Page 55 of Forever Dead

“Come on.”

The engine recovered.

Curtis leaned closer to the wheel, listening for another misfire. The car had cost him nine hundred dollars and three favors he wished he had not accepted. Rust ate through both rear wheel arches. The heater worked when it wanted to, and the passenger window had to be held shut with a screwdriver wedged into the frame.

Still, it ran.

Usually.

His rental came into view beyond the next bend.

A sheriff’s SUV was parked outside.

Curtis eased off the accelerator.

“Oh, Christ. What is this?”

The house was really half of an old duplex near the edge of Kilbrane. The other half had been empty since before Curtis moved in. Weeds filled the shared yard, and the porch leaned slightly toward the road.

The SUV sat directly in front.

Someone was inside.

Curtis slowed.

He could make out the driver now. Male. Uniform.

Sheriff himself, by the markings.

Curtis’s stomach tightened.

“All right. Think.”

There were possibilities.

He had borrowed Frank Mullins’s dirt bike three nights ago without asking. Borrowed was the correct word because he had brought it back. Frank might use another word.

Then there was the argument outside Sullivan’s store. Curtis had shoved that kid after the kid called him crazy. The kid had stumbled into a newspaper box and split his lip. Nobody had called the police at the time, but that did not mean somebody had not done it later.

And there was the woman from the convenience store.

Curtis had followed her home.

Only once.

He had wanted to ask why she kept smiling at him behind the counter and then pretending she did not know what he meant when he spoke to her outside. He had never even got out of the car.

None of those felt serious enough to bring the sheriff personally.

His foot lifted completely from the accelerator.

Then another thought came.

No.

Curtis stared at the SUV.

That was why.