“Ethan—”
“Tell my uncle what’s going on,” I say. “I’ll call you back.” Then I hang up. I ignore the two times Frankie calls me back, instead seeing just how fast I can get my Corolla to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I reach my street eleven minutes after I hang up with Frankie, but instead of turning onto it, I drive around to the other side of the block and park in front of the house that borders my backyard. No one appears to be home. The entire street is quiet at midday—everyone is at work. The overcast sky has lowered even further, like an iron lid. I have a lug wrench in my trunk and I take it, closing the trunk as quietly as I can. Then I walk down the driveway, hoping there isn’t a bored housewife or retiree peeking at me from behind closed curtains and dialing 911.
Thankfully these folks don’t have a fence around their backyard, and I make my way easily through a backyard that’s littered with kids’ toys—a faded yellow plastic bat, a tricycle on its side, a large sandbox in the shape of a plastic green frog with its cover askew, a puddle of rainwater inside. I realize that I don’t know the people who live here, not even their names. The thought makes me feel like even more of an intruder.
At the edge of their backyard is a stand of trees, old pines dotted with a few tall oaks, along with a fair amount of undergrowth—an effective wall of foliage that stretches down the center of the block, separating the houses that already face away from each other. I step carefully into the trees, watching where I put my feet. The last thing I want to do is step on a copperhead. A small cloud of midges dances around my head, and I wave them away with one hand, the other gripping the lug wrench as I try to navigate around the trees.
After a few yards, I see Tony and Gene’s house appear through the trees, a wall of brick and glass with an oiled hardwood deck spanning the entire back, a radar dish and two solar panels crowning the roof. I angle to the right, stepping over a small drainage ditch that runs down the entire length of the block. Just then my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I nearly drop the lug wrench as I snatch at my phone, trying to keep it from ringing. It rings once before I can get it, and I see it’s Johnny Shaw. I reject the call and mute my phone and put it back in my pocket. In that short pause to deal with my phone, the mosquitoes have found me, and I slap the back of my neck as I continue stepping through the undergrowth.
Then my own house looms ahead, the tiny strip of fescue that masquerades as a backyard, the dilapidated garage to the right. The back door to the kitchen is shut. I tighten my grip on the lug wrench and prepare to step out of the trees when I see something in the grass to my left. Then I’m out of the trees and I walk over to the thing in the grass and drop to one knee. It’s Wilson’s rope bone. My heart sinks with dread. He rarely takes it outside, and he never leaves it in the yard. I stand, peering into the trees that loom at the edge of the yard. “Wilson,” I call in a stage whisper.
“That his name?” a voice says.
I stand and spin around, the lug wrench in my hand. A pistol pointed at my face from two yards away stops me. The man holding the pistol has shaved his head, but I recognize him the way you recognize a familiar nightmare. Ponytail. Donny Wharton.
“Not a sound,” Donny says. He motions at me with his free hand, the one holding the pistol unmoving. “Drop that.”
I drop the lug wrench onto the grass next to Wilson’s rope bone.
Donny smiles tightly. “Good boy,” he says. A red rage spurts through me and I ball my fists, causing Donny to move the pistol closer to my forehead. “Easy,” he says. “Come on. Over to the garage.”
I walk toward the garage, keeping my eyes on him. He’s wearing a khaki shirt and dark-green work pants, like someone working for a lawn service company. Which, I realize, would be a great way to blend into a neighborhood. “Where’s my sister?” I ask.
“She’s fine,” Donny says. “Having a little time-out. So’s her bald black buddy.”
My heart sinks at hearing about Caesar. “Did you hurt my dog?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
“Fucker ran away,” he says. “Gave him a good kick. Wouldn’t stop yapping.”
I am at the point where I’m willing to take a bullet to the face if first I can take a swing at this guy, but as if he can read my mind, he takes one step away from me, his pistol still trained on my forehead.
“Marisa,” I manage to say. “Why’d you kill her?”
He shakes his head. “That bitch,” he says. “Sniffing after me like a bloodhound. You and your sister, though, you’ve been following me for years.”
We walk around the corner of the garage, and I see a BMW backed up to the entrance of my garage. My heart, already low, drops another foot when I recognize the car—it belongs to Tony, my next-door neighbor. I stop. “What did you do to Tony?”
Donny presses the muzzle of his pistol against the back of my head, a cold circle that may very well be the last thing I feel. “Didn’t tell you to stop,” he says.
“This is my neighbor’s car,” I say. “What happened to him?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I stole it out of his garage.” He taps me on the back of the head
