This was the puzzle piece that locked everything together. The city’s workshops on the budget. Brown’s murder. The restaurant meeting with Drew and two council members. Emily’s murder. Drew’s second year as city manager was coming to a close. To save his job, to save his reputation, to save his career, he needed to reduce the city’s budget, and fast. And now . . .

“City council has a meeting tomorrow night,” I said. “Keith, I think you need to—”

My water bottle suddenly blew apart. I looked at my wet but empty hand, not understanding. What had just happened?

BANG!

The report of a rifle echoed loudly around the backyard. Just for a second, Keith and I stared at each other. Then, simultaneously, we dove for cover.

Chapter 17

I tried to quiet my panting breaths since I didn’t want to transmit any feelings of cowardice and fear. But since Keith’s breathing was just as loud as mine, I stopped worrying about it.

“We heard the same thing, right?” he whispered.

Before I’d moved north, I would not have been able to identify the difference between the firing of a handgun, rifle, and shotgun. In the years since, however, my horizons had expanded dramatically. “Rifle,” I whispered back. “Not sure of the caliber.”

“A .22 would be nice,” Keith said.

It would, because while a small caliber could do a lot of damage, it was less likely to kill us. However . . . “Yeah, but it sounded like a .30-06.”

The absurdity of discussing firearms with a man I barely knew while crouching behind an outdoor kitchen to hide from a man who’d already killed twice struck me with a fierce intensity. Giggles leaked out and I put both hands over my mouth to keep the noise from escaping. The laughter was, I knew, a reaction to the life-threatening situation we had suddenly been immersed in, and I needed to stifle it if we were going to get out of this alive.

“Where do you think he is?” I asked through my fingers.

“No idea.”

“At least he’s a lousy shot.”

Keith sort of laughed. “We were sitting ducks, sitting there by the fire. He had enough light to see us . . . well, me, I suppose. I’m the one he’s really after. Sorry I doubted you at first.”

I gave him a nod of acknowledgment. Noblesse oblige and all that. “Sorry I didn’t anticipate him changing up his methods so much.” Then I thought about angles and trajectories, which was a lot like math, so I didn’t get very far. Then I remembered that I was hunkered down next to a math teacher.

“That shot hit the bottle of water,” I said. “I was just lifting it to take a drink. And you were sitting directly across from me. Do you think that could have deviated the bullet?”

“In addition to not being a statistician, I’m also not a ballistics expert.”