“I remember.”

“Well, he did. But there’s a bit of a wrinkle, and it might be better all round if Jeremy didn’t get here until Galen’s gone.”

The problem was, we were already back. I’d just made the turn onto Madeline Plimpton’s street. The house wasn’t half a block away. There was a car parked at the curb that hadn’t been there when I’d left to find Jeremy, which must have been Broadhurst’s. Nice set of wheels, too.

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t believe it!” Jeremy said, sitting up in his seat. “What the hell is that doing there? Why would he do that? Why would someone do that to me?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, taking the phone away from my ear.

Jeremy was looking at the car. It was a red seventies-vintage Porsche 911.

“That,” he said.

“What about it?”

“That’s the car . . . that’s the car I was driving when it happened.”

THIRTEEN

TREVOR Duckworth glanced down at his phone.

“Shit, my dad sent me a text like an hour ago,” he told the woman sitting across from him at the round table just out front of a Promise Falls Starbucks. She was mid-twenties, green eyes, dark hair to her shoulders. She wore a black sweater, black jeans, and tan leather boots that came up to her knees.

“What’s he want?”

“Says he needs to talk to me.”

“What about?”

Trevor shrugged. He tapped Im at Starbucks and hit Send. He saw the dots appear, and then his father’s reply: Stay there. See you in 5.

Trevor typed K, then rested his phone on the small table. “I should have told him something else.”

“Why?”

“He’ll be thinking, I’m out of work, and I can still afford to pay five bucks for a cup of coffee.”

“Would he say that?”

“No, but he’ll be thinking it. He’s coming here in a couple of minutes.”

“Should I go?” the woman asked. She glanced down at her latte. She’d barely started it.

Trevor hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? How about, ‘Please stay, I’d love him to meet you.’ How about that?”

“You know it’s not a good idea.” Trevor thumbed his phone to check the time. “Fine, you might as well hang in and meet him.”

“He is kind of a hero,” she said.

“Yeah, I know, so everyone says,” Trevor said. “He’s the big star.”

“You two don’t get along?”

Trevor sighed. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. He can be a bit of a hardass at times. Whaddya expect? He’s a cop.” He glanced out at the parking lot. “Shit, he was even closer than he said.”

The woman followed his gaze. A heavyset man was getting out of a black four-door sedan and walking toward them.

Trevor got to his feet as his father approached. The woman smiled awkwardly. Barry Duckworth nodded briefly to his son before turning his attention to her.

“Well, hello,” he said, extending a hand.

“Hi,” she said.

“Dad, uh, this is Carol,” Trevor said uneasily. “Carol Beakman.”