The phone rang, and Anita called out, “I’ll get it!” A moment later, she came into the room, still holding the phone. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Jen,” she whispered. “The sheriff called her about the house. He wants to see it, and Lane’s at work and can’t get off, and she wants us to go with her.”

“Sure,” he said.

Nick was in his room playing a game on his computer—the high school was still closed, and no one seemed sure when classes would resume, especially with both the principal and vice principal dead—so Kyle asked him if he wanted to come along, and Nick immediately said yes. “We’re leaving in five,” Kyle said, and smiled to himself. The one positive that had resulted from all this was that their family seemed to have drawn closer together. Two months ago, Nick would never have agreed to go anywhere with them.

“Jen wants us to pick her up,” Anita said. “I texted her last night when we came home, so she sort of had a heads up, but I think she wants more details before she meets the sheriff.”

“Is she mad?”

“No. More like relieved, I think.”

Nick sat up front with Kyle, so Jen could sit in the backseat and talk with Anita when they picked her up. She seemed nervous and uncertain when she first got into the car, but as both he and Anita explained in more detail what had happened at the council meeting and afterward, Jen’s apprehension faded. The idea that they were bringing the fight to the bank seemed to give her energy.

The sheriff was waiting for them when they arrived, sitting in a patrol car with one of his deputies. Both men got out when Kyle pulled up.

Introductions were made all around.

“Now tell me about this room,” the sheriff said. “I heard her version of it—” He nodded toward Anita. “—but I’d like to hear it from you.”

Jen took a deep breath. She described how the bank manager had ordered them to set aside one of the bedrooms for a purpose to be determined at a later date; how they had arrived to find the door to the room already closed and locked; how they’d heard things in there; how they’d rented out the house and their tenants had heard things in there, too; how she’d dreamed multiple times about returning.

“I want to see this room,” the sheriff told Jen. “First of all, contract or no contract, I’m not sure it’s legal for the bank to keep you from using a part of your own house. I’d consult a lawyer about that. Secondly, if you’re right, and there’s someone or something in there, that falls under my purview.”

“I told you, you can’t get in there. It’s locked.”

“There’s no key to the door?”