But what if he hadn’t ever seen the other killer? What if he’d been kept in the stable because it had been Tom Almand, and Almand alone, who’d abducted him? Maybe it had been the first and only time Almand had made his son help him, and that was what had driven Chuck over the edge. Maybe Tom hadn’t had a chance to share before he was discovered. So the accomplice had an even better chance of getting away with it.

And Doak Garland was not the man. He’d just asked me where the boy had been kept. If he’d been the other murderer, he would have known. If he’d just been trying to muddy the waters, he could have simply said nothing. It didn’t make any difference what I thought. Why should he make such a point of asking me, unless he genuinely didn’t know?

But someone had known, someone I’d talked to very recently. Someone had said the boy had been under the floor in the stall, or something to that effect. Who had it been? We’d seen so many people. Obviously, not Rain or Manfred; not any of the law enforcement people, they’d know and that would be okay. All right, who? Who had I talked to? The funeral home lady, Cleda something. No, not her.

I’d been sitting there with the door half-open, one foot out while I thought. With a suddenness that struck me dumb, a big SUV pulled in beside me, the door was ripped from my hands, and my arm was grabbed and I was out of the car. Then a big hand hit me right where the shovel had bashed me a long, long time ago, and then I was out.

Thirteen

I was in his vehicle by the time I was conscious enough to understand what was happening, and by then my mouth was taped shut and my hands were bound together. His blitz attack had caught me completely unawares.

Barney Simpson was hunched in the driver’s seat, backing out of the driveway and taking off down the road like a maniac. The SUV lurched so violently that I slid to the floor. I had no means to stop myself. I landed on my bad arm, and the pain was excruciating. I would have screamed, but once again, he’d taken care of that.

There’s something terrible about being right when being right means you get bitten on the ass.

I’d be lucky if that was all that happened.