Once in the house, Jeremy went straight to the fridge, looking for a snack. I’d had so much popcorn that not only did I not want anything else to eat, I was in need of some Pepto-Bismol. I’d brought none, so I settled for a few antacid chewables instead.

I hit the lights upstairs and found my phone on the bed. I fired it up. I’d missed a call, plus there was a voicemail. And an email. I checked the voicemail first. It was from Barry Duckworth, my friend on the Promise Falls Police. I listened closely, saved the message when it was finished.

Then I opened the email Duckworth had said he would send me. It was a photo of this Cory Calder he’d warned me about.

“Shit,” I said, looking at the shot of the guy who’d talked to us on the beach.

I looked out through the sliding glass doors to the blackness of the night and felt, suddenly, very vulnerable. I went over to the wall switch and flicked it down, killing the lights.

“Jeremy,” I said, just loud enough that he would hear me downstairs.

“Hmph?” He had a mouthful of something.

I went to the top of the circular metal staircase. Evenly and calmly, I said, “We’re leaving.”

“Hmm?”

“Pack. And turn off any lights downstairs. Now. Work the best you can in the dark. Get your stuff. Quick as you can.”

“What’s going on?” he asked, his mouth now clear of food.

“Do it.”

Three seconds later, the lights downstairs died. The staircase was only wide enough for one, so Jeremy waited at the bottom while I came down. His bedroom was up, mine below. We went into our respective rooms to throw our things together. I had my suitcase on the bed and my stuff dumped into it in under a minute. One thing I held onto was my gun.

I became aware that a light had come back on. Softly, I called upstairs to Jeremy. “I told you, lights out.”

“I didn’t do it,” he said. “I thought that was you.”

It was then I realized that the light wasn’t inside the house. It was coming in through the windows. I turned my head quickly to look through the pane of glass in the back door, thinking maybe someone was shining their headlights up against the house.

It wasn’t headlights. It was fire. And it wasn’t coming from just that side of the house, either. Within seconds I could see flames leaping up past the windows on all four sides.

Someone was torching the beach house.

Fifty-One

FIFTY-ONE

MAUREEN Duckworth, dressed in a robe that she had cinched at the waist, found her husband sitting at the kitchen table, still in his suit, tie askew, a few minutes before midnight. A half-full bottle of beer sat in front of him, as well as his phone and a bottle of Tylenol.