But she made it, barely clearing the front bumper of the truck and spinning into the next lane. She pressed the accelerator to the floor, watching as the fist-shaking man became a pinprick in the distance.

She slowed down driving through town. How long would she have before the police would notice her? She felt the impact of what she had just done. She was a criminal. She could go to jail. Her hands began to shake on the wheel.

What was she going to do once she reached New York anyway? August could walk off the plane, and she could be standing there, looking like a fool.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, just thought I’d steal a car and drive up here and make sure you’re okay.”

“Why?”

“Because Charlie asked me to.”

April wished she’d had time to think about the situation. How had she acted so impulsively? Stealing a car? Driving to New York? The last time she’d done anything so rash was when she bought a pint of Häagen-Dazs at the grocery store, something she felt guilty about for weeks.

She almost hit the brakes. She couldn’t drive to New York! What was she thinking?

The airport. She could fly.

She aimed the car at Dulles International Airport. She could ditch the car in short-term parking and make the 9:35 flight if she hurried.

It was barely a plan, but it was all she had.

Eighteen

eighteen

Detective Jensen showed up late. He liked it that way, because instead of being one of the mindless drones digging through the senseless rubble of a crime scene, he walked in with a fresh perspective and a clear vantage point.

“What do you got?” he asked the first investigator he spotted.

“Looks bad,” the investigator said. The badge around his neck read Wallace. “Two dead bodies in the front, and one really dead body in the kitchen.”

“Really dead? What do you mean by that?”

Wallace looked a little pale. “Go see for yourself.”

Jensen walked over to the kitchen door and surveyed the scene. Two investigators were carefully picking through the evidence, taking photographs, scribbling on their notepads. Jensen looked around the room again. He still hadn’t stepped foot inside. “Where’s the body?” he asked.

One of the investigators looked up from his notepad. “Here, here, here, here, and here,” he said, pointing at various locations with his pen.

“Oh, man,” Jensen said. “Any idea who it was?”

“Not yet,” the investigator said. “It’s going to take a while to put this back together. Most of the body has been melted.”

“Melted?”

“Gone. Acidized. Killer knew what he was doing. Half an hour from now there wouldn’t have been anything left,” the investigator said.

“Is the killer still at large?”

“We don’t think so,” the investigator said. “If what the kid said is right, then the killer got shot by the grandma.”

“Kid? Grandma?”