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Back Snow Creek Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Books by Gregg Olsen
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Hear More from Gregg
  55. Books by Gregg Olsen
  56. A Letter from Gregg
  57. Acknowledgements

I shrug. “Not much need for one around here. Besides, nothing goes out of style. I saw a guy in a leisure suit the other day when I was getting coffee.”

“No shit,” he says. “I used to have a few of those back in the day.”

I suspect he still does.

I tell him that I’m going back to Snow Creek before the memorial and I’ll meet up with him around one or so.

He gives me a sly smile. “Leaving no stone unturned, Megan?”

“That’s me,” I say.

In fact, I nearly live for turning stones to see what ugly thing crawls out from under. I did it with abandon when I was fifteen.

Or sixteen.

The ride back to Snow Creek is now autopilot easy. I play Adele on the CD player. Her voice soothes as my mind plays thoughts about Ida Wheaton. Beaten, brutalized, burned, dumped. It was such overkill. At first, I thought the carpet was an instrument of convenience, concealment. But why bother with it if you’re just going to burn her in the truck and drive it into a ravine? Too much effort. Now I consider it was purposeful. Whoever hated her enough to kill her so violently, must have loved her too. That’s why my money’s on Merritt. At some point he must have cared for his wife. Most husbands do. Then for whatever hideous reason, he strikes her with a hammer and rolls her up in a carpet to hide what he’s done. Not from others. Strictly from himself.

I pass the inventive two-story mobile and barely give it a thought.

When I near Dan Anderson’s place, I consider stopping. Maybe apologizing for not getting back to him. Or say that I had my eye on the carved bear. I play all of those scenarios in my mind and am glad that I keep going. I like him. I can tell he likes me. I just can’t go there. There are too many secrets to hold inside that keep me from being anything other than closed off.

The Torrance place looks exactly the same when I drive up. From where I park, I can see the note to Jared is right where it was. The goats look as though they are being taken care of, but there are no signs that any other car has been here besides Sheriff’s. That bothers me a little. It’s possible that Jared is someone out in the woods and gets there by walking. Maybe the mobile home with the sweet potato vine in the jar?

I scan the field and the tree line that rises up the mountains to the logging road where the truck and body were discovered. There’s an opening at the edge of the forest.