I straightened my visor and slipped inside Hal’s, pressing the door shut behind me and working a violent shiver out of my shoulders. When I peered through the front window, Bach was climbing into his car again. Forester was nowhere to be seen.
Despite all the stories about Sam Forester, no one would believe the truth. Son of a firestarter. Actual serial arsonist. There was no remorse visible in him, and no apparent guilt for what he’d done.
Bach was something else entirely.
Despite knowing about Hildegard, I’d never thought of Bach having a mother. He fit into this town so well it was like he’d come included in the package. But I recognized the tone of his voice when he talked about Hildegard, the way he flattened his words and evened out his expression, like it didn’t matter. Like it didn’t hurt.
“That was a long time to correct change.” Mason rolled up on me, his face right by my shoulder. “You already took your break tonight and I don’t care if your boyfriend’s here, you can’t have another one.”
“Mason,” I snapped, rounding on him, “He is not my fudging boyfriend and you do not know what the flipping funsicle fudgecakes you’re talking ab—”
A gasp rose from the crowd outside. Someone pointed toward the woods. Then two people. Then ten. People stood from tables and chairs, raising their phones to the darkness and the ocean of rustling trees. Mads and Lorelei were already at one window looking out; I ducked down to see better out of mine.
There was a light in the trees. A campfire would not have been visible from so far away, even at night. It would not have risen over the treetops, flickering, growing.
Someone yelled, “That’s where the house is!”
And someone else, at exactly the same time, “The crew!”
For the second time in thirty years, the Forester mansion was on fire.
20
No one from theDead Men Walkingcrew was seriously injured. Addamsville’s single fire engine raced past Hal’s on the way to the woods, and the next morning, the story was plastered over the news.
TheDead Men Walkingcast and crew had all been inside when the arsonist struck. No accelerants. No explosives. The investigators, the only ones inside at the time, had escaped by jumping out a window. Emergency vehicles came and went throughout the morning. Chief Rivera called in the Harrisburg Police Department to help with crowd control; even with the bridge blocked, ghost hunters andDMWfans were wading across Black Creek to get into the woods.
Forester and Bach hadn’t been there, of course; they’dbeen with me, at Hal’s. Ludwig had struck while they were away. Maybe when he knew they’d be talking to me, and he’d have a whole van load of people in one place, unattended. Bach had once done the same thing with the old town hall. Forester and Bach had remained at Hal’s while the fire raged to solidify their alibi, but Forester looked ready to bare his teeth and scream.
I just stared. I couldn’t have gotten the Chevelle past Jack and Norm at the bridge, and I would have been caught by the emergency vehicles on my way out of the woods. But more than that, I would have had to fight him. Ludwig. In the fire. Alone.
On the news, Tad Thompson stood by theDMWvan outside the local clinic, waiting for the medical staff to clear the injured crewmembers for work. “It was terrifying, for sure,” he said, “especially with how fast the flames went up, but this is the kind of work we do, you know? This is why we chose to come to Addamsville. Whoever is setting these fires is a criminal and has really hurt people, but we don’t blame the town for this.”
The reporter took her microphone back. “You told the police you saw someone lurking outside the house shortly before the fire began. Can you elaborate on that?”
“As we were setting up for filming, I saw someone in black creeping around. It’s not strange, you know, we have a lotof fans following us and every once in a while they’ll sneak onto the set. Just look at what happened in the mine. Our production assistants did a sweep around the house and didn’t find anyone, so we started shooting. Then maybe a minute before we noticed the fire, I saw him again. Black jacket, kind of wavy black hair, black sunglasses. Had to be at least six feet tall, maybe more. I thought it was weird that he was wearing sunglasses when it was so dark outside, but I figured he didn’t want anyone to see his face.”
It couldn’t have been Bach, because he’d had been at Hal’s. Which meant Ludwig was impersonating Bach now, too.
Monday became an exercise in telling myself I had to do something, then looking over my shoulder, skin crawling. I went to school on autopilot and managed to be on time to all my classes for once. Unfortunately, that meant I had to hear every rumor about what might have happened.
In homeroom Nathan Riley claimed he saw Chief Rivera walking Bach into the police station, handcuffed. Ally Reed, in my history class, swore the fires had been started by the ghost of the arsonist who’d committed the Firestarter Murders. Then there was Joe Denford, in my physics class, who said to Will Harrison, “... and they teamed up so one person could have an alibi and one person could be doing the deed. Then they switch back and forth so no one can link the fires to either oneof them. That’s what my dad says. He didn’t want me to come to school today because she’s still here.” He started looking around, and before he spotted me, I did him a favor and threw a pencil at the back of his head.
“I didn’t set any fires or try to kill anyone, Joseph, thank you for asking.” I said it loud enough for the whole class to hear. “And you can tell your dad to stop spreading stories he gets from Buster Gates.”
Everyone talked, always. I heard a story that Bach and I were some kind of Bonnie and Clyde duo, into arson kink and killing old men. I heard another story that I’d given my amputated fingers to Bach as a declaration of undying love. Another that said we were in a cult.
At lunch I found a corner to myself, finally some peace and quiet, and put my hands around my hot cup of nacho cheese to warm them. Things like eating seemed trivial. I needed to hunt. Right now. But how do you hunt for something no one knows exists when everyone watches your every move during the day and Buster Gates is ready to chase you down with his monster truck at night?
I looked up from my cheese. Artemis leaned toward me, frowning.
“Jesus!”
“We have to get my memory card back,” she said, as if she hadn’t startled the daylights out of me. “Wehaveto make sureit doesn’t get out—people are going to want to know what happened. It’s more important than ever. Before theDMWcrew leaves town.”
I settled into my seat, willing the goose bumps on my arms down and reaching for a breadstick. I was done with the stupid memory card. “Yeah, so?”
“So we have to go there and talk to them.”
