“Sarah.”

“—only a few blocks from here, they found this woman with her head smashed in, I think I told you about that—”

“Sarah.”

“—drove home as fast as I could and—”

“Sarah!”

“What?”

I tried to stay calm. “Get out of the house.”

“What?”

“Just get out of the house. Walk out the door, get in the car, and, and just drive to the doughnut shop. I’ll find you there.”

“What do you mean, get out of the house?”

“Sarah, I’ll explain later, but right now it’s important that you—”

“Hang on,” she said.

“What?”

“Just hang on. There’s someone at the door.”

“Sarah, don’t answer the—”

And I heard her put the phone down. She must have been using the one in the kitchen, not a cordless, otherwise she would have kept talking as she went to the door.

“Sarah.”

Nothing.

“Sarah?”

Still nothing.

“Sarah!”

And then, a minute later, the sound of the receiver being picked up.

“Sarah?”

“Hey,” said a voice I recognized. “I’ll bet this is Zack.”

“Rick,” I said.

“Gotcha. Why don’t you come home, bring along that ledger I think you got, before I kill your wife.”

Chapter 26

26

i was barely two minutes from home, but it was the longest drive of my life. I stomped hard on the gas pedal of the Beetle, screeched around two corners and through two stop signs, and drove right up onto our front lawn, jumping out of the car without turning it off or bothering to close the door. Sarah’s Camry was in the drive, blocked in by Rick, who had parked his car behind it.

The front door was locked, so I fumbled in my pocket for my own set of keys, got the right one into the lock after a couple of tries, my hands were shaking so badly, and burst into the house.

“Sarah!”

The house was eerily quiet. I paused, just for a moment, wondering where Rick and Sarah were. Blood pounded in my temples.

“Hey, Zack!” Rick called out casually. “We’re in the kitchen!” Like he was saying “Come in for a beer.”

I moved through the house slowly, wondering how I should be handling this. The truth was, I had no idea how to handle this. I was already thinking I’d made a terrible mistake, that before I got here I should have dialed 911, or grabbed Earl again, or banged on Trixie’s door and gotten the ledger, but I wasn’t thinking all that straight. Sarah was in trouble, and all I could think to do was get to her as quickly as possible.