I'll Stop the World (84)

“How’s the investigation going?” she said as she got closer, holding out the glass.

Rose accepted it, took a sip. Homemade lemonade, perfectly sweet and tangy. She closed her eyes a moment to savor. “Not great,” she admitted. “Everywhere we look seems to be a dead end.”

Mrs. Hanley sighed, her eyes roving over the ruined garage. Rose wondered whether she was seeing past the smoke-darkened walls to the years of memories packed lovingly inside, now little more than piles of ash.

If Justin was right—if they couldn’t solve this—she’d never even know why.

“Well, in any case, I appreciate you kids for trying.” Mrs. Hanley smiled sadly, patting Rose on the cheek. “I’ve always thought my grandson was particularly skilled at picking his friends.”

“Oh,” Rose said, her ears heating with embarrassment, “Mrs. Hanley, I’m not actually doing this because of Noah—”

“No matter,” Mrs. Hanley said, waving away her explanation. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re trying to help out an old lady, even though I’m sure you have better things to do.”

Justin came around the side of the house, looking glum. Rose’s heart sank, knowing what he was going to say, but needing to confirm it anyway. “No luck?”

He shook his head, kicking at a clump of weeds. Rose searched for something to say, some right next step they could take, but her mind was blank. The action figure had seemed so significant. Like a sign that they were on the right track, that they could make a difference. She didn’t know what to do with the possibility that it meant . . . nothing.

Plus, there was a part of her that kind of wanted him to feel lost and hopeless. Served him right after how he’d acted yesterday.

Although, somehow, that didn’t make her feel any better.

The sound of tires crunching on gravel pulled her attention, and she peered toward the front of the house to see the neighbor’s car pulling into the driveway. She looked at Justin. “Did you do that house yet?”

“Nope. No one was home.”

Hope surged in Rose’s chest. “Mrs. Hanley, your neighbors have kids, right?”

The old woman nodded, a slight frown deepening the wrinkles in her face. “One. Nasty little boy.”

Rose’s jaw dropped slightly. She couldn’t remember ever hearing Mrs. Hanley speak so harshly about someone before, much less a child. “Nasty?”

“You remember Tiddlywinks?”

Rose nodded, confused about what Tiddlywinks had to do with Mrs. Hanley’s neighbors.

“Tiddlywinks?” Justin whispered under his breath.

“Foster cat,” Rose explained. A couple of years before her husband died, Mrs. Hanley had taken in the extremely pregnant stray and, not long after, her two tiny kittens. Rose and Noah had named Tiddlywinks together, along with the kittens, Parcheesi and Boggle. After Tiddlywinks ran away, Rose sometimes stopped by to help give the kittens their bottles, even when Noah was busy.

“We told you kids she ran away, but that wasn’t true. We just didn’t want to upset you,” Mrs. Hanley said, her typically warm eyes narrow.

Rose clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening in dawning horror. “Oh no—what happened?”

Mrs. Hanley frowned, pursing her lips. “His parents found her inside a camping cooler in their garage. He’d piled paint cans on top so she couldn’t get out. Poor thing suffocated to death.”

Rose’s stomach clenched queasily, and a glance at Justin told her he was having a similar reaction. She met his eyes, and he raised an eyebrow. She assumed they were both having the same thought: if the kid was capable of killing a cat, he was probably more than capable of burning down a garage. Living next door would have given him ample opportunity.

And if he’d killed a cat and burned down the garage, who was to say he wouldn’t burn down the school?

Together, they headed over to the neighboring house, where a tired-looking blonde woman balanced paper grocery bags in her arms as she kicked her car door shut with a maroon high heel. “Robbie,” she called to a bored-looking preteen standing in the driveway, bouncing a grotesque rubber ball that looked like a human head. “Can you get the mail?”

He rolled his eyes but caught the ball. “Fine,” he grumbled, dragging himself toward the end of the driveway.

“Oh damn,” Justin whispered as they approached. “I know that kid.”

Rose gave him an incredulous look. “How?”

“I mean, I don’t know know him, but I’ve seen him before. That’s one of the kids that was beating up Karl outside the post office.”

Rose added violent bullying to her quickly growing mental list of evidence suggesting the Tiddlywinks-murdering Robbie would turn out to be their arsonist. She pasted a smile on her face, forcing herself not to stare daggers at the kid. “Excuse me,” she called to his mom. “Do you have a minute to answer a couple questions? It’s for a school project.”

“Here, let me help you with those,” Justin offered, stepping forward to relieve her of the grocery bags. She readily accepted his assistance, tucking a permed curl behind her ear as she thanked him. Rose found herself hit by a sudden wave of frustration at the memory of Noah getting met with hostility for trying to take a similar action, just a few days earlier.