Page 73 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

“Is it Brogan?”

“I don’t know,” Summerly said. His eyes searched the asphalt.

“If it’s not him, who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why is her car here?” Baby roared. “Where is she?”

“Baby,” Summerly said. “I know exactly as much as you do right now.”

They held each other. With her chin on his shoulder, Baby looked down the highway and saw a thin smoke tendril rising from the distant forest.

“What’s that?” she asked.

She turned him around, pointed. The smoke was drifting diagonally with the evening breeze.

CHAPTER85

WILL BROGAN HAD HOPE.That was the terrifying part. After the explosion, I sat against the base of a tree and watched the car burning and thought about Brogan’s hope.

All he’d been doing since he killed Daisy Hansen was trying to clean up his mess, and there was still a chance he could do that. He’d burned Daisy’s car and her body, removing all traces of himself. He’d lured Troy to the scene and then disappeared the note he’d used to do so. I’d conveniently brought the box buried in Troy’s crawl space to the police’s attention for him. If Brogan could pin Jarrod Maloof’s murder on me, another loose end would be neatly tied up. He was probably hoping that he could kill me now and pass it off as self-defense.

A killer with hope, even struggling, flickering, fading hope, is unspeakably dangerous. The door was closing on Brogan’s escape. He had one final problem to solve before he could slip through and be free.

And yes, I was tired. I was wounded, and shaken, and probably concussed. I’d lost blood. I was unarmed.

But I had one advantage — I had more to lose than Brogan. My kid sister was right behind me on the trail of discovering who had set up Troy Hansen, and Baby would never believe that Brogan had killed me in self-defense. Brogan would have to take her out too.

And my love for Baby would trump a killer’s hope any day of the week.

In the aftermath of the blast, I’d glimpsed Brogan crawling into the trees, but I didn’t know if he’d grabbed a weapon from the wreckage before he went. Slowly, carefully, I eased onto my hands and knees and started to crawl back toward the car.

A shot smacked into a tree above my head, showering splinters. I flattened myself against the earth. Smoke was pouring through the forest, coiling upward, black and choking. I looked up from the dirt and inspected the vehicle. Brogan’s cigarette lighter had detonated the fuel in the tank at the rear of the car, but the flames hadn’t reached the engine yet. I knew a second explosion was coming. I waited and gripped the ground and hoped the roaring noise of the fire wasn’t masking the sound of Brogan repositioning to get a better angle on me.

Then Brogan stepped out of the forest and said, “Get up.” I saw that his front teeth were chipped from the accident. His left arm was tucked into his shirt; that shoulder was either broken or dislocated. He raised the gun and pointed it at me. I kept flat, knowing a shot in the back wouldn’t fit his tale about killing me to defend himself.

“Get up,” he ordered again.

I shook my head.

“Get up!”

The windows of the car burst out, showering me with glass. The radiant heat from the vehicle seared my skin, even from ten yards away.

“I said get up!”

I locked my eyes on him and was about to fire off a bunch of obscenities when I noticed movement in the trees behind him.

I thought it was a hallucination at first. Strange details about the image reached me through the heat and fog. There was no way that could be my kid sister. I didn’t recognize the gun she held, a standard-issue police Glock. She gripped it with both hands, shaking, wild-eyed, and pointed the barrel at Brogan from twelve feet away. Seeing Baby holding a gun at all seemed absurd. Watching her aim it at a man’s head with deadly resolve made me sick.

Three things happened in one awful second:

Baby stepped on a dry branch, snapping it.

Brogan turned at the sound.

Baby froze.

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