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I had replayed every second of events in my mind, and she had been the only person alone outside that room. At least since we’d arrived. I couldn’t be sure Paul hadn’t died before that, though.
He’d probably just stopped breathing, like the nurse said. People do that after smoke inhalation. But something wasn’t right. Something was itching at the base of my neck.
“I don’t know,” Jen said. “Maybe a beam fell on him, a piece of furniture. Maybe he was stumbling around in the smoke and banged into something. I don’t know. I don’t know how the hell he got out, either.”
“Through the bathroom window, I thought that’s what Jeremy said.”
“Said he found him on the ground outside there, yes. But there was no fire damage to the bathroom. He had all those burns on his lower legs, had inhaled smoke, had his head caved-in, and somehow he managed to get into the bathroom, close the door behind him, shove a wet towel under the door, open the window, and climb out.”
I shrugged. “It’s one for the books, all right. They can put it right beside the mom who picks up a flipped minivan off her trapped kid. It happens.”
“It happens,” she said. “For sure. I had a case where a sixty-pound lab dragged his two-hundred-fifteen-pound owner two miles through thick forest to a road where a passerby stopped to help. The guy’s blood sugar had crashed, and he was in shock. Freaking dog saved his life.”
I raised my hand, palm-up. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“Some people just don’t want to die, I guess.”
“I think when it’s your time, it’s your time. And when it’s not, it’s not.” I was quoting directly from my own self-help books. “I think there’s something bigger than us involved in all that.”
She frowned at me. “You really believe that stuff you write about, don’t you?”
I looked at her in surprise.
“Oh, yeah, I looked you up. I even started reading Life is What You Make it. ‘There’s a reason for everything. You just can’t see some of those reasons from here.’ Good stuff. Uplifting. I like it.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“‘A reason for everything,’”
“I mean, I didn’t invent that. They’ve been saying it for, you know, ever.”
“Yeah, but the way you explained it…” She nodded slow as if she was still mulling the book, and okay, I was a sucker for an ego stroke, same as the next writer. She pulled out her phone and looked at its face. “I have to go. The chief is demanding an accounting. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, tomorrow.”
She left. I texted Christy to tell her that her sister was okay, and on her way there. And then I waited for Mason to finish his talk with Sheriff Rasmussen and kept an eye out for the dead guy’s ghost.
* * *
CHRISTY
She was curled on the sofa in her aunt and uncle’s romantic love nest, with hot cocoa and a warm, heavy bulldog snoring beside her. It was sweet, how in love those two were. She didn’t think she would ever have a relationship like that. Mostly, she didn’t think she wanted one.
Aunt Rache had texted her that Misty was okay and on her way there, but that her phone was dead so she couldn’t text herself. Relief had surged, a warm rush of gratitude that her sister was okay— and a smaller one that she’d never have to put on a mermaid tail again.
Someone tapped the door, and a muffled voice called out.
“Misty?” She yanked her feet out from under the dog, who barely flinched, and ran to fling open the door. A bag went over her head, and the inside smelled… the inside smelled… oh hell, she was going to pass out…
* * *
JEREMY
When Jeremy got to the motel, he was exhausted. The whole drive he’d been playing out mind movies in which he was exposed for covering up his girlfriend’s involvement in a crime.
He wouldn’t have done anything differently, though.
He pulled up to the spot in front of door number six, but another car was in it. Misty’s Jeep. And the light in the room was on. Please let her be ready to talk, he thought. This “break” was killing him.
