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Zig grinned. “Neither can I.”
It was scary as hell creeping out of the woods to cross the stream and then the open ground to the cabin. They approached from behind, but even so, the fine hairs on Misty’s arms rose and her skin tingled as soon as she’d stepped out of the sheltering trees.
There were twenty yards to the cabin’s back door, in knee-deep grass and wildflowers. “We should crouch really low, so the grass conceals us,” Misty whispered.
“From who? A passing deer?” Zig waved an arm at the surrounding forest. There was a winding dirt road out front, but there hadn’t been any traffic. Other than Eva Quaid’s widowed husband, there was nothing out here at all.
So Misty followed Zig as she strode through the meadow, sending up puffs from every plant she pushed past. At first, Misty thought it was pollen, then she realized there were bugs in the puffs, too. They were disturbing the hell out of an entire universe of bugs. There wasn’t a sign anyone had ever walked through this meadow, and she felt uneasy. Paul Quaid obviously wanted solitude. They were invading his privacy, trespassing in his home, and maybe his grief, as well. If it turned out he was innocent, they were doing something very wrong.
Zig was already at the back door, jiggling the knob. “I need something to break the glass.”
“Yeah, no,” Misty said. “Let’s try all the non-destructive options first.” She moved to the nearest window and found it unlocked. It slid upward with a little nudging. It was a bathroom window, but full-sized, easy to climb over. Yet, she hesitated.
Then Zig pressed her hands to the windowsill, jumped up, and slung a leg over. A second later she was on the inside looking out. “Come on, hurry up.” And then she turned and walked away, and Misty heard, “Holy shit. Get your ass in here!”
Misty pulled her sleeves over her hands so she wouldn’t leave fingerprints, and climbed in. The bathroom was narrow and blue, and its door stood wide. She hurried through into the small room. There was a desk, a chair, and that entire wall littered in papers and photos, mostly shots of Eva with other people whose heads were either circled or crossed out.
The papers were news clippings, pages from police reports, even a couple of witness statements were pinned to that wall.
“All it needs is red string connecting pushpins.” Zig took out her disposable camera and started snapping photos while Misty moved nearer and tried to make sense of the display.
“Some of the people with their faces crossed out are for sure alive,” Misty said. Because her first thought had been the opposite; that Paul Quaid was a serial killer, and these were his past and future victims. “All the billionaire bad boys are up here. Two of them are crossed out.”
“Mr. Mackey too,” Zig said. “And strangers. We should try to ID them later.”
She snapped close-ups of the photos of people they didn’t know, then put the camera back into her pocket and turned to the desk.
“Hey look. Is that one Detective Scott? There’s Coach Hannah, too.”
“All the suspects.” Zig lowered her camera and met Misty’s eyes.
They were both thinking the same thing. Why would a killer be investigating his own crime? And that was sure as hell what it looked like he was doing with all this. Investigating and maybe ruling people out.
Zig turned away, raised the camera again and snapped.
Misty went to the desk. It held a lamp, a desktop computer with an oversized, fat-ass monitor, a laptop, and an open book: Crime Scene Forensics. A pool of light painted the murder wall, then moved over their faces as a car pulled right up to the front of the cabin. It stopped. Its engine shut off.
Misty shot Zig a terrified look, then glanced back toward the bathroom and its open window— their escape route, but it was too far. The front door was already swinging open. She grabbed Zig by the arm, and they moved behind the desk and ducked into its ready-made cave.
Misty held one hand over her own mouth, and clutched Zig’s upper arm with the other. Zig was listening— Misty could tell by the way her eyes narrowed, the way her head titled. “What is that?” she mouthed with barely a sound.
Misty lowered her head all the way to the floor to peer out from under the desk, then bit her lip to keep from yelping. Someone was being dragged by his arms, through the front door, into the house. It was Paul Quaid. The motion stopped, and his head fell left, so he was facing them: His eyes were open and blank, and Misty bit her knuckle to keep from screaming. A blood trail painted the floor behind him, and she thought it was good she wasn’t seeing the back of his head, where it originated.
The person dropped him, then stepped over his unconscious or possibly dead body and back outside.
Misty started to back out from under the desk, but Zig grabbed her arm and shook her head with urgent eyes. Then the door opened and the person came back inside. Black lace up boots, like you’d wear for hiking. Jeans.
There was liquid sloshing, and the sharp smell of gasoline.
Zig swore very softly. Misty’s mind was racing, screaming at her to zoom out from the desk to the bathroom and scramble out that window before the killer could strike a match. And then it was too late. There was a whoosh and heat, and liquid fire spilled toward their hiding place.
And then, the eyes staring at her blinked.
* * *
RACHEL
We brought Christy back to our increasingly crowded romantic getaway. Myrtle, who’d been shuffled around too much, bounded out of the car without my help, trotted ahead, nose-dived into the grass, rolled onto her back, and wiggled in joy. I turned to assist Christy instead, since Myrt clearly didn’t need my help.
