Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(40)

He shook his head, his eye moving from her, to the door behind her, then back to her again. “I don’t think you’re fine, Kate. I think you’re upset, and you’ve every right to be. You’ve been through a lot.”

He stepped closer, hand outstretched like he could pacify her, but she didn’t like how close he was getting. She didn’t like the feeling that he was boxing her in.

She raised the lighter higher. “No! Don’t you want them to tell the truth, too? Don’t you want this for Adrienne?” Kate didn’t understand him. How could he not want them to be forced to tell the truth?

She thought, then, of the detectives’ questions about any adults hanging around Sawyer’s clubhouse. Mr. Edwards was never at the clubhouse, but he was at the school and in the hockey buildings a lot. More than any other board member. Kate couldn’t remember seeing any other board member hanging out on campus with the kids the way he was. Most of the members of the board were distant people you saw the names of around campus, but didn’t see much of as a student.

Why was he always there?

Kate began to shake again. She wanted so badly to close her eyes and have this whole thing over with. Not only this moment, but all of it. From the moment she got that first phone call from Carrie’s parents asking if they’d seen her. All the time as she watched one friend after another disappear and then...

She couldn’t think about what had happened after their disappearances. “Stop,” she said again, only this time it came out as a whisper and she couldn’t hear it over the shouting in the locker room behind her.

She shoved the lighter hand toward Mr. Edwards as if she could strike him with it somehow, but all it did was make the flame go out.

This was all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. All she’d wanted was to get the hockey players to tell the truth, to stop covering for Sawyer.

Kate sank down to the ground, shaking so hard she couldn’t hold onto the lighter anymore, couldn’t keep her knees beneath her anymore. Then there were hands on her and someone was pulling her up and she felt like she was watching a movie. None of this could be happening.

None of it.





Chapter Twenty-eight





The Gordon home was every bit as large as the Sawyer estate next door. It had an older feel to it, though. In fact, Shauna couldn’t help but expect to see a ghostly figure watching out of one of the third floor windows. She could swear she felt eyes on her as she followed Liz’s car up the drive.

As a cop, she never ignored that feeling, but she did have to admit, she thought this time she was just letting her imagination run wild. The house looked too much like the setting of a horror movie to stop her brain from going there.

She glanced up at the house again before getting out to approach Liz. She’d instructed Liz to wait for her in the car. Liz rolled down the window now.

“Liz, is anyone in the house?” Shauna asked.

The girl looked at her phone screen for the time. “Yes. The cook should be in there getting ready for dinner.”

Shauna had a flash of a long formal dining table with only Liz seated in the middle of it, empty seats stretching out on either side of her. “All right. Sit tight here. I’m just going to check the house and then I’ll come out and get you. You keep the car running and the doors locked.”

It was likely overkill, but Shauna didn’t care. She didn’t want any surprises.

She rang the bell and introduced herself to the cook, who ended up being a small thin woman who might have been in her fifties with a fit frame. She looked like she could easily run ten miles.

Shauna explained what was going on and, after the woman looked over Shauna’s shoulder for assurances from Liz, she let Shauna into the house.

Clearing a house like that took some time, but Shauna had the chance to scan the grounds and check that the back doors and windows were secure. She also walked through the second and third floors of the house quickly.

When she was finished, she poked her head into the kitchen. “Ms. Tiede?”

The woman looked up from a pan where she was sautéing something that smelled fantastic.

“Yes?”

“I just wondered if you could tell me what’s up on the third floor?”

“Mostly storage. There are some guest rooms up there, but they’re closed up from lack of use.” The cook frowned. “I think there’s a sitting room up there, too, but that’s not really used, either. I don’t know when anyone was up there last.”

“And the basement?”

“Oh, that’s mostly empty. I think Liz spends time down there, though.” She shivered. “It’s creepy if you ask me. There’s an old fireplace that a grown man can stand in. And a giant furnace that looks like it belongs in a horror movie. Liz had a TV and couch put down there.”

Shauna nodded, then went to check the basement. She would leave the attic for later.

A flick of the light switch showed what the cook had meant. It was eerie and old. The fireplace looked like you could put an entire tree in it back when it was in use. It was empty now. The large furnace looked more like some kind of oven, dark and brooding like a squat giant in the corner.

A small table sat next to the couch and television the cook had mentioned. Shauna looked at the papers on the table. Homework.