Page 104 of The Killing Plains

Colly took off her glasses and chewed thoughtfully on one of the temple tips.Great Britain?The mystery of the hares’ masks was by far the weirdest aspect of these cases, and their presence on both bodies the most striking similarity—but there were others. Both Adam and Denny had a history of truancy and troubled home lives; both had been strangled; both were found at the stock pond by Felix; neither had foreign DNA on his body.

However, there were important differences, as well. Denny, unlike Adam, disappeared in broad daylight while riding his bike; he was found less than twenty-four hours after his death; he was naked, had sedatives in his bloodstream, and was never submerged in water. There were no injuries to his body other than a ligature mark around the neck.

Colly dug through the box and found a fat envelope of 8x10 color photos. She looked through a large sheaf taken at the stock pond, then through some taken at the hospital the night of the fire. One showed a stringy man lying naked on a gurney. Ropes of skin hung off his charred limbs like tattered clothing. A respirator obscured his blackened face. Another depicted a young girl wrapped in a white sheet and huddled in a wheelchair. Her hair was singed to the scalp, and a raw burn covered her right cheek and throat. She was staring at the camera with huge dark eyes, the expression on her face one of absolute desolation. Colly looked atit for a long time. Avery had been only a year older than Satchel, then. She knew what it felt like to have one’s life disintegrate in a single moment. No wonder Satchel was drawn to her.

The next set of photos, taken by fire investigators at the Parker home the following day, showed the still-smoking husk of a small frame house. It sat back from the road in a weedy lot. Shots of the interior revealed that some parts of the house had been completely consumed. The living room was a jumble of black and blistered wood. In the master bedroom, all that remained of the bed on which Connie Parker had died was a set of scorched steel springs. But other areas had fared better. A photograph taken in the room shared by the children showed only moderate damage. In the foreground stood a pink daybed with a little soot-streaked comforter and sheets depicting characters fromThe Lion King. A pillow lay on the floor nearby, covered in flecks of ash.

Colly started to set the photo aside, but then stopped. She grabbed her phone and scrutinized the photo for several seconds with the magnifying app.

“Oh my God.” She checked her watch. Eleven-thirty. “Screw it,” she muttered, dialing the phone.

It rang five times before she heard Avery’s voice, groggy and annoyed. “Yeah?”

“I need you at the farmhouse—ASAP.”

For a moment, the line was silent. “Did something happen?” The younger woman was alert now. Colly heard the rustle of blankets being thrown back.

“Yes.”

“On my way. What—”

But Colly hung up before Avery finished speaking.

Chapter 28

Colly paced the porch for twenty minutes until she spotted headlights coming up the drive. A dusty Volkswagen pulled into the yard. Avery climbed out in ratty Converse sneakers, jeans, and a rumpled t-shirt with “Whatever” printed on the front. She wore heavy-rimmed glasses, and her purple-streaked hair was tied back with a scrunchie.

She looks like a ninth-grader, Colly thought.

Avery walked towards the house. “What’s up?”

Colly was in no mood for pleasantries. “You know what happened to your brother, don’t you? You’ve been lying about it for twenty years.”

Avery stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. Her face was ashen. “What—”

“No more bullshit—I’m sick of it.” Colly threw open the screen door, and Avery followed her warily into the house. In the living room, she stopped when she saw the crime-scene photos on the coffee table.

“Sit down,” Colly said.

Avery lowered herself cautiously onto the sofa. Colly sat beside her and picked up the photo of Avery’s childhood bedroom. “You told me you were in bed asleep when that fire broke out—that you only remember your father carrying you out of the house. That’swhat you told investigators in ’98, as well.” She thrust the photo under Avery’s nose. “I want to know what really happened.”

Avery stared down at the image of the blackened walls and ash-covered bed, and her brows knotted.

“You’re going to make me drag it out of you?” Colly jabbed with her forefinger at a small pink shape in the photo, clearly visible at one end of the bed. “That’s a folded nightgown. I do that, too—put my pajamas under the pillow in the morning. You were in street clothes when the EMTs arrived. The other day, you said you were wearing your nightgown when your father carried you outside, but you changed into clothes you got off the clothesline. That didn’t make much sense to me. Then again, people do weird things in a crisis.” Colly shrugged. “But in that case, your nightie should be outside the house, not here.”

Avery’s eyes were large. She said nothing.

“I’m giving you a chance to explain. If you’re going to be stubborn, I’ll call Russ.” Colly dropped the photo and reached for her phone.

“Don’t,” Avery said quickly. “Please.”

Colly crossed her arms. “I want the truth.”

Avery nodded, but said nothing for a while. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that Colly had to lean in to hear. “My old man was a drunk. He never had a job that I remember. My mom had three, but if she spent too much on groceries and not enough on booze, he’d hit her. He hit all of us. I used to wear long sleeves to school to hide the bruises, no matter how hot it was. But Adam got the worst of it. He’d try to protect us.”

Avery’s scowl softened. Adam had been a good kid, she told Colly. He’d gotten into trouble a lot, of course, not having a decent role model. He was so starved for male attention and approval that he’d latch onto anyone who paid him the slightest notice. He used to follow the high-school boys around like a shadow—a lot of hisvandalism and truancy were attempts to impress them. Of all the older boys, he had particularly admired Niall Shaw.

Colly sat back. “Shaw?”

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