Jack was in the backseat. When Molly swung the heavy door shut with a loud thump, she turned to give him a withering look. Bill started the engine and it roared to life.
"What?" Jack asked, uncomfortable under Molly's gaze.
"You should have said something," she told him.
"What did you want me to say? He's right. If we leave this town without spending any more time in jail, I'd say we're pretty lucky."
Both of them looked to Bill for his input. The burly bartender guided the car along the main road. After Jack gave him directions, he turned down the road that would lead to School Street, where their Jeep was still parked in front of the library.
After a long moment, he seemed to sense their attention upon him and glanced over. A grim smile appeared on his features.
"What next? That's the question, right?" Bill asked. "Funny. You two usually figure out what's next without much help. Why all of a sudden are you looking for suggestions?"
Jack frowned. It was a good question. "This isn't our territory. It's like, out here, in the middle of nowhere, there could be a Prowler behind every tree. Back home . . . it's just easier to kick ass and take names when you know where to run if it goes down ugly."
"Sounds like you've already figured out the next step," Bill noted, both hands on the wheel.
"Kicking ass and taking names," Molly said softly. "And maybe not even the names part."
"So where do we start?" Bill asked.
"The sheriff," Molly said quickly. She rolled down the window of the car and sweet summer air blew in. "He's a Prowler."
"Is he?" Bill asked, frowning.
"Isn't he? You should know. Didn't you get a scent off him?" she prodded.
Bill contemplated the question a moment. Then he shrugged slightly. "He has some pretty aromatic flowers in his office. And even out there in the foyer.
There's a Prowler around that office. Probably him. But I'd be lying if I said I was sure."
"I think we need to go on the assumption that it is him," Jack put in. "Hate to say it, but those gun charges could have been pretty bad. Especially if he searched the Jeep. Maybe it's true he just doesn't care right now. Or maybe he wanted to let us out, wanted us to be roaming around."
In the front seat, Molly turned to look at him, eyes haunted. "You mean, so they could kill us?"
Jack did not answer. He did not have to.
"We killed a couple of them at the library last night," Molly told Bill. "The sheriff was the first one there, but when Deputy Vance got there, the bodies were gone. The sheriff had to have moved them. He was only a couple of minutes behind us, and the Prowlers were all ahead of us."
Bill turned on School Street, jaw set in a grim line. "Sheriff of a town like this. What better position to be in if you're the Alpha of a Prowler pack? You decide what evidence gets paid attention to, and if a couple of hikers disappear, you get to play dumb without the law poking their noses in. It makes a nasty kind of sense."
Jack felt his sadness over Deputy Vance's death mingle with his fear for himself and his friends and grow into a new resolve. This could not go on any longer.
Now that Bill had arrived, it was time to act.
"We're going to have to go forward assuming the sheriff 's one of them," he said. "That's bad because he knows all about us, now. But it's good because we know where he is. We've got a lot of questions, and now we know who to ask."
"He's not going to want to answer," Bill reminded him.
"It's too late for what he wants," Jack said gravely. "Now it's about what we need to stay alive. What really pisses me off is that they can move during the day if they want to, but we can't exactly raid the police station in broad daylight. Tonight, though - tonight, we go after answers."
He turned to gaze out the window at the passing trees and his stomach grumbled. "In the meantime, is anyone else hungry?"
Hate flowed through Tina, trying to fill her up, and she let it in if only because it helped to force out her grief. Dust rose up from the dirt road that cut across her father's farmland as she drove toward his house. The house she had grown up in. Off to her left a tractor was stopped in a cornfield, probably broken down.
Several hands were standing around staring at it as though it would fix itself. As the sound of her engine reached them they turned to wave, almost in unison.
Daddy, she thought.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
Her lips curled up in a soft growl.
The moment Sheriff Tackett told her what had happened to Alan, she began to rehearse the confrontation that was about to come. Now, though, as she drew closer to the huge, rambling farmhouse, she knew that she would never be able to speak those rehearsed words.
The tires bounced through ruts in the dirt road, and then she was there, the house looming up in front of her. Tina hit the brakes, threw the car into park, and killed the engine. She sprang from the car and hurried toward the door. By the time she reached it, she was running.
"Daddy!" she shouted as she tore the door open and rushed into the foyer. "Daddy!"
"In here."
The voice came from the sun-filled parlor to the left of the front door. It had been her favorite room as a child; her mother's favorite room. Until her mother had died. Now, even from the corridor, she could see her father in the antique rocker that sat in the
