BY THE TIME KIMBERLY AND SAL ARRIVED, THE HOUSE at the address provided by Ginny was engulfed in flames. The fire department had deployed, stubbornly working their hoses, but Kimberly and Sal could tell it was a lost cause.

They stood at the perimeter, watching orange flames light up the night sky while feeling the heat of the blaze against their cheeks. Neighbors clustered around them, belting their bathrobes against the drizzling rain as they gathered in the street to watch the show.

“Pity,” an older woman commented, gray hair neatly arranged in row after row of pin curls, “used to be such a pretty house in its day.”

“You know the owner?” Sal asked sharply, he and Kimberly moving closer.

But the woman shook her head. “Used to, long time ago. But the house sold two, maybe three years ago. Rarely saw the new owner. He certainly didn’t take an interest in caring for the house or garden, I can tell you that.” She gave a disapproving sniff.

“You said he,” Kimberly pressed.

The woman shrugged. “That’s all I ever saw-younger guy climbing in and out of his black SUV. Always wearing a baseball cap, even in the dead of winter. Struck me as an odd sort. He definitely wasn’t friendly.”

“He wasn’t,” another man chimed in, standing a few feet away in a blue flannel robe. “My wife brought over a plate of brownies to welcome him to the neighborhood. Through the side window, she could see him standing in the entryway, after she rang the doorbell. But he didn’t open the door. Finally, she just set down the brownies and left. Definitely an odd duck.”

“Ever see a boy?” Sal asked.

Man frowned. “Eighteen, nineteen years old? He rarely left the house. I figured he was the son.”

“There’s a younger boy, too.” The first woman spoke up authoritatively. “At least lately, I’ve been seeing one out in the yard. Don’t know if he’s just visiting or not.”

Sal and Kimberly exchanged glances. “And tonight?”

“Didn’t see a thing,” the woman provided. “Least not till I heard the sirens and realized there was a fire.”

They turned to the man. He shrugged apologetically. Apparently, the neighbors on this street actually slept. Which was more than Sal or Kimberly could say for their evening.

They rounded up the first responder, a young deputy who didn’t have much to add. He’d heard Dispatch ordering all units to the address in pursuit of an unidentified suspect. When he’d arrived, the first red coils of fire already glowed in the front windows. Next thing he knew, the windows blew out and the house was one giant fireball. He put in a call to the fire department and that was that.

They tried the fire chief, a portly man with a graying mustache and a weathered complexion.

“Definitely an accelerant,” he boomed. “No way a structure would’ve lit up this fast in these wet conditions without a little help. From the smell, I’d guess gasoline, but we gotta get Mike in before we’ll know more.”

Mike turned out to be the county arson specialist. He’d been called, but couldn’t begin his walk-through until the fire was extinguished and the building cooled and secured. Probably late morning at the earliest, if not midafternoon.

In other words, nothing to report, nothing to do. Get some sleep, the fire chief advised them. He’d let them know when it was their turn to play.

Kimberly thought that was pretty funny. As if she’d ever sleep again. Just the thought of it made her giggle in a way that wasn’t entirely sane. And she could feel the heat again, smell the astringent odors of burning insulation, melting electrical wires, sprayed gasoline.

She wondered about the younger child. If somewhere in that burning structure, a small body was already curling up in a pugilist’s stance. She had failed one boy this evening. And his younger counterpart? The so-called replacement?

The fire punched its first hole through the roof, discovering a fresh supply of oxygen and exploding with an ear-cracking roar. There was a warning groan from the old structure. A yell to fall back from the fire crew.

Then, with a tremendous, creaking sigh, the old house twisted, seeming to hang in midair one last moment. Then it collapsed. Red embers spewed into the darkness. Fresh flames skyrocketed into the overcast night. The neighbors gasped. The fire crew surged forward with renewed determination.

Sal led Kimberly back to his car. They drove wordlessly to the hotel, where Rainie and Quincy slept, where Kimberly’s ERT team worked, and where the remains of a lone boy were finally being loaded up by the EMT. Ginny Jones had already been taken away to the county lockup. One ordeal ending, the next just beginning.

Sal led Kimberly to his room.

“He knows,” Kimberly murmured. “Dinchara knows that Aaron failed. That’s why he lit the fire. Because he knew we were coming and wanted to cover his tracks.”

Sal drew back the bedcovers, sat her on the edge of the bed, then carefully laid her down and tucked her in.

“We need to do something,” Kimberly continued relentlessly. “What if he decides the younger boy is a liability? Or what if he decides to come after us? We need a plan.”

Sal picked up a pillow, placed it on the floor.

“He’s coming, Sal. I can feel it. He’s going to do something awful.”

“Sleep,” Sal told her. He lay down on the floor, no blankets, just the pillow.

Kimberly stared at him in amazement. Then, much to her own surprise, she closed her eyes and the world mercifully disappeared.

“Here’s the deal,” Sheriff Duffy explained shortly after eleven a.m. He’d convened the first task force meeting in the basement of the Smith House. Everyone was in attendance, including Kimberly’s evidence response team and a bunch of local deputies who’d already been up all night. Coffee flowed fast and furious, followed by platters of buttermilk biscuits and homemade sausage. As task force meetings went, the food was superb.

“There are two major trails leading up Blood Mountain.” Sheriff Duffy had a large USGS map spread out on the first table. Now he stabbed the first thickly drawn line with his dark finger. “There’s the Woody Gap trail off of Highway Sixty. Or, you can take Highway One-eighty to Lake Winfield Scott and head up Slaughter Gap to Blood Mountain. Slaughter Gap is shorter and steeper; might be an issue if you’re lugging a body and supplies. Both hikes are pretty damn popular, however. I sure as hell can’t figure how two men could drag dead bodies up time after time without someone noticing something.”

“They didn’t follow a major trail.” Kimberly spoke up tiredly. She sat beside her father and Rainie at a second table, cradling a mug of steaming coffee between her hands. Her cell phone was clipped to her waist, still stubbornly silent though she’d already left multiple messages for Mac.

She’d slept for three hours, showered for thirty minutes. She was as close to human as she was going to get.

Sal sat all the way across the room from her. If her father or Rainie thought anything was odd about that, or wondered where she had spent the night, they hadn’t said anything yet.

Kimberly continued now. “The boy, Aaron, said they had their own trail. One above the major trails where they could look down at other hikers. Cub Scouts,” she added belatedly. “He said Dinchara liked to watch the ‘skippy little Cub Scouts.’”