Page 14 of The House on Forgotten Hill

I leaned forward. “If my father wasn’t killed in a hit-and-run, what happened to him?”

Estelle went quiet for a moment.

Then she took a deep breath. “Your father was hit by a car several blocks from here.”

“I know.”

“The police believed the driver fled the scene, and that’s why it was deemed a hit-and-run. But that night, a man named Gordon Hawkins claimed he saw what happened. He said he knew who hit your father.”

Every muscle in my body tensed. “Who?”

Estelle glanced toward the front window, then the hallway. We were alone in the house. Even so, she lowered her voice as she said a name I didn’t expect.

“Preston Sinclair.”

Just twelve hours earlier, I’d agreed to have dinner with the man living next door. Now, for the first time since moving back to Forgotten Hill, I was afraid of what might happen if I stepped inside his house.

8

For a few minutes, neither of us spoke, the only sound in the room coming from the ticking of the clock above the stove.

“Preston Sinclair?” I repeated. “My next-door neighbor?”

She nodded.

I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. “I don’t understand.”

Estelle sighed. “I don’t either, and the man who saw the accident is no longer around to tell his story. He died about ten years ago.”

So I couldn’t even talk to him.

“What did he tell the police?” I asked.

She glanced down at her coffee. “He said he was sitting in his living room when your father drove past his house. It was late, almost midnight, and wherever your father was going, he seemed to be in a hurry. A few seconds later, he saw Preston drive straight into him.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Nor could I.”

“What else did Gordon say?”

“In his opinion, the accident was deliberate. He said Preston hit him on purpose.”

I felt sick. “I remember one of the police officers telling my mother that my father wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.”

“The impact threw him right through the windshield. He died a short time later.”

I stared out the kitchen window. “If what Gordon said is true, why wasn’t Preston arrested? Why isn’t he in prison?”

“He was questioned by the police on more than one occasion from what I heard, and there was an investigation.”

“What happened?”

Estelle let out a slow breath. “For starters, Gordon didn’t speak to the police until the following day. Can’t say why. Maybe he was trying to figure out what he saw, or maybe he was too scared to come forward at first. Who knows? It made his testimony seem suspicious.”

“Are you saying Preston wasn’t even arrested?”

“Not to my knowledge.”