Spencer wasn’t looking at the debt collector’s aggressive letter. He’d gotten its gist at a glance. A line of dried blood in the skin fold of one of his fingernails had caught his eye.

Spencer dropped the letter on the desk and went back to the kitchen. He needed to wash his hands again. He could have put up with the smell of gasoline a little longer and the dry skin it caused—at least for as long as it took him to finish his first drink—but not Milt’s blood.

“They’re all for me, Chris. No need to panic.”

“Jesus, Spencer, don’t be such an imbecile! They’ve got this address. It’s not just my home, it’s my business address. If you don’t deal with this, it’ll affect my reputation, maybe my credit. What if a repo guy comes at night looking for one of your cars and takes Penny by mistake?”

God forbid they kidnap Penny in her sleep.

Chris watched Spencer waste half a quart of detergent on his hands and then pour himself another big drink.

Spencer put his hand up against one of the kitchen cabinets so he could rest his head against it. He felt like he could sleep standing up. He went to check his watch. Still gone.

Spencer knew Chris had a point. It could be a little trying how much of a drama he made of some things though, especially tonight. Spencer had just seen four people die. One would have been a first. When he’d attended the morgue to formally identify Marielle, they’d cleaned her up. He’d touched her cheek and its coldness had shocked him. In that moment he’d known she was gone from this earth. It had been a terrible realization. But at least he didn’t have to watch her die.

Chris seemed to see the dried blood on Spencer’s face and T-shirt for the first time. It dawned on him that he hadn’t imagined the smell of gasoline.

“What happened to you?”

Spencer finished his drink and went to pour another, his hands still shaking. He didn’t like what was going on in his head: Marielle, those guys burning in his car. One of his fellow rally competitors had fried in a wreck. Trapped by the steering wheel, he’d melted away while hanging in his harness.

“Were you in a car wreck?”

“Uh, yeah, something like that. Look, I’ve got to shower. I’ll take care of this,” he waved vaguely in the direction of Chris’s debt-themed floor decor, “tomorrow.”

He headed for the bathroom and saw Abby’s open door. He needed to be by her side, just for a moment, to make sure she was safe.