“Private …? Oh.”

Kenny clears his throat. “I don’t want to cause trouble. If I tell you that a woman went in there after Mick, and Isabel finds out I said it …”

“Then you didn’t tell us,” I say.

Confusion creases his features. Then he lets out a short laugh. “Oh, right. Ha. Okay. I didn’t tell you.”

“But if you did, who would you tell us it was?”

“I don’t know. Female. Average height. Thin. That’s all I saw. Oh, and she was wearing dark clothes. Jacket to shoes. But I don’t know if that’s significant because, well, it’s not unusual.”

True, Dalton and I are both wearing dark boots, jeans, and a dark jacket. There isn’t a lot of room to be fashion conscious out here.

I thank Kenny for his time. Dalton says, “Come by the station after nine tomorrow. If the tip panned out, I’ve got some credits for you. If it doesn’t?”

“Chopping duty awaits?”

“You got it.”

“I can’t guarantee they’re still there,” Kenny says. “It’s been three hours, and if they’re still there, then I know why Isabel keeps Mick around.” He laughs, a heh-heh chuckle, and then says to me, “Sorry.”

I smile. “Agreed. I suspect they’re only there if they fell asleep, which would explain why he didn’t get his ass back home before Isabel returned.”

Another chuckle. “Right, yeah, okay. See you guys later, then. Hope you find him.”

Five

We go straight to the shed, but we don’t run. This isn’t the killer’s MO, so what we have here is almost certainly the scenario we hoped for: Mick is getting some on the side. While I struggle to think of him cheating on Isabel, I struggle a lot more to think of him as the guy who’d cut open a man, take out part of his intestine, and hang him in a tree to die.

Behind the shed is the chopping yard. There are a couple of sawhorses, but the equipment is all kept in the carpentry shop, which is better secured. The woodshed isn’t locked. Most of the resource buildings aren’t secured. You’re welcome to help yourself to firewood or water or food, if you suddenly find yourself needing it in the middle of the night. Of course, if you take it, Dalton presumes you plan to pay in the morning. If you don’t, there’s a 100-percent interest charge for each day you delay.

I go through the shed door first, Dalton covering. As soon as we’re in, we both stop short.

I inhale. “Do you smell—?”

Dalton barrels past me. What we smell isn’t blood.

It’s smoke.

I can see the source: a smouldering pile of wood, flames just starting to lick up from the base. That’s when I catch another scent, an even worse one.

“Eric!” I lunge to shove him out of the way, but he’s already wheeling, and he grabs me and throws me aside, and we both hit the floor just as the fire catches the kerosene-soaked wood and whooshes up in a pyre of heat and flame. He keeps me pinned until we’re certain that’s all it is—fire, with nothing about to explode. Still, the wood stack is going up so fast, the heat is like a solid wall, smoke already filling the room.

Dalton yanks me to my feet and shoves me toward the door with, “Go!” I don’t. I can’t, no more than he can, because I see the remains of a broken lantern, and I know it didn’t just fall over and accidentally start a fire.

Someone has deliberately set a kerosene-fuelled fire. In the same place where a missing man was last seen.

“There!” I shout, as I see a foot behind the woodpile.

Dalton turns, and his face screws up like he’s about to snarl at me to get out, but I push past him and grab the foot. There’s a split second where I remember Harry Powys’s body, and I imagine yanking this foot only to realize that’s all I have. It’s not. There’s a body attached, and before I can pull again, Dalton’s there, helping.

It’s Mick. His shirt is kerosene soaked, sparks already lighting it up. I let go of his foot, and I’m out of my jacket and slapping it on his now-flaming shirt as Dalton drags him from behind the burning pyre.

Dalton doesn’t wait to be sure the fire on his shirt is out. Doesn’t check for a pulse, either. There’s no time. We’re in a building filled with dry wood and doused in accelerant. He hoists Mick over his shoulder, and that’s when I see the blood. The back of Mick’s shirt is soaked with it, the fabric shredded. He’s been stabbed in the back. Repeatedly.

Mick. Oh God, Mick.

Any thoughts of him as a psychotic killer vanish, and all I see is the guy I knew. The sweet, quiet guy. Devoted to his friend, Abbygail. Devoted to his lover, Isabel. A guy I’d liked. Really liked.

We’re moving fast for the exit. The fire is roaring now. Whoever lit it didn’t stick around to be sure it caught properly, and when we first opened the door, the rush of wind must have caught the smouldering flame, finally bringing it into contact with the kerosene. Not that the how matters. It’s just my brain processing, trying to keep calm and centred and temporarily forget the fact that there’s a massive fire in a building filled with wood, in a town built of wood.

Dalton slaps the radio into my hand as we move. The smoke swirls so thick I don’t even realize what he’s given me until my hand wraps around it. I fumble for the Call button, but my eyes are streaming and I’m coughing too hard to speak. Dalton shoulders me forward. Get the hell out first.