My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(87)

Dan pulled into his driveway and saw tracks in the snow from a car’s tires, but did not see Tracy’s Subaru. It immediately worried him. He checked his cell. No bars. When he tried calling her, he got a persistent beep.

Where the hell could she have gone? he wondered.

He popped open the glove box and switched on a flashlight. Rex and Sherlock, who’d begun barking when he’d pulled up the driveway, became more animated as he approached the house. “Hang on,” he called out, opening the door and bracing himself against 286 pounds jockeying for his attention. “Okay, okay,” he said, petting them as he shone the flashlight about the room. He found Tracy’s briefcase hanging from the back of one of the kitchen counter’s elevated chairs. “Tracy?”

No response.

“Where is she, boys?”

He’d talked to her just thirty minutes earlier. She’d said all was fine.

“Tracy?” He walked through the house calling her name. “Tracy?”

His cell phone still showed no bars. He dialed again anyway. The call did not go through.

“Stay,” he said to Sherlock and Rex as he pulled open the front door, though neither appeared too interested in following him into the garage, where he plugged in the portable generator he’d wired to the main electrical panel.

Back inside, the television was now on, though the sound was muted. He picked up a half-finished beer from the coffee table. The bottle remained cool to the touch. He hit the “Mute” button on the remote control. The local weatherman was using diagrams to explain the size of the storm and its path, talking about high- and low-pressure systems and predicting up to an additional eighteen inches of fresh snow by morning.

“The problem now isn’t the snow, it’s that the winds are increasing in ferocity,” the weatherman said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Dan said. Sherlock whined at the sound of his name.

“Due to the recent warming and freezing pattern, ice is forming on the power lines and weakening tree limbs. Some of you may have seen the debris in the roads or heard those limbs snapping outside. We have at least one report that a transformer fire has knocked out electrical power to nearly all of Cedar Grove.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Dan said.

The camera switched back to a news anchor sitting behind the studio desk.

“We’ll continue to check back with Tim to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage on what is shaping up to be a major winter storm.” Dan put down the remote and walked into the kitchen. “At the moment, we’re getting reports of a fire on Pine Crest Road in Cedar Grove.”

Dan’s interest was piqued. He knew the road, of course, from growing up in Cedar Grove, but there was something more familiar about the name than a childhood memory, something more recent that jogged his memory.

“We’re told the Sheriff and fire department personnel responded quickly and were able to contain the blaze, but not before the house sustained significant damage. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman indicates at least one elderly resident lives at that address.”

The memory clicked. Dan had used the address on the subpoena that had never been served, one to compel DeAngelo Finn to appear at the post-conviction relief hearing. He felt a chill. His stomach fluttered. He looked again to Tracy’s briefcase. Then he picked up his car keys and headed for the door.

That’s when he saw her note taped just above the deadbolt.



The lights atop Finlay Armstrong’s patrol car and the two fire engines swirled and pulsed in bursts of red, blue, and white light as Roy Calloway drove down the block toward DeAngelo Finn’s one-story rambler. The Suburban’s headlights illuminated charred rafters poking through what remained of the roof, like the exposed rib cage of a dead animal picked clean.

Calloway parked behind the larger of the two fire trucks and stepped out. He trudged past firemen struggling to flatten and rewind hoses. Finlay Armstrong, standing on the front stoop, caught sight of Calloway and lowered his head into the wind and swirling snow, heading over. They met at the picket fence, a portion of which had been knocked down to run the hoses from the fire hydrant close to the house. Armstrong had the collar of his patrolman’s jacket turned up and the earflaps of his cap pulled down and snapped beneath his chin.

“Do they know what started the fire?” Calloway shouted over a gust of wind.

“Captain says it smells like some sort of an accelerant. Likely gas.”

“Where?”

Armstrong squinted. Snow and ice clung to the fur framing his face. “What?”

“Do they know where the fire started?”

“The garage. They think maybe a generator.”

“Have they found DeAngelo?” Armstrong turned his head and pulled an earflap up. Calloway leaned closer. “Have they found DeAngelo?”

Armstrong shook his head. “They just got the fire out. They’re trying to figure out if the house is safe to enter.”

Calloway stepped through the gate. Armstrong followed him to the front porch, where two firemen stood discussing the situation. Calloway greeted Phil Ronkowski by his first name.

“Hey, Roy,” Ronkowski said, shaking gloved hands. “A fire in a snowstorm. I’ve seen everything now.”

Calloway raised his voice. “Have you found DeAngelo?”