Dead Past

frown deepened. Finally he said, “I’ll be right there.”
    He hung up and turned to Diane.
    “It’s Kevin. He got his collarbone and arm broken playing hockey and he’s in the hospital. They have to operate on the arm. I have to go.”
    “Of course. I’m fine here. I’m going to sleep and won’t wake till morning,” she said.
    He kissed her. He smelled like aftershave—the kind that smelled so sexy to her and she could never remember its name. She wished he could stay. A day off for him was such an unexpected gift. She wished she had been here when he got home.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    “Don’t be. I understand,” she answered. “I’m sorry Kevin’s hurt. Give him my best.”
    He kissed her again and left. Diane watched as he walked down the hallway and down the stairs. She sighed, locked her door, turned off the lights, and went to bed.

    Sometime during the night she awoke. She didn’t know what had awakened her but she had an uneasy feeling. She looked at the picture of the chambered nautilus on the wall. No reflection of fire. That was a relief. What then? A dream? She got up for a drink of water and looked out the window. The reflection of the streetlights sparkled off every surface. Ice. It had been sleeting again. Maybe that’s what it had been, the sound of limbs breaking under the weight of the freezing rain. Maybe, but something else tugged at her mind. Something she was forgetting, that was just now making its way to the surface.
    In the distance through the barren trees a spot of light shined brightly at her and then was gone. As she watched, the light flickered bright again, and again, moving back and forth in some pattern of activity. She was certain it came from the direction of the burned-out house. Her stomach knotted. Who could be at the crime scene in the middle of the night, and what were they doing?
    She dressed quickly in warm clothes and boots and left her apartment building. She considered taking her car but decided not to. Sleet was falling, icing over the streets. She walked across the street, past the darkened houses and into the small copse of trees. Except for her, there was no one about. She stopped just before coming out of the woods and looked across the next street at the charred rubble of the meth house. She could now see moving shadows cast against the surrounding trees by a light shining up from the blackened hole in the ground that used to be the basement. How perfectly odd.
    She took her phone from her pocket and called the police station. She told them who she was and what she saw. They said they would send someone to investigate. She would stay here and wait.
    In the darkness, as she looked at the sad rubble of so many lives, a realization flashed through her mind like someone flipping pictures. She understood what the evidence meant—the evidence she and her team had overlooked because they didn’t understand it. The silver charm and the blond hair. They were planted on the bodies of Blake Stanton and Eric McNair as memorials to one of the victims killed in the explosion and fire. She knew who murdered Stanton and McNair, and why—and she knew where Adler was. She took her phone again and tried to dial out. This time she had no battery. She had forgotten to plug in the charger.
    Diane looked around for anything to use as a weapon. She found a broken branch. Perhaps not heavy enough, but it would have to do. She walked across the street to the blackened house site. The charred wood creaked as she knelt down and looked inside the burned-out basement. She saw Adler tied to a chair, his mouth bound with duct tape. In front of him someone had lined up photographs leaning against a log of charred wood. She knew who they were—not a name, but she had seen them before.
    Diane took a step back, but she was jerked backward. She fell; the back of her stitched and tender head hit the snow-covered ground. She was dazed. She tried to get up, but was pushed back down. Her weapon was gone. Diane tried to focus her eyes. When the momentary blur went away she was staring down the barrel of a gun.
    The sad-faced woman looking for her daughter held it, the woman who had appealed to her in the coffee tent and showed her pictures of her daughter—the same pictures now in front of Adler. The woman she saw walking to her car alone from the Student Learning Center when they were looking for Star.
    “You aren’t going to take this away from me,” she said. “This is