“I’ll call him,” Kerri offered.

“I’ll go back to Russo and see if he found anything on the owner of the house.”

Kerri nodded as she put through the call to the medical examiner’s office.

When she’d convinced Dr. Moore to have a look at the body as quickly as possible—which still might be Monday—she walked around the yard and considered why Sela would have been here.

Had someone been holding her in this off-the-beaten-path location? Or was she hiding here? Was this a property the Abbotts owned that hadn’t shown up in the property records search?

Or had Sela Abbott bought this place the way she had the car and the gun?

Her cell phone records hadn’t shown any contact with York or Thompson. No cell towers in this area had been pinged. Would she have anticipated those records would be subpoenaed? Of course she would have. Sela had been preparing for this—whatever this was—for a long time. Kerri thought of what the folks from Sela’s past had told her. Solving the mystery of what had happened to her sister was her primary goal in life.

Why hadn’t learning that she was pregnant tempered her desire for revenge or whatever she had planned? Pregnancy usually changed people.

Sela Abbott had hidden a handgun in the baby’s crib.

Something was fundamentally wrong with that scenario.

49

1:00 p.m.

Fear trickled through Jen as she drove past the house on Thirty-Third Avenue.

It was the one from last night. The numbers 1528 were on the dilapidated old mailbox.

Official vehicles were parked in front of the burned-out house. Yellow crime scene tape was draped around it. She had heard the news. A body had been recovered from the ashes and rubble.

Someone had died in that house.

She sucked in a breath.

The house where Theo and his buddy York had argued. The one at which York had pointed and said the mess was Theo’s and that he could clean it up or deal with it or something like that.

Had Theo burned the house, killing the person inside?

A choking sensation tightened inside her. She didn’t want to believe he would do such a thing . . . but she had seen the two of them arguing. She had heard the heated exchange. There was no mistaking the situation. Someone or something had been in the house, and it was a problem. A big problem. York had demanded that Theo take care of it. Was it possible some homeless person had been inside—someone they hadn’t known about—and that all of this was a mistake?

She didn’t think so.

She turned on the next street and drove away from her new nightmare.

Life was full of coincidences. Strange things happened all the time.

But this was no coincidence. Even her need to continue believing in Theo didn’t make her that blind.

She couldn’t worry about that right now. She had taken the afternoon off to be with Diana. She might take tomorrow off too. Diana needed her. She was going through the worst kind of nightmare.

Jen was barely aware of the miles as she drove to Diana’s house. All she could think about was the very strong possibility that Theo was the one who had set fire to that house.

The news hadn’t mentioned who owned the house or the name of the victim. The victim had burned inside the house. It was very possible that they didn’t know who he or she was. Wasn’t it nearly impossible to identify a burned body?

She couldn’t remember.

Relief flooded her when she reached Diana’s house. She needed to do something to keep all this out of her head.

When Diana answered the door, Jen’s heart broke. She had been crying again.

Jen hugged her. “Tell me what I can do. Anything. Name it.”

Diana drew back, wrapped her arm around Jen’s. “Just be with me.”

They curled up on the couch, and Diana told her about how she and Robby had searched Amelia’s room. Kerri and Tori had brought dinner to them last night, and Kerri had agreed to take Amelia’s laptop to the lab since none of them could get beyond her password.

Jen hated to ask, but it was a reasonable question. “Did they find anything that gave you some idea of what’s going on?”

Diana shook her head. “Kerri just called me. She heard from her friend at the lab. Whatever Amelia has been doing, she was really careful. Nothing on her Facebook. No weird emails or files or photos. I swear, I just don’t get it. How could I have been so blind to what was happening?”

“Hey, hey, now.” Jen wrapped her arm around Diana’s shoulders. “You are a fantastic mother. This isn’t about what you did or didn’t do; this is about a choice Amelia made.”

Diana nodded, but she looked far from convinced.

Jen searched her friend’s face. “Have you eaten today?”

Diana looked away. “I can’t eat.”

“You have to eat. Come on.” Jen got up and offered her hand. “You always have ice cream for the boys. Let’s have ice cream, and we’ll put all the ooey-gooey shit on it we can find.”

Jen found the ice cream and chocolate syrup. It took some searching in the twins’ room for their hidden stash of M&M’s, but she found them. Pecans and sprinkles added the finishing touch.

“Oh my God.” Diana stared at her concoction. “This is like a million calories.”

“Maybe a million and a half,” Jen teased. She dug her spoon into her bowl and brought a hunk of the amazing combination to her lips. She moaned. “I haven’t eaten anything like this in twenty years.”

Diana laughed sadly, chocolate rolling down her chin. “You’ve deprived yourself that long? Not even one lapse in willpower?”

“Never,” Jen declared. She had tortured herself with exercise and starved herself of all the goodness that contained sugar or fat. And for what? So some asshole could treat her like a whore? “But that’s changing today.”

“Really?” Diana ate another bite. “You’re going to stop being so worried about how you look?”

Jen stilled, spoon halfway to her mouth. Was she? Could she be someone different? “Yes. Yes, I am.” She stuffed another spoonful in her mouth.

Diana set her spoon down. “Amelia should be here with us.”

Jen covered her friend’s hand with her own. “I know. It’s going to be all right.”

Just because Amelia worked at York’s firm didn’t mean she was involved in whatever Theo and Lewis were doing. And just because she had helped Sela Abbott with a fundraiser didn’t mean she was missing the way the Abbott woman was.

This was all probably just some teenage bullshit.

Even as Jen told herself these things, fear tightened around her throat. She forced out the rest of the words that needed to be said to reassure her friend. “Kerri will find her.”

50

2:30 p.m.

Second Time Around Auto Salvage

Ninth Avenue North

Joey Keaton didn’t intend to waste his life working in a scrapyard. As soon as he paid off the loan he’d taken out to pimp out his 944, he was out of here. He’d never been a delayed-gratification kind of guy. He liked his now.

Maybe he should spend more time hanging around his aunt and those rich folks she worked for. Who knew if the Abbott woman was coming back, but that was no problem: his aunt would just move to the next big house in Mountain Brook. And even if she decided to go back into retirement, she had contacts with all those big shots.

He’d done a little landscaping for the Abbotts and a few of their neighbors. Maybe he’d start his own business. At least that way he didn’t have to worry about anybody bossing him around. There was money to be made doing shit for people who were too rich, lazy, or busy to do it themselves.

George Sanders, the salvage yard’s driver, barreled through the gate in the rollback. He drove straight past the office and into the back of the yard. Joey watched him go.

He did a double take. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

That crappy blue Plymouth Breeze was nestled on the rollback, as if she had wanted to come back home to Daddy. The car didn’t look damaged. Maybe it had broken down. He wouldn’t be surprised. It was basically a piece of shit. He’d told Mrs. Abbott that, but she’d said she didn’t care.

Whatever. Ten K was ten K. He was happy to take the rich lady’s excess cash.

He tossed aside the broom he’d been pushing around the shop and headed for the back of the yard. Usually cars that were in reasonably good condition were left behind the shop for repairs. Old Man Tate made big money flipping cars that people either didn’t have the money to fix or didn’t know how.

As Joey strolled past the rows and rows of crushed cars waiting for pickup, he lit a smoke and pretended he wasn’t supposed to be cleaning the shop. If Tate saw him, he’d be pissed. All the more reason to have a smoke. He would just say he’d needed a break. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the shop.