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  I gasped. “Arson?”

  “Not sure about that one yet, but quite a sight in the basement.” He tilted his head and spoke softly in my ear. “Full-on drug operation. Marijuana—lots of it—and meth ingredients everywhere, along with a safe full of cash. Luckily, we got the flames out before they engulfed the lower level.”

  I looked toward the wooden steps leading to the basement. Now I understood why Boyd had restricted entry to employees only—he’d been the only one.

  Rory’s right eyebrow shot up when he saw me eyeing the stairs. “Better not go down, Chloe. Sheriff Ryker’s in a foul mood, gathering evidence and whatnot.”

  I gave him a conspiratorial smirk. “Tell you what, Rory. You ever catch Strike Ryker in a good mood, you let me know. We’ll put it on the front page—above the fold.”

  He winked and headed outside where a barrier was being erected to keep the gawkers at bay. I realized I was well inside the barrier; felt like carte blanche to me. With a quick glance in the fire chief’s direction, I hurried down the stairs.

  Hubbub abounded. A dozen people, most in uniforms or suits, crowded the small space. Sheriff Strike Ryker barked out orders while one underling took pictures and another dusted for fingerprints. Two young deputies-in-training scratched and sniffed the healthy-looking cannabis plants—twice—before the sheriff stopped them with a glower. Not a surprise. Strike Ryker often substituted facial contortions for words.

  Since it was only a matter of seconds before I got booted out, I used my smartphone to snap discreet pictures of the plants, bleach, battery acid, drain cleaner, and NyQuil. I reluctantly gave Boyd credit. A general store specializing in sundries was the perfect place to stock up on ingredients for Grandma’s favorite meth recipe.

  The sheriff consulted with his son, Chad—the one who doubled as my good-in-bed ex. Chad had been adopted by Strike and Jacqueline Ryker after the sheriff became one of the Lucky Four lottery winners. Despite being a thirteen-time loser in the foster care system, Chad had found a home one year before aging out of the system. He’d stayed with the Rykers for only a short time before heading to college, and then he’d returned to Beulah to work as Strike’s second-in-command. Some said he looked like Superman, but only if Superman had near-transparent, glassy cobalt eyes, and lips that begged for a ChapStick sponsorship. Well, I guess he kind of did. But Chad’s looks came with a personality engineered by Pessimists Anonymous—a group that never met because it just wasn’t worth it. Still, he’d been the more optimistic one when we dated.

  Both Ryker men, the sheriff and the deputy, stepped in my direction, so I pressed myself against a solid, thick door, hoping to disappear. A rotten, slightly metallic odor seeped out from whatever disgusting crawlspace lay behind the door. When a firefighter squeezed by me, I flattened my head against the door to give him room.

  And that’s when I heard it. Ticking. Constant. Threatening. Counting down?

  I pressed my ear flush against the door, trying to block out the ambient noise.

  “Chloe!” bellowed the sheriff, making me jump. “What are you doing down here?”

  Strong, stout Strike Ryker rotated his head to me, his green eyes gleaming beneath bushy brows, his too-thick shoulders hunched forward in angry bulldog mode. Blessed with a handsome face, the sheriff had downplayed his good looks with a permanent frown, leaving furrows so deep that now, halfway through his fifties, weeds could sprout from them. “Don’t you know this is an active—”

  Something in my expression—or maybe the severity of my outstretched palm—cut him off. His gaze narrowed as I pointed to the door and whispered, “Bomb.”

  Chapter 3

  The room blew up. Not literally. But it did explode with a panicked bustle. Apparently, even the subtle mention of a bomb in a room filled with flammable chemicals, sent otherwise professional adults into a frenzy.

  Firefighters and officers rushed the stairway, looking cartoonish as they fought for space. Chad was the last to go, heading upstairs to manage the crowd, which left the sheriff and me alone with the tick-tock-tick of fate. The sheriff no doubt remained out of a stoic sense of responsibility, while I, the sharp-eared reporter, felt a warped ownership of the situation.

  “Boom?” I said with a grin.

  He scowled and pressed his cauliflower ear against the door—he’d been a state-champion wrestler before making it big on the amateur boxing circuit. He confirmed my suspicions with a nod and a sigh, and then we both jumped as the stairway burst to life beneath rapid footfalls. It was Rory, his blue eyes beaming against the pink flush of his pale Irish skin. “Sheriff,” he said, “I hear we got a bomb.”

  “Could be, Rory,” the sheriff whispered, as if the bomb might hear him. “It’s possible some sicko drew us all down here to get blown up.”

  “Or maybe Boyd rigged something up,” Rory suggested, not quite picking up on the whispering tone. “In case his little side business ever got discovered.”

  The sheriff grunted one of his fifty grunts, this time an agreeable one.

  “If you don’t object, Sheriff,” Rory said, “I’d like to suggest that you and Chloe exit the room and leave it to the experts.”

  The sheriff huffed, his rounded shoulders swinging toward Rory. “Who we got that knows anything about bombs?”

  Rory’s grin lit up the shadowy room. “You’re looking at him, sir. My great uncle Danny in Derry County, Ireland, taught me all I needed to know—and then some.”

  After a bit of back-and-forth, during which Rory cited his family’s long, scarred history in Northern Ireland, the sheriff stepped back and gestured toward the door with a flourish. “All yours then, Rory. Have at it.”

  Another firefighter rushed down the stairs, jittery as a jackhammer. “Found the key in the register,” he said, thrusting the small piece of metal at Rory with a shaky hand. Then he raced back up and shouted over his shoulder, “Good luck, Rory!”

  Sheriff Ryker and I wished Rory the best and made ourselves scarce. We waited outside with what seemed like the entire town. Word spread faster than flames in Beulah, as confirmed when another deputy edged up to me and mumbled, “Heard you gave those Carver brothers some trouble this morning, Chloe.”

  I fixed him with a sly side-eye. “Gave ’em what they deserved, Joey.”

  He nudged me, then stepped away as he responded to his ringing phone.

  The sheriff busied himself calling in bomb experts from neighboring towns, but before any of them could fathom something exciting happening in Beulah, a delighted Rory McShane emerged from the remains of the building. A round of applause and cheers greeted him as he victoriously raised his palm, which held a five-inch tall, silver skull.

  “Rory, what in tarnation is that?” shouted the sheriff.

  “It’s a skull, sir.”

  “I can see that. But why is it ticking?”

  Rory grabbed the top half of the skull, above the brow bone, and yanked it.

  The crowd jumped back en masse, throwing arms in front of faces and pushing children from harm’s way as they braced for the BOOM.

  Instead, they heard Rory’s peal of laughter as he showed them a clock’s face. “No bomb, folks. It’s just a pocket watch.”

  “A skull pocket watch?” the fire chief said, disgusted. “Of all the . . .”

  Chad and I stepped forward with the sheriff to have a closer look. No one seemed to object to my privileged presence. I’d kept them safe, after all—from a watch.

  “I’m familiar with these,” Rory said, indicating the shiny skull. “My grandpap collected them. Quite valuable in some circles. It’s called a Vanitas, like our word for vanity. Grandpap referred to it as a memento mori. Forget what that stands for, though.”

  Having studied my share of root words for spelling bees, I spoke up. “It’s a reminder of mortality, of time always ticking toward the inevitable mori . . . death. With this one”—I gestured to the skull—“the designer merged two symbols that mark the passage of time.”

&nbs
p; The sheriff, never one for drama, interrupted the crowd’s oohing reverence. “So it’s nothing. Probably been down there for years.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rory said. “Needs to be wound, see?” He showed the sheriff the winding mechanism near the clock face’s Roman numeral three. “I’d say someone put it there, or at least wound it, within the last few days. Plus, this Vanitas looks clean, not like the rest of the room.”

  The sheriff cocked his head. “What was behind that door, anyway? A crawl space?”

  “Definitely not,” Rory said, enjoying his moment in the spotlight. “Come see.”

  He led us through the building’s skeletal remains and back down the stairs with the palm-mounted skull leading the way. As I descended, my tattoo scorched me and a sudden rush of nausea filled my stomach. The dual sensation had happened only a few times before; it was my body’s way of telling me to turn around, to not set another foot in Boyd’s basement. But my feet kept finding the next step, one force pulling me down, another tugging me back. The conflict was dizzying.

  I took the final staggering step into the basement.

  “See?” Rory said, gesturing to the now-open door. “It’s some sort of cold-hearted space, that’s for sure.” I took a deep breath and followed Chad over, smelling his peppery deodorant, wanting to lose myself in his tailored jacket or do anything but look inside the room where the Vanitas had been ticking. I did it anyway.

  Rory was right. The small, ten-by-ten-foot room was chilling. A solitary-confinement sort of place, cinder-blocked in on all sides—a makeshift cell that had suffered no ill effects from the fire. Impenetrable, except for the door. For anyone trapped inside, a single lightbulb overhead would have been their only source of illumination or hope, but even that was shattered. Its scattered fragments dotted the hard, dirt floor. But the prisoner, had there been one, couldn’t have reached the short string to turn on the light because he or she would have been attached to the pole in the center of the room—by the rusty handcuffs attached to it.

  I switched my phone to flashlight mode, unable to speak, barely able to breathe. Claustrophobia pressed in on me, not from the walls that stood only a few yards from each other or from the corrosive smell coating my nostrils, but from a presence in the room that sheathed me like a deathly embrace.

  I aimed my light toward the rear of the room where the cinder blocks had been painted a crusty gray. A hushed silence fell over the room when the flashlight’s beam landed on a stain.

  “Is that…?” I said as I fought hard not to be sick.

  “Sure looks like it,” the sheriff said. “Gonna have to get Sherilyn over here pronto.”

  Chapter 4

  “It’s blood, all right,” said County Medical Examiner Sherilyn Lewis. Sherilyn sported pink hair today, along with tiny feather earrings that looked plucked from one of Black Swamp’s prothonotary warblers. Her tee-shirt boasted: Forty’s the New Fourteen in Cougar Years. The word Years was lost between her tiny waist and form-fitting pants, but I knew what it said because I’d given her the shirt last year. She crouched down to examine the back wall of Boyd’s basement cell.

  At that moment, I wouldn’t have noticed if one of the female deputies jumped on the rusty pole and started performing a stripper routine; I was laser-focused on the dried stain Sherilyn was scraping into her evidence bag. It was as if Jackson Pollock’s temper had gotten the better of him and he’d cast a palmful of red paint against the wall, where it smashed, blobbed, and then cried bloody tears—but why it cried out to me with such intensity remained a mystery.

  “Doubt we’ll get a match,” Sherilyn said, “but it’s worth a shot.”

  Sheriff Ryker huffed out his chest, reminding everyone why he’d held the amateur welterweight championship belt three years running. When he exhaled, his ribs returned to place beneath severely crossed arms. “Send me a full report on that, Sherilyn.”

  “The only kind I do, Strike,” she said with a wink of false eyelashes. Sherilyn and the sheriff had always enjoyed a platonically flirty relationship—flirty on her side, platonic on his. This particular interaction, though, made me want to kick them both in the shins. I’d been rooted in this stifling, medieval chamber since spotting the blood, ignoring Chad’s multiple pleas to leave it to the professionals. I needed answers now.

  “Run it against the missing persons reports over the last ten years,” the sheriff said.

  “Make it twelve,” I corrected, the bitterness in my voice grating against the sheriff’s composure.

  He glanced at me, and we exchanged a dozen years’ worth of mutual frustration. He gave the slightest of nods. “Make it twelve, Sherilyn. Start with county, then work your way up to state and federal. Cover all the bases.”

  “Will do,” Sherilyn said before sauntering to the corner, her steps noiseless against the dirt floor. “What’s this?” she mumbled as she clasped tweezers around an eight-inch length of silver duct tape, folded and stuck to itself. It had been mostly buried, but to someone like Sherilyn, it’d been screaming for attention. She deposited it into an evidence bag and continued scanning the room.

  As my eyes became fixated on the pole, my heart pounded until it felt like my ribs were buckling beneath my shirt. Scrapes along the pole’s black paint allowed vertical scratches of silver to peek through, but the scuff marks ran only from inches above the floor to waist-high. Desperate handcuffs encircling desperate wrists, sitting down in exhaustion, standing up in hope—or defense. Again and again, until . . . what?

  The blood and the duct tape did not bode well for whoever had traversed the metal post in this lonely chamber. A shiver crisscrossed my midsection as I fought the dire images flashing in my head. No way, not Hoop. Swamp or circus. Swamp or circus.

  “Sherilyn,” I said, my voice unsteady, “you got an approximate age for that tape or that blood?”

  She tilted her head one way, her lips the other. “I sure don’t, Chloe. Something tells me neither is recent, but let’s let the lab do the talking.”

  Beulah boasted a top-rate forensics lab, thanks in large part to Sheriff Ryker, one of the Lucky Four lottery winners. After paying off his wife’s substantial medical bills, he’d channeled most of his lottery winnings into a preschool for lower-income kids, a pet shelter, and upgraded forensics equipment for Beulah, not to mention the college tuition and other expenses involved in adopting Chad.

  Chad returned to the room; he’d been helping search the larger basement area. Perhaps sensing my need for support, he stationed himself next to me, but I resented the intrusion. I couldn’t put a finger on the dreadful feeling swallowing me whole, but I felt bound, body and soul, to some vibrating train track with an engine bearing down, the noise bombarding my head. The arrival of the train promised a pain worse than anything the physical world could dream up.

  And then the train picked up speed.

  Sherilyn cocked her head, her eyes alighting on something new, her jaw clamped in a show of enthusiasm. Evidence was her drug, after all. I watched, resenting her zeal, as she took three long strides to the opposing wall.

  A strange fullness thudded within my ears and I may or may not have heard Chad insist that we wait outside as he touched my arm.

  Sherilyn bent down and reached out with her tweezers, grasping what looked like a single green thread. My head shook compulsively. I knew what would follow, yet in some sort of self-preservation mode, I convinced myself that the thread was nothing more than the violently removed leg of a long-dead spider. Who cared about a spider leg? Couldn’t they grow new ones? I wanted to scream out in protest, to tell Sherilyn to let nature take its course, but the sentiment got crushed in my swelling throat. Why was Sherilyn bothering with such a minor detail? How ridiculous! But then she lowered her head within inches of the filthy floor and grasped the non-item—just a stupid spider leg—with her sharp retriever of things best left buried. She pulled slowly and kept pulling, like a magician revealing a never-ending handkerchief.

  The
train bore down on me, never even applying its brakes. It had been too long. I’d hoped too much.

  From beneath the years of grime and rot that this dank cell had accumulated, came a strip of cotton cloth, held fast in Sherilyn’s tweezers.

  No! No! No! He’d made it to the circus! He’d trained the fiercest of creatures! My thoughts became whimpers, but I had to believe. He’d struck out on his own, a grin on his face, life overflowing from his sunny, vivid eyes.

  Sherilyn continued her magic act, extricating the narrow strip of green and black-checkered plaid material. It was worn and shredded, as if removed from its wearer by force. Its colors were muted, its stitches filthy, its message haunting.

  I doubled over, my heart drained of hope, my head drained of blood. Nightmarish thoughts flooded my mind. No way Boyd Junior could have defeated a spirit that immense. No way that scrawny loser could have emerged the victor in such a mismatched battle.

  I pounded my thighs and saw nothing but pure, steely blackness as pain hit me with psychic fury. The train made impact and I never felt my head hit the ground. The last sensation I processed was Chad supporting me as I fainted.

  Chapter 5

  Awareness came roaring back before full consciousness. I’d never felt more stricken. The minuscule space my body occupied in the world felt empty and cold. I was a diver beneath a sheet of ice—arms flailing above my head as I pressed against the frosty glass, only to be pushed deeper, where the pressure crushed my skull. Yet I had to breathe. I needed to survive, at least for now, despite the certainty that life would be devastating.

  Breathe . . .

  Oxygen ripped through me, an ice water jolt to my veins. Life hurt like a bitch. Still dark, though.

  Voices. Clanking glass. A floor being swept? Chad? Yes, Chad murmuring: “Like a boyfriend or something?” Sherilyn’s voice now, tangy and sweet, like marmalade in summer, answering: “Disappeared . . . never talks about him much.” Chad’s voice again, and then another snippet from Sherilyn: “Not a good time for Beulah, that’s for sure.”