coming back!

“I’d like a word with you, please.” Bang, bang, bang. “Don? Come on now. I see your car’s in the garage.”

How’d he get into the garage? Had he opened the side door?

“If you’re in there, open up.”

Jeremy held his breath, waiting to see if Davis would bust in like he’d seen the cops do on TV. He knew he should probably answer and tell the detective that his father wasn’t home. But he couldn’t think of a good reason for him to be gone. He’d had one but he couldn’t think of it right now. He was too scared. And what if the detective didn’t believe him? Or…or what if Jeremy started to cry when they were talking?

He felt like crying already. He wasn’t himself. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t say what needed to be said. He’d never been so miserable, even after his mother left. “Go away,” he whispered again.

The detective knocked some more. He yelled again, too. Then finally…silence.

After what seemed like a very long time, Jeremy lifted his head to see the clock. Eleven-thirty. That was late. No one was supposed to be coming over during “late.” His father told him it was rude to bother people after ten o’clock.

Why was everyone being rude?

It was the fire. Because of the fire they’d keep coming and keep coming until they eventually broke down the door. They wanted to know how his father started the fire. But he didn’t! They wanted to blame it on him. Why were they coming here? Had his father hired Les Weaver again? Had Les told them that?

It was all so confusing…?.

Another fifteen minutes ticked past before Jeremy got up the nerve to climb off the bed and creep down the stairs. Was someone on the other side of the front door, listening for noises coming from inside?

The idea of that made his stomach hurt, especially when he imagined Detective Davis or Deputy Clegg at the window, watching him through the cracks in the blinds. It was easy to spy on someone. He knew because he’d been spying on Claire since he was a kid.

“Detective Davis?” He rested his forehead against the door as he waited for a response, but there wasn’t one. The detective had left. He cracked open the door, just to be sure, and saw something white flutter to the ground. When he stooped to pick it up, he realized it was a business card.

“J-Jared D-a-v-i-s. L-Lin-coln C-Coun-ty In-ves-tiga-tor.” He had to sound out the words. The note on the back was even harder to read because Detective Davis had written it in cursive.

“I have…to…t-talk to…you. It’s im-por-tant… Call me.”

The fire was important. That meant they’d keep coming back.

“What do I do?” he breathed. Tilting his head back, he stared up at the bullet hole in the wall, which suddenly seemed so big, so obvious, that he was sure anyone who walked in would see it.

He had to leave. He had to gather all his survival gear and head into the mountains. That was the only answer, the only way to avoid prison and the cuckoo place.

Even after all his planning, all his dreaming, the idea of being alone out in the wild terrified him. But if Claire wasn’t safe in Pineview, maybe she could go with him.

28

The house was finally as restored as they were going to get it, at least until the insurance kicked in to replace what had been broken, but Isaac wouldn’t hear of spending the night. He said he wouldn’t sleep anywhere he couldn’t adequately protect them.