“Police say the man killed this morning and a suspect in the death of Jennifer Bates was twenty-eight-year-old Kyle Dornan, a resident of Rossingville—”

Amanda yelled so loud everyone looked at her. Even Henry.

She held her hand to her chest. Her eyes were wide, filled with emotion.

I tried to shuffle through my feelings. Relief, yes. I felt relief. Also shock. Horror. Fear.

Fear. That man Kyle Dornan. He’d come so close to our lives. He’d come to our house. And whatever he’d done with the police was enough for them to kill him.

“That’s not your friend, is it?” Bill asked. “So that’s good, isn’t it?”

“It is good, Dad,” Amanda said. “It isn’t Blake.”

“Are you relieved, honey?” Karen asked. “Why do you look that way?”

Amanda breathed deeply. Her chest rose and fell like she’d just run a fast mile. Her lips looked cracked and dry.

“He’s not our friend,” Amanda said. “Not at all. But we know him too. He came to our house this morning.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Bill and Karen bombarded us with questions right away, and it took Amanda long minutes of reassuring with calming words before they settled down to listen. Since it looked to be a longer conversation, Karen decided we all needed to eat something, so she went to the kitchen and started to take food out of the refrigerator and the cabinets. While she did that, the rest of us watched more of the news coverage, which offered little in terms of new information about the death of Kyle Dornan. Except when the reporter on the scene announced that sources inside the police department were telling her they believed Kyle Dornan was responsible for Jennifer Bates’s death. Kyle had had a criminal record. He’d committed an assault while he was in college in another state. And he was currently wanted for another felony assault, something having to do with an altercation in a bar. I assumed it involved a jagged broken bottle and too much bourbon.

Police sources theorized he had resisted and taken a stand because of that outstanding charge. If he had gone into custody, he’d have faced the music. He had opted to go down swinging.

I checked my phone as much as I could, refreshing the Twitter feed in desperate hope of finding new information and growing agitated when none came. The fastest means of information spreading known to humanity, and it wasn’t fast enough for me.