If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [52]
The only thing Kyle hated more than an unrepentant criminal was a bad cop.
Margo buzzed him. He didn’t want to answer—thirty minutes until he was off-duty—but of course he did.
“We found Mr. Benson’s next of kin,” she said. “He’s the legal guardian of his seventeen-year-old nephew.”
Kyle rubbed his face. Damn. A minor.
“Do you want me to have a deputy inform the family?”
“Where does he live?”
“Spruce Lake.”
“Send me the address; I’ll do it.” Kyle’s instincts were buzzing. Spruce Lake, of all places—he never heard anything out of that dead mining town for the last six years since Paul Swain’s drug operation was busted, and in two days there was a report of arson, a dead body, a missing dead body, and now a firefighter was apparently dead in a car accident, but his body couldn’t be found.
He definitely wanted to pay a visit to Spruce Lake.
As Ricky pulled out of the high school parking lot that afternoon, he thought he saw Sean Rogan, the guy he’d tricked into falling down the mine shaft.
He had to be wrong.
When he looked again, he didn’t see anything but a blur of the white truck as it made a U-turn and went in the opposite direction. Ricky tried to breathe easier, told himself his mind was playing tricks on him, but that didn’t help. It was guilt, he knew, that had him on edge. He was relieved Rogan hadn’t died, but he hadn’t been able to eat or sleep much in the last two days. He knew he’d survived the fall—everyone in town had heard about the friend of Tim Hendrickson’s who’d fallen down the mine in pursuit of an arsonist—but that didn’t appease Ricky.
He kept his eyes on the rearview mirror until he was confident that Rogan, if it had been Rogan, wasn’t following him. He decided to take a roundabout way home, partly because he really didn’t want to face his uncle right now. Uncle Jimmy had been furious when he first found out Ricky had been working for Reverend Browne. That was months ago.
“I’ve done everything to keep you safe and out of harm’s way,” Jimmy had said. “Make sure you go to college and get out of this backwater. And you’re walking right into the shit. Who are you, Rick? Are you your mother’s son or your father’s son?”
Ricky hadn’t spoken to Jimmy for a week after that. His uncle knew how he felt about his father. Ricky wanted to do the right thing, but he no longer knew what was right. And Jimmy was a hypocrite. He was in deeper illegal shit than Ricky.
He promised to lay low, but Ricky had been terrified after Rogan had fallen down the mine shaft, and he had to tell Jimmy the truth. Maybe Jimmy wasn’t still upset with him. He couldn’t be madder at Ricky than Ricky was at himself.
He felt awful about setting the fire. He hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place. He hadn’t wanted to do anything to Joe Hendrickson’s place. He’d liked the old man, missed him more than he’d miss his dad if he croaked.
The reason he agreed to help Reverend Browne was because he hated Adam Hendrickson. Adam hadn’t even remembered him.
Ricky didn’t know Tim, the older brother, but Adam spent nearly every summer here. They’d gone fishing half a dozen times. The last time, Adam was seventeen and Ricky was twelve, two months before his mom died. Joe had taken them on an overnight fishing trip. They’d camped under the stars and Ricky desperately wished that Joe was his dad and Adam was his brother and his mom wasn’t dying.
Stupid, stupid childish fantasy.
Adam didn’t even remember Ricky, and why should he? Ricky had been a runt until recently, and when Adam went to college he stopped visiting Spruce Lake. That was fine