He has no idea. All those smarts and still stupid.

CHAPTER 67

Present

THE PACKAGE COMES through FedEx. All of Mike’s do. It’s a principle thing. Having UPS knock on his door, earn his money… it feels like the equivalent of Tom Brady wearing a Jets jersey. It is supporting the other side, Jeremy’s side, and that side doesn’t need any more of anything.

Mike signs for the package, takes the box, and rolls back. Sets it on the kitchen counter, his hand hefting the weight and approving its bulk. He cracks open the lid and glances in. Leaves the box there and returns to his room. Logs back online and works.

Five and a half hours later, the engine of a lawn mower begins, and he straightens at the keyboard. Moves to the rear of the house, through a door he never uses, and flips the lock, rolls the knob, wheels down the ramp.

It takes ten minutes of sitting in his chair at the edge of his driveway, his hand raising in occasional attention-grabbing gestures, to get the man to see him. When he does, the lawn mower rolling to a stop, a slow click off, lazy dismount, and hesitant wander over, Mike is sweating, unaccustomed to the heat, the moisture in the air, the feel of sun against his T-shirt. No wonder Jamie is always pushing him to sit outside. He’s becoming a vampire.

“Can I help you?” The man turns out to be a boy. Seventeen or eighteen, his baseball cap pushing up high enough to reveal a baby face, a pitiful attempt at a mustache, and a healthy scattering of acne. The boy’s eyes avoid Mike’s, avoid the chair, avoid the situation.

“I need a hole dug, then filled. When you’re done here, could I pay you to do that?”

The kid scratches the back of his neck. “Where?”

“In my backyard.” He twists his body and points, under the tree, in a shady spot that would make a suitable grave.

The kid nods. Slowly. As if great thought is occurring. “How deep?”

“I’ll let you know when you come over. Forty bucks?”

The thought process stops, a smile spreading over the kid’s face. Forty must have been too much. “Sure. I’ll do it now.” He starts toward his truck, a faded red dually with a landscaping trailer attached. “Gonna grab a shovel.”

“I’ll meet you in the back.”

Easy. Not as easy as having the legs and doing it himself, but easy. Mike rolls back, forward, right, forward, and heads inside.

Thirty minutes later, he passes Deanna’s box with great solemnity to the boy, who places it in the ground, fills in the hole, and lifts the headstone carefully out of the box, setting it atop the grave.

Rest in peace. Mike reaches out and shakes the hand the kid held out.

“I’m sorry about your cat. I had a cat once.”

Mike nods somberly. “Thanks for your help.”

“I’m gonna go back next door and finish up.”

Mike reaches down and pulls two worn bills from his chair’s side pocket and holds them out. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Turning to leave, there is an awkward moment when the kid feels the need to pat his shoulder. He waits, settled into the chair, and listens to him leave. Closes his eyes against the sun and hears the catch of the lawn mower’s engine as it fires back up.

The headstone had been simple, its fictional message still carefully thought out.

ALLEYGIRL

You will be missed.

Rest in Peace.

The faceplate of the headstone was metal set on a granite stone. The plate would take the blame for any readings from a metal detector. And below the plate, below the stone, past three feet of soil, lay Deanna’s box. Hopefully no one showed up for it. But if they did, if they tore apart his house, they wouldn’t find it.

He raised his head off the rest and rolled backward, turning a rough path on the dead grass, his return to the house bumpy and uncoordinated. He had a lot of work to do.

His phone next to him, he taps out a furious rhythm on the keys. She’ll call. Soon. As soon as she gets the ability to make a call. And he’ll be ready. Informed. He’s already gotten into the Tulsa Police Department’s internal site, pulled up the evidence log and the detectives’ reports. Twenty-two documents so far associated with the investigation into Deanna Madden. While in their system, a new file posts from the lead detective, one Brenda Boles. He clicks on it, his eyes skimming over the fields. Prestwick Place. This is bad. He downloads the report and opens a new window. Dedicates it to the life and dirt of Brenda Boles. Then he renames the report, inverting a few of the numbers on the file and sending it into a corner of the department where it will never be found. Check.

There are seven members of the Tulsa Police Department who have a hand in Deanna’s well-being. He opens a new window for each of them, each with a collection of tabs. Finances. History. Family members. Web history. A hundred places for skeletons, weak places, and pressure points. There will be an opening for each of them.

It’s work he hasn’t done in years, and never for a personal reason, always for a paycheck. One hand lifts from the keyboard, his other hand rapid-fire in its strokes, covering the full range of keys in the time it takes to scratch at his forehead, a smile crossing over his face. Because, despite the dire circumstances, despite the hurdles ahead, this is going to be fun. So, so much fun.

There is a moment of pause, right before the complete invasion into seven lives begins. A moment when he rolls right and hesitates, his hand slow as it reaches for the mouse and clicks. Clicks again. A string of keystrokes. Another three clicks. Refresh. The hospital records have gone online in the six months since Jeremy Pacer was last admitted. And that almost sucks, because it delivers the bad news so much quicker.

His status stares, unwavering, from the screen. CRITICAL. Patient unresponsive. No AD.

AD. Advance directive. Jeremy didn’t plan ahead for this situation. Dating a girl like Deanna, he probably should have.

There have been a hundred times in the last year when he’s wished to be Jeremy. Or wished for Jeremy to be gone. But now, with the man’s life hovering above the dark precipice of death, he wishes fervently that he’ll make it. Pull through. Open his eyes. Especially since, from all appearances, Deanna was responsible for his demise.

He closes the window and returns to the fun. Checks his phone for the twentieth time. She’ll call. As soon as she gets the chance.

CHAPTER 68

Present

PRESTWICK PLACE HAUNTS Brenda. So does the girl’s face, outside that apartment, when she put her under arrest. Utter surprise, then panic. Concern. The damn girl had had a party of emotions, all jostling for prime facial real estate. Something is wrong. Everything is wrong. Yet… everything is right, all i’s dotted, t’s crossed. It makes no freaking sense.

“Drop it.” David speaks from the passenger seat, his hands busy with a piece of gum. He offers her the pack of Doublemint; she shakes her head.

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can. That triple homicide on Forty-Second. Sage’s birthday party this Saturday. My irresistible good looks and the constant temptation. All things you could focus on instead of a closed case.”