The Stranger

Cori

Why? If she’d been blackmailed, wouldn’t she have at least suspected that the stranger would tell Adam?

She had also reacted by, what, ru

That wasn’t Cori

Something else was going on here.

He did a mental rewind to the night at the American Legion Hall. He thought about the stranger. He thought about the young blond woman with him. He thought about how calm and concerned the stranger seemed. The stranger took no joy in telling Adam what Cori

For the hundredth time that day, Adam checked the phone-locator app, hoping that Cori

Okay, so if Cori

He didn’t have a clue. But something was really, really wrong. Duh, thank you, Captain Obvious. Still, Cori

Should he get help? Should he contact the police or just let it be?

Adam couldn’t say which side of the fence he would have fallen on—both options were fraught with problems—but suddenly, as he made the turn onto his street, that didn’t seem like an issue anymore. As he pulled up to his house, Adam noticed three men standing on the curb in front of his lawn. One was his neighbor, Cal Gottesman, who was pushing those glasses up his nose. The other two were Tripp Evans and Bob “Gaston” Baime.

What the . . . ?

For a moment, just a split second, Adam expected the worst: Something horrible had happened to Cori

As if someone had heard his thoughts, a squad car with the words CEDARFIELD POLICE DEPARTMENT emblazoned across the sides turned onto the road and slid into the spot where the three men were standing. Len Gilman was in the driver’s seat.

Adam felt his heart drop.

He quickly put the car in park and swung the car door open. Gilman was doing the same. When Adam stood, his knees almost gave way. On teetering legs, he sprinted toward where the four men had congregated, on the curb right in front of Adam’s house.

All four men looked at him solemnly.

“We need to talk,” Len Gilman said.

Chapter 26

Beachwood, Ohio, Police Chief Joha

She had seen her share of dead bodies, of course. Plenty of people called the police when they found that a loved one had died of natural causes. Same with a drug overdose or a suicide, so, yeah, Joha

Bloody and gross and even dead didn’t bother Joha

Why? First off: murder. It was just hard to get around the word. Murder. Just say it out loud and feel the chill. Nothing compared, really. It was one thing to lose your life to illness or accident. But to have your life snatched away from you intentionally, to have a fellow human being actually decide to snuff out your very existence—that just offended on so many levels. It was an obscenity. It was something beyond a crime. It was playing God in the most ungodly way possible.

But even that, Joha

Joha

The rookie working with her, a kid named Norbert Pendergast, was trying not to look too excited. He sidled up to Joha

They would, Joha

“Norbert?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s Marty?” Joha

“Who?”

“The husband.”

Norbert pointed behind him. “He’s in the kitchen.”

Joha

“Joha

The voice was hollow and ghostlike.

“I’m so sorry, Marty.”

“I don’t understand. . . .”

“Let’s take it a step at a time.” Joha

The county swinging dicks would spend a long time looking at Marty as the perp. He hadn’t done it. Joha

Marty nodded numbly. “Yeah, okay.”

“So you just got home, right?”

“Yeah. I was at a convention in Columbus.”