Ahead of him, the ambulance turned into the library parking lot without signaling. Alan tapped the brakes, then turned to follow, engine revving as the car swung in behind the ambulance. The other emergency vehicle bumped right up onto the library lawn, no longer blocking Alan's view of the scene before him.
The lights inside the library blazed, the whole building lit up. The front doors were shattered, some of the windows as well. The sheriff 's patrol car was skewed at a crazy angle across the lot, door open and blues flashing. There was another vehicle in the lot, however.
A green, somewhat weathered Jeep Cherokee Laredo.
It took him only a moment to recognize it as the vehicle driven by Jack Dwyer.
"You've gotta be kidding," he muttered to himself. But he knew there was no joke involved. The kids had asked him about the library earlier that same day. The sheriff had been suspicious of the two teens from Boston the moment he had laid eyes on them. Now it looked as though that suspicion was going to be borne out.
Alan's tires grabbed the pavement as he laid on the brakes, then jumped out of the car. Sheriff Tackett jogged across the lawn toward him, leaving the wounded face of the library abandoned for the moment.
That was the second alarm that went off in Alan's head. Sheriff Tackett did not pick up the pace for anything, ever. Yet now the man's slightly rounded face was grave and determined. He had his gun out, held down by his leg, as he came over.
"What's going on, Sheriff ?" Alan asked, thinking the question made him sound like a dimwit.
"Ned Meredith's been murdered," the sheriff said, a twitch in his left eye revealing his tension. John Tackett did not get rattled easily, but he was rattled now.
"Mr. Meredith?" Alan asked, heart sinking. The dead man had been a football coach at Buckton High when Alan was there.
"The library's been ransacked, Ned's blood is all over the place. I found a backpack and some things belonging to his daughter, Janelle. I think she was here, but she isn't now."
Alan hung his head. "Oh, God."
The EMTs were running across the lawn toward the school when the sheriff called after them.
"Langer!" he shouted at the man who was senior among them.
Both EMTs turned.
"I hereby deputize both of you. The man in there is already dead. He doesn't need your help. I do. Secure that crime scene and don't let anyone in until I get back."
"Get back?" Alan asked. He stared at the sheriff, wide-eyed. "Where are we - "
"Did you see the Jeep?" Tackett snapped.
"Well, yeah - "
"It belongs to those kids you told me about today. You know, the ones who knew there had been a third murder before we did? Well, this is number four, and I have a hard time believing it's a coincidence that their vehicle is here? The hood was still warm when I arrived. They can't have gotten far."
Suddenly Alan understood what the sheriff was planning, and he held up both hands in protest. "Sheriff, I don't know if this is the best - "
"I'm going, and I need backup, so you're going," he told Alan. "Ned's dead. He's not going anywhere. The way I've got it figured, maybe these kids - if they're the ones doing this - have Janelle up there in the woods."
"It's night," Alan said. "How're we - "
Tackett suddenly turned on him, rage in his eyes, face contorted so that for a second he looked almost inhuman. "Think of the girl, Alan!" he snarled. "I've been walking the trails back there my whole life. They can't have more than ten minutes on us, and they don't know this mountain. Now, let's go!"
The sheriff spun and walked away, and for a long moment, Alan just stared at his back. Then he ran to his car and pulled the flashlight out of the glovebox.
There was one main trail that led up from behind the library into the mountains. In high school, he and some of his buddies had gone up there dozens of times to drink beer or make out with girls, so he knew the path well enough. But off that path, there were dozens of narrow trails. Alan thought it would look kind of silly if he and the sheriff got lost up there.
The sheriff . . . Alan stared at Tackett's back as the man jogged across the lawn of the library toward the forest. There had been something in his tone, something in the way the man had eyed the woods, that unsettled Alan. What had happened in the library was nasty, but it was a bit premature to blame it on Jack and Molly just because the Jeep was there. The kids had been poking around, sure, but for all they knew, those two could be in danger as well.
Weird, Alan thought.
Then he trotted toward the tree line.
Behind him, inside Jack's Jeep, a cellular phone began to ring, but there was no one there to answer it.
In the alley behind Bridget's Irisk Rose Pub, Bill Cantwell threw a suitcase in his trunk and slammed it shut. He glanced over at Courtney, who stood in the open back door of the restaurant with a cell phone to her ear. Bill could tell by the dismay on her face and by her scent that there was still no answer.
As he walked back around to the driver's door of his huge, aging Oldsmobile, Courtney clicked a button on the phone and then held it at her side. She came out into the alley to stand by him.
"Nothing," she said, voice hollow with fear for her brother.
"They're all right," Bill promised, though it was only a guess.
"Then why
