The Bodies Left Behind

me.”
    Part of a law enforcer’s job is to recognize the psychologicalissues at work within the people she meets professionally—the bystanders, witnesses and victims, in addition to the criminals. Brynn didn’t know that she had any particular insights but she told Michelle her honest assessment: “It’s not all your fault. It never is.”
    “I’m such a loser. . . .”
    “No, you’re not.”
    Brynn believed this. A little spoiled, true, a little too pampered, a little too much in love with money and the good life. In a curious way maybe this night was teaching her there was more within her than a rich-girl dilettante.
    As for the other issue, the more important one, Brynn now put her arm around Michelle’s shoulders. “There’s one thing you have to understand. Whether you asked them here or not made no difference. Whoever killed Emma and Steve was a professional, hired to murder her. If it wasn’t tonight it would’ve been next week. You had nothing to do with that.”
    “You think?”
    “I do, yes.”
    The girl wasn’t completely convinced. Brynn knew that guilt has a complex DNA; it doesn’t need to be purebred to be virulent. But Michelle seemed to take some comfort in Brynn’s words. “I just wish I could turn back the clock.”
    Isn’t that a prayer for every day? Brynn thought.
    Michelle sighed. “I’m sorry I lost it. I shouldn’t’ve screamed.”
    “I don’t think we have to worry. They’re miles away, in the bottom of the ravine. They couldn’t hear a thing.”

    GRAHAM BOYD WAS pulled from his stew of thoughts about his wife when he heard the distinctive sound of the engine in his F150 start up.
    “Somebody’s stealing the truck.” He stared at his mother-in-law and instinctively slapped his pants pocket, felt his set of keys.
    How? he wondered. In the shows Anna watched, Matlock and Magnum, P.I., everybody was hot-wiring cars. He didn’t think you could anymore.
    But when he saw the deadbolt on the kitchen door open and that the spare keys he kept on the hook were gone, he knew. “Jesus, not this. Not now.”
    “I’ll call the sheriff,” Anna said.
    “No,” Graham shouted. “It’s okay.”
    He ran outside.
    The truck was backing up against the gardening shed to turn around so the driver could head out, hood first, down the narrow driveway. It tapped into the corrugated metal with a loud bang. Not much damage, none to the truck. The driver slammed the transmission into drive.
    Waving his hands like a traffic cop, Graham walked to the passenger window, which was open. Joey looked straight at him with a fierce expression.
    Graham said, “Shut off the engine. Get out of the truck.”
    “No.”
    “Joey. Do it now. This minute.”
    “You can’t make me. I’m going to look for Mom.”
    “Out of the car. Now.”
    “No.”
    “There are people doing that. Tom Dahl, some deputies. She’ll be fine.”
    “You keep saying that!” he shouted. “But how do you know?”
    True, Graham thought.
    He saw the boy’s edgy eyes, his firm grip on the wheel. He wasn’t short—his father was well over six feet—but he was skinny and looked tiny in the big seat.
    “I’m going.” He still couldn’t make the turn down the driveway so he eased forward, tapped a trash can and backed up again, this time judging correctly; he stopped before he hit the shed. He straightened the wheels toward the road and put the truck in forward once more.
    “Joey. No. We don’t even know where she is.” Saying this seemed like a retreat. He shouldn’t be arguing from logic. He was commander-in-chief.
    Instinct, remember.
    “Lake Mondac.”
    “Shut the engine off. Get out of the truck.” Should he reach in for the keys? What if the boy’s foot slipped off the brake? One of Graham’s workers had been badly injured reaching into a moving truck, just like this, trying to grab the shifter when the driver forgot to engage it. Our bodies are no match for two tons of steel and detonating gasoline.
    He glanced at the seat. Jesus. The boy had a pellet gun—Graham recognized the powerful break-action model. At close range it was as accurate as a .22, and as deadly to squirrels and river rats. Brynn had forbidden him to have weapons. Where had he gotten it? Stolen, Graham wondered.
    “Joey! Now!” Graham snapped. “You can’t do anything. Your mother’ll be home soon. And she’d be furious if you weren’t here.”
    Another retreat in the be-the-parent-in-control game.
    “No, she