LATER THAT NIGHT Stone sat up in his hospital bed staring at the wall opposite. He checked his watch and then slipped open the nightstand next to his bed and pulled out Danny’s phone. He called Abby first and Tyree next. Abby was working at the restaurant and Tyree was out in the field trying to track down Lonnie Bruback, who, he said, seemed to have disappeared. They had found nothing in Willie’s trailer other than a couple of torn-apart propane tanks and the remnants of the cookstove, he told Stone.

“I’ve got a bomb squad guy from the Virginia State Police coming to examine the scene. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it might have been an accident. Willie was gone, maybe the propane was leaking and Bob lit a cigarette when Willie came through the door, and boom.”

“If the propane was leaking, it would have exploded before then. I saw Shirley there like I told you and she was smoking a cigarette. And you would think Bob would’ve smelled the propane. The odor they put into the gas is pretty pungent for that very reason.”

“I know. But why would they want to kill Willie so badly?” Tyree asked. “First an overdose and now a bomb?”

“He knew Debby didn’t kill herself. He was going to keep making noise until the truth came out. Somebody obviously didn’t like that.”

“But now that they killed him we know there’s something going on,” Tyree pointed out.

“But these people are good and we have no proof that a crime’s even been committed. So in their eyes it’s better.”

“Well, I’m not giving up until I get to the bottom of this.”

“Tyree, everybody needs to watch their back here, and that includes you.”

“I hear you.”

Stone clicked off and stared down at the phone. Danny had a late-model Verizon cell phone with all the bells and whistles, including e-mail. Stone had never been into mail that didn’t involve pen and paper. He scrolled down Danny’s contact list. The names there were mostly female. He’d even made annotations by each entry indicating the lady’s strong suits, and each contact also came with a digital photo of the woman. Several of the pictures would have qualified as pornography, at least in Stone’s estimation.

He shook his head. Danny needed to seriously upgrade the quality of his female companions.

He looked outside. It was dark. He slowly eased himself from the bed. He was pretty stiff and sore but the more he moved around, the better he felt. His butt was already numb from lying in the damn bed all those hours.

He walked out of the room and over to the nurses’ station. After being chastised for being out of bed, he asked and was told where Danny’s room was.