Chapter Nine

“Billie?”

She snapped out of her daydream, stopped mopping the counter, and turned slowly to where Sharon Lou stood at the far end. Seated across from Sharon was Carol Gastineau, a sturdy woman in a snappy tweed business suit with a briefcase laid next to her coffee cup. “You’ve been off work for fifteen minutes now,” Sharon reminded her. “Why don’t you go on home?”

Billie smiled tiredly, took her apron off, and went around the counter, but only to take a seat on one of the empty stools. “The boys have been out since this morning, playing football I imagine. I’d just as soon hang around here than be in the house alone.”

“Is that old house bothering you, honey?” Carol said with a smile and a gleam in her eye and Billie knew she’d said the wrong thing. Carol was the local real estate agent, and land was her life. “You be sure to tell me,” she went on, “because if it is, I just know we can come to some kind of arrangement.” She drummed her fingers on the genuine imitation leather of her case as if it contained all of the treasures one could ever wish for. “I’ll bet I can get you a good price for your old place, well, not too much, but a decent price just the same. Now,” she snapped the clasps on the case and arched her eyebrows, “what kind of house do you have your heart set on?”

“Put your teeth back in your mouth, Giggy,” Sharon said sharply, “she didn’t say she was selling or buying.”

Carol huffed and sipped her coffee. Giggy had been her nickname in high school, back when she was a cheerleader and one of the popular girls while Sharon Lou Moore was just a face in the crowd. But nowadays the only person to remember was Sharon, and she twisted it like a knife every chance she got.

“I was only trying to help,” Carol muttered into her cup. “And you know, this coffee’s cold. Lou honey, would you be an angel and warm this up?” It was more a command than a question, a reminder of who was being served there and who did the serving.

Sharon shrugged it off and, with a bigger smile, overran her cup. “Oh. Sorry about that. Giggy.”

“I appreciate the thought, Carol,” Billie said, signaling a truce. “But I’m not really interested in getting rid of my house right now.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

“That new boy in town,” Sharon said, then caught Billie’s look. “Excuse me . . . new man. Billie’s kinda taken up with him.”

“You don’t have to make it sound so back alley,” Billie complained. “He’s just a nice guy’s all.”

Sharon leaned across the counter as if it were a back fence. “You never did tell me about the other night when he went home with you ’uns.”

Carol stopped brushing microscopic lint from her outfit and arched a thin brow. “What’s that? With a stranger?”

“Nothing happened,” Billie shrugged, “at least nothing to feed your libidos. We just talked is all.”

“About what?”

“Well . . . things.”

“Are you seeing him again?”

Billie just shook her head. “We were supposed to go out last night but he called and canceled at the last minute. I haven’t seen him since.”

“Deadbeat,” Carol said, offended. “Isn’t that just like a man, wheel into town and then back out, leaving a woman high and dry?”

“Whoa there,” Sharon warned, “both of you. You act like it’s been days instead of the roughly, what,” she checked her watch, “eighteen hours since he called? Give him time, Bill. He’s not on the clock, you know. He’ll call.” She leaned closer. “Or you could call him.”

Carol huffed. “Well, I wouldn’t. Men don’t like pushy women, Billie, take my word on that. Why, when I was seeing my husband Jim Gastineau, God rest his soul, I gave him a long leash, if you know what I mean, and sooner or later he’d come sniffing around. . . .”

“Roll up your pantlegs,” Sharon cautioned, “the shit’s getting deep. Remember, dear Giggy, that I was around back then. That man couldn’t take two steps that you didn’t have a bulldog headlock on him. The way I heard it, the poor sap only married you so he could get a little rest.” Carol inflated with indignation but Sharon held her at bay with a raised hand. “Billie, you do yourself a favor and go after him. There ain’t many in this town or anywhere else worth a hill of beans, but that one’s special. Take my word for it.” Then Carol couldn’t hold it in any longer and a storm rolled across the counter that probably showed up on the weather radar in Indianapolis.

“How dare you, Sharon Lou Moore, how can you set there and insinuate that I would blah blah blah . . .”

Billie tuned out the festivities. She’d heard it all before; Carol was a regular customer, coming in like clockwork every day to “wait for a potential buyer” who invariably never showed. Billie knew she was trying to rub her job in her old rival’s face, but Sharon seemed quite content with her own store and her job and took none of the other’s guff. So the friendly feud went on, week to week, and sometimes customers showed up for ringside stools just to listen to the meowing and hissing.

Billie’s eyes strayed to the door, though the bell hadn’t rung to attract her. Nonetheless, she found Chris Stiles standing in the doorway, watching her for a reaction before daring a smile of his own.

Carol Gastineau saw him as well. “I wonder if he’ll be staying on, ” she pondered aloud and reached for her briefcase but Sharon smacked her hand.

“I didn’t know if you’d be talking to me,” he said as he came across the store.

“Why not?” Billie shrugged. “Things come up, I know. It happens.” She became aware of the stares burning into her back. “C’mon, let’s sit down,” she motioned to a table nearby, but not before glaring back at the counter. Sharon was suddenly busy wiping glasses, but Carol still gawked openly and with a smirking grin. Sharon had to snap her with the dishtowel to get her to turn around.

“So,” Billie began, “how did it go last night?”

He stiffened. “How did what go?”

“You said you had something to do.”

“Oh that. Yes, that’s what I came over about.”

Uh oh, she thought. Here it comes. I’m sorry, Billie, but I’m going to be busy again tonight . . .

“I’m sorry, Billie, but I’m afraid I’ll be tied up again tonight. Can I get another rain check?”

She shrugged. “Sure, no problem. We don’t even have to go out if you don’t want, really, I—”

“Billie,” he said in a firm tone that brought her eyes up to meet his own. “I want to. Really. This is just very important stuff, and it can’t wait, that’s all.”

“What is it?”

He grinned and hoped she didn’t realize he was scrambling for an answer. “Research. The book, remember?”

Her eyes lit up. “Really? You mean the scary stuff? Great. I’ll come along.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on. I ain’t ’fraid of no ghosts.”

Stiles was adamant. “I said no. It could be dangerous. I won’t take that chance. Not with you.”

There was a protective tone in his voice that she liked, but she began to bait him anyway. “Oh, yeah? Well, how do I know this isn’t some kind of stall. I mean, there are other women in this town, maybe you’re seeing one of them. . . .”

He reached across the table and cupped her chin and pulled her toward him. She gave no resistance. His kiss was insistent yet tender and convinced her that yesterday morning had not been a dream after all.

Giggy yelped from being snapped with the towel again and turned back to the counter reluctantly.

Stiles stood to leave. “Do you think you’ll get it done tonight,” she asked, “whatever it is?”

“Possibly. Or it could take another night, or two. There’s no way to tell.”

She took his hand. “Well, whenever you’re done,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “stop by. Okay?”

“No matter how late?”

Her smile widened. “If I’m in bed, get me up.”

He turned and waved to the ladies at the counter before he left. This time the bell sounded.

Charlie Bean eased the squad car down the main drive of the Nevermore, then slowed near the rear of the park. A police cruiser just like his own was once again parked outside the beat-up Windsor trailer—Rusty Sanders was not known for his subtlety. Bean wondered how the other residents, mostly conservative, God-fearing folk, perceived Sanders’s blatant immorality, but there had been no complaints to his knowledge. Surely their disapproval had been tempered by the security a police car conveyed.

A mischievous thought flickered through Bean’s mind. He wondered how Rusty would like it if his distributor cap disappeared or someone stuck a banana up his tail pipe.

Or up his ass, he thought, a bit more irritated after he remembered running into Georgetta Stovall last night. When he stopped by the A & W for a few burgers and a root beer he saw her there, eating with some youngster he didn’t recognize—probably from out of town, and barely eighteen if that old. Her condition had immediately caught Bean’s eye. Georgie was always a bit too made-up for his taste but last night her rouge was deep enough to plant corn in and the glistening lip gloss did nothing to hide the gash in her lower lip. In fact, the makeup did more to enhance her contusions than hide them. Somebody’d bounced her around pretty good, and he doubted it was her adolescent suitor. Georgie was a big, buxom woman and could have spit in the boy’s ass if she’d wanted (or if he’d ask). He could think of only one person who patronized her little Windsor on a regular basis and seemed capable of such treatment. And Rusty’s name seemed all the more logical when she reached for a cigarette and he saw the handcuff bruises on her wrists. He questioned her about it, hoping she might swear out a complaint or give him any reason at all to hang the little bastard’s butt on a nail. But she just smiled sweetly if a bit vacantly and said nothing.

I swear, Charlie thought, if he’s using that badge for coercion I’ll pin it to his spleen. Personally.

He thought about the banana again and his second use for it and the idea began to appeal to him. He couldn’t stomach a woman-beater. Hell, he’d been married once and had three different relationships since, and not once had he raised a hand against any of them, not once. Not that he didn’t want to on occasion. Take last night for instance. Especially last night, he thought. It was probably the worst row he and Susie had to date. But he didn’t lose his temper.

No, he told himself cynically, all you lost was Susie.

Scowling, he put the car in gear, left the trailer park, and headed back across town. His watch beeped but he couldn’t remember why he’d set it for seven o’clock. It was almost dusk.

He found Isherwood just as he’d left it earlier. Restive. Sleepy. Catatonic. The main street saw few cars and the shops even fewer customers—what shops were open. Many hadn’t even bothered. The apparent emptiness of the town didn’t cause any great concern in Charlie Bean. Isherwood was never a lively place except for special occasions like Christmas or the Fourth of July or when the Hoosiers won the NCAA title. But the shops were normally open, all of them, rain or shine, waiting for that one tourist who might wander through and leave a buck or two behind. He slowed the car and peered into the darkened windows that lined the block. The lights of the barbershop and the Woolworth’s were usually out by seven on a Sunday, but the knowledge that they and others had not been on at all today bothered him. Across the street Moore’s was still open—a Sherman tank couldn’t keep Sharon Lou from her business—but only for the moment. The lights in the rear were winking out in succession, and he realized how much slack the drugstore had been taking up. With its closing, the street was plunged into a gloom that only deepened with the flight of the sun.

He shivered. Must be something going around, he thought. Another Asian influenza, maybe an epidemic. Hell, the marshal hadn’t even made it in today. Bean coughed by association and felt his forehead and made a mental note. Nyquil and vitamin C and a lot of zinc. Stop by the IGA before it closes.

He couldn’t get his mind off Susie. Why don’t you call her? a voice kept nagging, though another retorted that she wouldn’t talk now any more than the five times earlier. She had ran off to Bedford last night after he’d gone to bed, and her parents’ home was as much a recognized sanctuary as the church. Norman and Bernice were always cloyingly protective—her mother had already rebuffed each of his calls, answering in a burst of short, staccato yesses and nos. Another call would not change anything. Why waste the time?

Yeah. Why?

He steered into the Sunoco station just as it was shutting down for the night. The sign was still lit and the doors open, but Kenny Houter was already out front in his stained coveralls, pulling the heavy tire displays toward the bays and struggling to make headway as the wiggling casters kept catching in the rutted asphalt drive. The young man grinned when he saw the deputy get out to help him. “I ’preciate the hand, Charlie,” he sighed. “These babies can be a bitch by yourself.”

They tugged the obstinate display free. “Where’s Myers?” Bean asked once they were inside the empty work bay. “I thought he usually works on Sunday.”

“So did I,” answered Houter, disgusted. “Probably sleeping off a drunk someplace. I hope the boss fires his ass.” He looked at the squad car outside. “Anything I can get you ’fore I close up?”

“No thanks. I just wanted to use your phone.”

“Help yourself.” He headed back toward the drive. “I’ve gotta get busy or my supper’s gonna be cold by the time I get home.”

Bean used the phone in the back room of the station and dialed the Swango’s number from recent memory, no longer needing the dog-eared paper from his wallet. But there was no answer at the other end, just a busy signal. Probably off the hook. Damn. This thing was dragging out too damn long, and he didn’t like it. The apartment seemed too quiet already and he wasn’t even there yet. For a change he really dreaded going home.

“ ’Scuse me, Charlie,” Houter said from out in the middle of the bay, where he was setting water cans and an unplugged air hose atop the dormant lift. “I wonder if you could do me a favor?”

Bean looked at the phone in his hand, considered calling again, but hung up instead. “Sure, Kenny. Shoot.”

“Well,” the attendant hemmed and hawed, “it’s not really for me. It’s for Poop-deck Pappy out there.” He nodded out toward the pumps to where a familiar scarecrow loitered. George Bailey stood in the middle of the island clutching an Isherwood Hardware bag in one hand and a small gas can with the other, barely keeping erect against the stout breeze. He was staring away at the horizon, his pinched and scowling expression matching the dis­array of his silvery hair. He looked like a refugee from a Frankenstein movie or, better yet, from an old issue of Creepy magazine.

“Oh, that weird duck,” Charlie said. “He’s ornery as hell. What’s he want?”

“Well, he was wanting me to call him a cab, but Lorene at the switchboard told me two of their drivers didn’t show up and the other’s on a call all the way to Bedford. Mr. Bailey could be waiting out there for a good while and I’m almost ready to close, so I was in hopes you’d give him a lift. It’s not too far, just up to the old folks’ home.”

Bean thought about it. “I don’t know. Why are you so worried about this crotchety old bird?”

Kenny threw up his arms. “I figure I’m gonna be old some day, you know, an’ I’ll probably be pretty pissed about it myself. C’mon, Charlie.”

“Might as well,” Bean sighed. No one to hurry home to anyway. He slapped Kenny on the shoulder as he passed. “Give the little lady a flourish for me too, you hear?”

“That depends on what’s on TV tonight,” Houter laughed. “See ya, Charlie.”

George Bailey was still staring at the dwindling light at the horizon and didn’t realize the deputy was next to him until he spoke. “I’ve seen prettier sunsets. How about you?”

The old man staggered sideways and crashed into the “Unleaded” pump and would have fallen had Bean not caught him by the arm. “You sneakin’ som’bitch,” Bailey croaked, once he’d cleared the heart from his throat. “What do you want me to do, have a heart attack?”

“I’m sorry. I thought you saw me.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He straightened himself on his cane and sloshed the gas can to make sure the cap was on tight. “Well? What do you want? I’m not under arrest, am I?”

Bean forced a laugh. “No, nothing like that. Kenny tells me there won’t be any cabs available for a while so I thought I’d give you a lift back home.”

Bailey turned his hawkish stare on the patrol car a few feet away, then glanced back at the horizon. The sun had abruptly sank out of sight behind the trees. Without a word he crossed to the car and climbed into the front seat, his sack on his lap and the can between his bony knees. “Well?” he called back. “What are you waiting on, the first snow? I don’t have all night, you know.”

Bean scratched his head and shot a perturbed glance back at Kenny Houter but the attendant wasn’t in view.

“So,” he said as they pulled out of the station and started through town, “did your car run out of gas or what?”

Bailey looked out the window. “Don’t own a car.” He kicked the can with a knee. “Lawn mower. Figure we might have to cut again ’fore it gets really cold. It ain’t me that’s gonna do it, by God. I’m just a gopher. I was going into town anyway, to pick up a few things. But goddammit, nothing’s open. ’Cept the hardware store, thank goodness.” He crunched the sack against him and said, more to himself, “I need these things.”

“What’s in there?”

“Just things.”

“Oh.”

They drove in silence for about a block before Bean started fishing for a conversation again. It was too quiet otherwise, and he was afraid that the old man might slip away when he wasn’t looking and slump dead as a carp against the passenger door. He didn’t need the aggravation. “You’ve been around here a long time, haven’t you?”

“Long enough.”

“Born here?”

“No.”

“No? I was, on the other side of town. You have any relatives around here, Mr. Bailey? Any brothers or sisters, any children or grandkids?”

“No.”

“Not around here, or—”

“Nowhere. I don’t have any family.”

Bean nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Me neither.” He changed the subject. “So, what made you come to Isherwood then? When was that, back in—”

“I came here in 1950, for a friend’s funeral. This looked as good as any other town so I stayed. My height is five-nine, my weight is one hundred and twenty-five pounds, and my hat size is seven and three-quarters. Now, is there anything else you’d like to know, Deputy, or should we just check my prints and have it over with?”

Bean laughed. “Just making conversation, Pops. You’re a crotchety old fart, you know that?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

They passed the edge of town, turned onto Moffit Trail, and began the winding drive to the top. The boardinghouse was already in view, standing out against the reddened sky of dusk. It was still light enough to make out the big old structure with its vigilant elm tree out front, its ornate eaves and ivy-encrusted trellises and a honeycomb of shuttered eyes, some dark, others already glowing with lamp light. It was a homey-looking old fortress, had stood for nearly a century, and had functioned as a boardinghouse for about half that time. It had never had a formal business name, nothing you could look up in the Yellow Pages under “Room and Board.” But the people of Isherwood had rectified that years back when they bestowed a moniker from TV. The name still stuck today—as long as Petticoat Junction lived in syndication, the big house on the hill would always be known as the Shady Rest.

Bean wondered what it would be like to live in such an airy old palace instead of a cramped apartment or mobile home as he had most of his life. “It must be great to have such a big old home like that,” he said, mostly just thinking out loud. Bailey turned in his seat and looked at him as if he were stupid.

“Oh, it’s wonderful. If you like to hear the pop of old, brittle bones and the creak of muscles as stretchy as sandpaper, the panting of people who’ve lost their breath and ain’t likely to find it again. This ain’t no home, friend. Ain’t nothin’ but a depot for the dying.” Then, under his breath, “Well, not me. Not yet anyway.” He kept muttering that until they pulled to a stop in front of the house.

There were people out front. Hubert Ranall was just finishing mowing the lawn. A woman not much older than he, Jessie Shively, rose from her flower bed and peeled off her rubber gloves, brushing soil from her knees. A handsome woman with gray hair and still very vital, she had just transferred several late bloomers from bed to pot and would take them inside to protect them as long as any mother could. On the porch was the only person Bean actually recognized by name, Avina Atchison, the house’s owner, rocking with a sweater around her shoulders and some needlepoint on her lap. She was long-faced and dour, not quite as old as her boarders, but looked it. She kept her eyeglasses on a chain around her neck and owned almost as many wigs as Dolly Parton. Today her hair had a reddish hue. It almost looked real. She waved when the squad car pulled up. But none of them spoke when George Bailey climbed out and, without even a thank you or a nod, started up the walk. Bean grimaced. What a charming guy.

The frail old man stopped as he reached the porch and turned to the woman. “Viney,” he said, looking at the darkening sky as if fearing rain. “Come in the house.”

She looked up questioningly. “Did you say something, George?”

“I said you should come in now. And you too, Jessie. And Hubert. It’s getting dark.”

The woman looked from him to the black man and back again. “Since when were you so concerned with us?”

“Yeah, George,” Jessie Shively said, coming onto the porch. “Besides, you don’t have to worry. We’re all grown up now. We aren’t afraid of the dark anymore.” She and the landlady broke up laughing. Bailey stiffened and hobbled on into the house.

Charlie Bean eased the car along the road until he was just across the little plank fence from Hubert. The big man smiled broadly and tipped an imaginary hat but did not take his attention away from his struggle with the bogged down push-mower. “Looks like hard work,” Bean called.

“Ain’t easy,” Ranall laughed back. “But a little hard work never hurt nobody, right?”

The deputy nodded. “Wouldn’t the power mower be a lot easier?”

The big man looked at him quizzically. “It certainly would,” he said, “if we had one.” Shaking his head, he untangled the blades of the ancient mower and continued his work, hurrying to beat the nighttime.

“What about the gas can . . .” Charlie started, but then he just shrugged it off, chalking it up to Old Man Bailey’s senility. He drove back down the hill toward town as the sky darkened further, and didn’t notice the figure standing in an upper floor window behind him.

Not that George Bailey was spying on the deputy; he was far too busy using his new tools from the hardware store. A few more whacks of the hammer and the window was nailed completely shut.

Stiles snapped alert. It was even darker out now, fully night. He checked his watch—8:30 p.m.—as he reached for the scope and leaned it across the steering wheel.

No change at the culvert. Larry Hovi still waved from his hiding place. Then what had alerted him?

His eyes were drawn to the right, along the edge of the road. A shadow splashed across the shoulder and then it was gone. But a branch still swayed there.

The adrenaline began to pump, as suddenly as if he’d flipped a switch. He worked by rote: securing his combat vest, flipping the Uzi’s safety, making sure the Dome-Lite button was still taped down as he opened the door. He slid quietly into the night and glided through the trees toward the road.

Another veil of clouds was pulled across the moon. The countryside went almost pitch black.

Stiles crouched beside a tree and pressed his back to it and gave his eyes time to adjust. He was only a few feet from Sykes Road—the culvert was to his left, fifteen to twenty feet at the most. Hovi’s hand was beyond his view. He watched instead the other shoulder where the bushes had moved. It was still now.

Easy. Danner could be anywhere. Take it slow. Remember, he’s blind. You have the advantage.

He checked the clouds again to make sure they would cover him, then scrambled, low and spiderlike, across the road and into the underbrush on the far side.

He rolled to his feet, his ears perked like parabolic mikes, sweeping the darkness around him. There had been a footstep nearby but now there was no sound at all.

Listen.

There was something . . . breathing. Quick and raspy, either nervous or emphysemic or rattling through a shot-up windpipe. Did vampires actually breathe? He’d never thought about it. Alex was dead and he didn’t, but then again, since when did ghosts and vampires have to play by the same rules?

The breather took a step.

The bushes directly ahead parted. A hunched figure stepped past just as the clouds broke up and let the moon’s stunted glow spill through.

The soldier’s two quick steps crunched in the crepe-paper leaves as loud as gunshots. The stalker whirled about just as Stiles left the ground and the edge of his foot pistoned into its unprotected cheekbone with merciless force. The figure sprawled backward with a groan and the soldier was right on top of it, sweeping the Uzi across the prostrate form with a controlled, almost surgical burst.

But at the last instant, he turned his hand. The spitting machine pistol ripped up the soil instead, but it was close enough for Charlie Bean to throw down his revolver, cover his head, and yell, “I give up! Jesus, don’t shoot!”

Stiles stood over him, glaring. “Goddamn you,” he fumed, visibly shaken himself. He’d barely averted the fire in time. “What the hell are you doing out here? I could’ve blown your fucking head off!”

The deputy sat up and cradled his aching face in his hands. “Mr. Binford . . . lives out yonder . . . stopped me in town, said he saw somebody parked back in the trees out here. I came out to . . . hey, you sonuvabitch! I should be asking the questions here!” He crawled toward the gun he’d dropped but Stiles was already past him and picked it up instead.

Bean watched him hesitantly. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know. Yet.”

He motioned to the Uzi. “Full auto, huh? That’s illegal. I hope you know that.”

“I do.”

Bean fidgeted. What did he have on his hands here, some kind of psycho? A terrorist even? “Wha . . .” He cleared his throat. “What do you need something like that for?”

“It’s just a tool,” Stiles said evasively, but the more he stood there facing the law, the more he realized he would have to tell the deputy something, anything, any kind of explanation. It was either that or get sent up for illegal weaponry and assault on a police officer.

Or he could kill him.

He weighed all his options.

“I’m going to confide in you, Charlie,” he said simply. “I’m a hunter.”

“With that kind of armament?” Bean laughed, but then it dawned on him. “Oh. You mean a bounty hunter?”

“Of sorts. I’m after somebody right now, and I’m waiting for him to return to the scene of the crime.”

Bean looked around him. “Crime? What crime?”

Stiles was blunt. “Murder. There are three bodies stuffed into that culvert over there. And I have a feeling their killer will be back.”

The deputy stared at him blankly before inching his way toward the culvert, though never taking his eyes off Stiles or turning his back. He took the police light from his belt and stooped to look into the concrete tube. Stiles prepared for the retching sounds to come. Even a seasoned officer like Bean would never have seen anything like that.

“Mr. Stiles?”

“What?”

“There are no bodies here.”

Stiles scrambled across the road and dropped into the culvert beside Bean. The tube was indeed empty save for the trickling of backed-up water. There were no twisted limbs, no grinning throats, no gaping, pained faces. No blood to stain the water or the concrete walls.

Nothing.

“I repeat,” Bean said from right beside him, wondering whether he should try jumping the guy and wrestling for his gun, “where are the bodies?”

Stiles stood up and laid the Uzi muzzle against Bean’s lapel. It was not a threatening gesture, though it did make the deputy swallow very hard. Stiles was just motioning to him, for his mind was on other matters. “Quick,” he said, “where’s your car?”

“Just down the road,” Bean stammered, pushing the barrel gently away.

“Well c’mon then,” Stiles nudged him in that direction, “we’ve got to get back to town.”

“Now hold on just a damn minute here. I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers—”

“Look!” Stiles barked, and his intensity backed the burly officer up a step or two. “They’re probably heading back toward town now, cross-country. That means they’ll beat us there, and they’ll probably . . . oh, God, Del and Bart! They could be after the boys!” He hurried down the road, all but dragging the deputy behind him.

The squad car squealed into reverse and did a one-eighty in the middle of the road and raced back toward Isherwood. It was 8:50 p.m. The night had just begun.