by Cara McKenna
The house gave a rattle, the subtle clatter of doors resettling and telling her someone had just come in from outside. The murmur of conversation in the kitchen flared for a moment, then went sedate once again. She heard Christine now, and also Casey. She debated going down, pursing her lips, legs trying to commit to standing or not. But then footsteps froze her, growing louder as they reached the den, then the stairs. She knew the sound of those shoes well, and she hastily closed the necklace in its tissue and slid it under a pillow.
Casey approached the bedroom with one fist raised, poised to knock on the frame. He lowered it when their eyes met. “Hey.”
“Hi. Come in. What’s going on?”
He closed the door behind him and leaned on the dresser. If he noticed the red tissue was missing, he didn’t show it. She doubted something so trivial was on his mind now, even as that tiny present weighed on her own.
“Has anyone seen Don yet?” she asked, heart knotting between her ribs.
Casey shook his head. “It doesn’t look good. The barn was the last place anybody saw him.”
“Do you think . . . ?”
He nodded, just the barest dip of his chin.
Tears were slipping down her cheeks in an instant, as she let that fearful thought become real. “That’s . . . God, I don’t even know.” He’d been so good to her. Maybe not warm and paternal, but patient, welcoming, helpful. Caring, in his own practical, rational way. “How’re Christine and Miah?”
“I’m not sure it’s completely sunk in yet. I don’t think either one of them is ready to jump to conclusions.”
“I heard Miah talking to your brother.”
He nodded, then came to sit on the far end of the bed. “Vince heard about the fire while he was at work. Came right here . . . He had a weird feeling about it, I guess.”
“When will they know for sure? About Don?” Her body went cold, imagining people having to sift through all that smoke-stinking, dampened mess, looking for— She cut off the thought.
“Not long, I don’t think. Once everything’s cooled and the smoke’s cleared.”
“God, this is just awful.” There was no adjective that fit, none that didn’t sound monstrously inadequate. “Do you . . . You don’t think it was on purpose, though, do you? Like anything to do with whoever’s been sneaking around?”
Casey didn’t reply right away, expression clouded.
“Do you?” she prompted.
“It’s too soon to say. But I’d be lying if I said I’d be surprised.”
“Oh my God.”
“There’s no point thinking about it just yet,” he said gently.
“That’s so . . . I mean, did someone want to hurt him on purpose, or were they only trying to destroy the barn, or—”
Casey quieted her with a wave of his hand, smiling weakly. “We’ll have more answers soon. For now the most important thing is to be whatever it is Miah and his mom are going to need.”
He was right, and she did her best to block out the nagging, frightening thoughts.
“How’s she?” Casey nodded in the crib’s direction.
“She screamed herself hoarse while I was out with all the workers, waiting for the fire to die down. I don’t think she’ll be waking up anytime too soon.”
He heaved a loaded breath, slipped his hand under his open hoodie and rubbed at his chest. “I’m trying real hard to not work myself up about how close the two of you were to all that. How wrong it could’ve gone.” As he said it, his voice broke. Any fleeting worry she’d had about the fire having been anything to do with Casey evaporated in that instant.
She wanted to be close to him. Wanted his arms around her body and his soft voice in her ear, telling her it was going to be okay. Comforting lies, something to believe in while the entire world seemed to be coming apart around them.
But if she felt lost now, surely she’d only lose further track of her heart, if she let herself get too close. Clarity was in short supply at the moment, and never more so than when she tried to make sense of how she felt about this man. She pictured the necklace now hiding beneath her pillow, and that knot in her chest eased, though the tangle was as big a mess as ever.
“I need to talk to my brother,” Casey said, “but I wanted to check how you were doing.”
“Thanks. Do you think I should go downstairs? To try to help, somehow?”
He considered it. “Knowing Miah, he’ll be out of there the second he finds a decent excuse, looking for shit to tackle so he doesn’t get to think too hard about it all. But Christine could probably use the company. She’d been saying something about making coffee, for all the officials who’re taking statements and waiting for the investigation to get under way. I bet she could use some help with that.”
Abilene nodded. She’d bring Mercy down in the car seat and pray the baby kept on napping as long as possible. It was going to be a long day, and she had a terrible feeling that the answers they were all waiting on weren’t going to be good.
Chapter 25
Casey went downstairs with Abilene and the baby, the three of them joining the periphery of the scene in the kitchen. Vince, Miah, and Christine were seated at one end of the long table, talking quietly. Christine’s expression was calm, but her eyes were red and her hands shaky. Miah had a hand on her back, circling slowly, thoughtlessly, as the three traded empty consolations and theories about how Don could be anyplace—way out at the other end of the range, maybe, or who knew where. But Casey had seen the man’s truck in the front lot, as had they all, he bet. These weren’t words of comfort, merely words that gave the Churches permission to live in denial a little longer.
Casey kept quiet, standing by with his arms crossed, and Abilene set the baby in her rocker while she went to load dishes in the washer, her motions careful and quiet, respectful. Fragile.
Casey felt much the same. Felt too many things, and none of them good. Yesterday he’d felt remorse about his old life, because it had cost him what he’d found with Abilene. Less than a day later those sour feelings had turned downright poisonous. He felt as though he were standing on the other side of his own selfish choices. Standing in the kitchen that might’ve belonged to the family of some firefighter, maybe, had one of his arson jobs ever gone tragically wrong. The thought alone had his throat raw and his eyes hurting. He swallowed the feelings down. They had no place beside Miah and Christine’s grief.
The phone had barely quit ringing since Casey had arrived, and when it trilled yet again, Christine stood with a weary sigh. “I can’t ignore it forever, I suppose.”
Miah got to his feet. “Let me.”
She waved him away. “No, I could use something to do. I’ll be in the office, if any of the Sheriff’s Department folks want me. Or if your father turns up,” she added, then hit the phone’s TALK button. “Hello? Marian, hi. Hang on one second.” She offered the room a distracted, lame smile, then disappeared into the hall.
Casey eyed Miah. He was usually the picture of casual confidence, but he was hunched in his seat, fingers drumming his opposite elbows, feet fidgeting beneath the bench. Casey couldn’t think of a single decent thing to say, aside from, “Anybody need a drink?”
Vince shook his head, and Abilene didn’t even turn from her task. Miah announced, “I’d better go and check on the animals. I’ve got my phone if anybody needs me.”
Casey and Vince nodded and let him go. Abilene turned once he’d left the room, locking her watery, worried eyes on Casey’s.
“Come outside a minute,” Vince said to him, getting to his feet.
Casey followed his brother out the front door and down the steps. Vince paused when they neared a pair of stressed-looking ranch hands who were smoking at the edge of the parking lot.
“I’ll give you a buck for two of those,” Vince said to one of them, pointing at their smokes.
“It’s nothing.” The kid handed Vince the pack he’d had in his shirt pocket. Vince accepted it with a nod and led Casey away, to the
quiet far corner of the lot, where he knocked a cigarette from the pack and slipped it between his lips. “Gimme your lighter.”
Casey hesitated, wondering if his brother would recognize the thing. “You’ve been free of those things for almost a year. You sure?”
“It’s a fucking exceptional day,” he said, cigarette jumping at the edge of his lips. “Now, gimme a goddamn light.”
Casey pulled the Zippo out, flicked it open, and lit it, letting his fingers hide the insignia. No point triggering memories of their father, not when Miah’s was so conspicuously absent. Vince sucked the cigarette halfway to the filter inside a minute, looking like a man who’d just surfaced from a long dive and tasted fresh air.
“Fuck me, I missed that.”
“I won’t tell Nita.”
“Or Kim,” Vince added, and slowed down some. “This is only a one-off.” He glanced inside the pack. “A three-off,” he corrected, and knocked out the other two smokes, tucking one behind each ear.
“Miah said something to me,” Vince said, ashing to the side.
“Oh?”
“That tractor Don was fucking around with this morning—Miah had put the ad out himself, a few weeks ago, looking to sell it.”
“Okay.”
“So some guy calls late last night, wanting to see it this afternoon. Short notice, and maybe they knew it was old and in rough shape and would need some looking over, first. Maybe the guy even knew it was in the barn.”
Casey nodded, catching on. “Because he’d snooped around in there himself already.”
“It’s possible. Maybe he even fucked with it, to be sure Don would have a hell of a time getting it running. Maybe he never even set foot in there today, if he was smart enough to rig it to catch fire, somehow.”
“Maybe.” Though Casey knew for a fact that that was some hairy, precision shit right there. And it didn’t explain why Don hadn’t been able to escape once the fire had caught.
“You say all this to Miah?”
“You crazy? His fucking father’s probably dead. Last thing he needs is conspiracy theories before the body’s even found.”
“True.” But he was with Vince, brain skipping ahead past the ugly truth yet to come, chasing answers.
“What else is on your mind?”
“It’s even possible this cocksucker picked today on purpose,” Vince said, “figuring most of the workers would be away from the bunks and the stables, watching the eclipse.”
Casey nodded, not liking how premeditated this was now feeling. And not liking at all how uncomfortably it echoed his own recent past. His so-called career. That regret that Abilene had wished he’d felt . . . Well, it was creeping in now, too real for his comfort, nagging and pawing at him with ragged, catching nails.
“You think somebody wanted Don dead?” Casey asked his brother.
“Do you?”
“I can’t think why. He had industry rivals, no doubt, but who the fuck would want to kill him?”
“Maybe they wanted something else,” Vince said. “Wanted to corner him, demand something, and maybe he couldn’t deliver it? I dunno. Though I do know Miah’s been bitching about how cutthroat some of the property scouts have gotten lately.” He finished the first cigarette, lit the next off the butt before crushing it beneath his boot.
“This is so fucking messed up,” Casey muttered, feeling frustrated and hot.
“We need to get you in there,” Vince said. “How soon can that happen?”
“Depends. They’ll be digging through it all soon enough. If they find . . .” He trailed off. He’d nearly said “a body,” but it felt far too cold. “If they find him,” he said carefully, “everything will grind to a halt for a few hours. They’ll investigate before they move the body,” he said, flinching inside, “but then they’ll take it away to be autopsied. They’ll mill around documenting everything for a long time, but eventually they’ll clear out.”
“Will anybody be left to guard the scene?”
Casey shook his head. “Unlikely. They’ll probably just put up tape, once the forensic people have made their sweep.”
“Then you go in.”
“Sure.”
“But don’t be a dumb-ass about it,” Vince warned through a cloud of Camel. “Don’t go leaving your shoe prints or a load of red hairs all over the place.”
“You say that like this hasn’t been my job for three years.”
Vince nodded, gaze on the horizon.
“I got no clue what I’ll find,” Casey said. “This guy could be a pro or a total hack. But I’ll do my best.” He didn’t hold out much hope, however. Fires spoke volumes about the way they started but didn’t tell you jack about who struck the match. Not unless the person in question happened to drop a business card on their way out. “I can tell you if it was started on purpose, but if anybody stands a chance at saying who by, it’s Miah.”
“I can’t ask him now . . . But it’ll have to be soon. I’ll see if he can’t find out who answered that ad about the John Deere.”
“Good a lead as any.” Better than some dark-colored truck, some tallish, vaguish description of a white guy in a ski mask and jeans.
“Not much, though,” Vince said grimly. “It’d take an idiot to reply to the ad with their actual e-mail address or leave a real phone number.”
Casey stole the final smoke from behind Vince’s ear and lit it for himself. It tasted like a thousand ancient memories. It tasted like ass, in all honesty, but the nicotine wasn’t unwelcome. He blew out a long jet of smoke and told his brother, “We better hope we’re dealing with a world-class fuckwit, then.”
• • •
The news everyone had been dreading came around dinnertime.
Casey heard it from Vince, who’d been in the kitchen with Miah and Christine when the mayor, of all people, had come by to break it to them, with Fortuity’s acting sheriff in tow, who also served as the county coroner.
Casey had gone into town to fill in Kim and Nita, then Raina and Duncan, and had pulled in just behind the sheriff’s cruiser. Freeman, he thought the new sheriff was called—Wes or Les Freeman. He was tanned and tall and lanky, far younger than Tremblay had been—may that motherfucker rot in hell. He wore the uniform’s matching khaki hat that Tremblay never had, and it made him look like a cartoon. Especially when Mayor Dooley joined the tableau, the squat little Napoleon in seersucker climbing out of the sheriff’s car, ivory bolo swinging. The mismatched men headed for the house, and Casey hung back, knowing it couldn’t be good. The mayor didn’t show up at the home of the most prominent family in town to hand out happy news.
Casey sat on his own hood for nearly half an hour before the men emerged. He nodded at Freeman, who’d come by the bar a couple times as a patron. Dooley he didn’t know aside from seeing his pompous face in the papers, and he didn’t offer him jack. That dick had brought the casino to town, after all. And the casino had gotten Alex killed. He couldn’t say he was much of a fan of the mayor, no.
Sheriff Freeman tipped his hat but didn’t smile, and then both men disappeared inside the cruiser. Casey waited until they’d hit the road, then headed to the farmhouse on legs made of lead.
The scene he found in the kitchen about tore him to shreds.
Miah was holding his mother. Her face was buried against his neck, her shoulders hitching uncontrollably. Miah was crying as well, his voice breaking as he spoke to her. Vince was standing by the sink with his arms crossed, and he motioned for Casey to follow him and strode for the door.
“They need space,” he said, heading for the den.
“They found the body?” Casey whispered, sitting on the coffee table when Vince took the couch.
He nodded. “Beside the tractor he’d been working on. One of the investigators said it started from diesel, and maybe Don had got caught up in it, if he’d spilled some on his clothes, or had grease on him or something. Nothing conclusive. That’s all they said about it.”
Spilled? Doused, mor
e like. “Autopsy?”
“Still going on. They only came to say he’d passed.”
“Does anybody need to go downtown to ID him?”
“Thank fuck, no. I guess they had enough to go on.”
Casey nodded, and in a breath, the heft of the news came down on him. “Fucking shit. This can’t actually be happening, can it?”
Vince didn’t say anything, just stared ahead and exhaled slowly. A deep and cutting pang of guilt sank between Casey’s ribs, as he tried to imagine having been here when the news about Alex had broken. Fortuity had always been quiet. If somebody died, it was of old age or maybe cancer, or drunk driving, or some freak hunting accident. This place was no stranger to fights and domestic violence, but murder? Alex had been the first—or rather, technically the second, though the undocumented worker whose bones had caused so much trouble last year hadn’t been uncovered until a few months later. Sheriff Tremblay had been killed in his cell after his involvement in Alex’s death had come to light—number three. Now Don made four. Though Casey supposed this latest one couldn’t be blamed on the casino.
He was poised to ruminate on the thought, but Vince spoke. “The fire crews have all cleared out. Once it’s dark, we get to work. I’ll keep watch; you do your thing.”
Casey shook his head. Above them, he caught the far-off chime of Abilene’s phone. “I’ll go alone. It’s less conspicuous that way.”
Vince looked dubious, but nodded. “What will you need?”
“Not much.” Maybe a tarp to cut up and tape around his feet, to keep his treads covered. There wasn’t much he could do about clothing fibers on short notice, plus at least a dozen people had been tromping through the debris already. He’d draw his hood and don some gloves and call it good enough. His primary concern just now wasn’t covering his own ass, but finding out how this had happened, and more importantly, by whose hand.
“I have to get home soon,” Vince said, glancing at his phone. “I’ll check on Miah one more time; then I’m off. But if you change your mind and decide you want a lookout, call me. I could come out after midnight.”
