Page 41 of Catching Fire

“Please, call me Kalan.” The words tumbled out of his mouth, the tone sincere even as he realizednone of that matters right now. He watched Seline’s hyper-focused expression in the rearview mirror—tight lines at the edges of her eyes and mouth, her lips pursed in concentration rather than desire.

He pushed his attention back to the librarian. “Maggie and Seline suggested I get the information from you again so that they can double check and I can learn.”

“That’s smart,” Ivy replied before launching into full-steam-ahead information mode. “I found his mother's mother's maiden name: Bland. And on his father's side, his grandmother was a Holden. After y’all left yesterday, I scoured all our records. I started with the newspapers—all the way back to nineteen hundred.”

Kalan watched as Seline nodded along, her blond hair swaying behind her, making him think this wasn’t going to be too serious of a mission if she’d left her hair down and that he wanted to run his fingers through it.

Ivy was still going, and he pushed his attention back. There might be a test on this.

“His great-grandfather Holden went through seven wives—”

“What?” The word popped out before he could think it through. He backpedaled. “I guess for his great-grandfather that might have been a time when people died young and in childbirth.”

“But they didn't die in childbirth!” Ivy revealed it as though it were important.

He felt his brows pull together and the corners of his mouth turned down. “That is odd, right?”

“Not only is that odd,” Ivy filled in exactly what he was thinking, “—they died in accidents. All of them. Which makes it likely they were murdered.”

There was a pause in the conversation, and for a moment the whole car was silent. Kalan reminded himself that Seline and Maggie had heard this before.

“Sanders currently has an uncle on his mother's side in jail for a rape committed twenty years ago.”

Again, Kalan felt his face pull together.

But Ivy was still leading him through the info. “Think about how rape cases were prosecuted twenty years ago … and this man isstillin jail for this one crime. It must have been horrific.”

Seline and Maggie once again nodded from the front seat as the car flew down the interstate. He still didn’t know where they were going.

“Tell him about thegreatuncle,” Maggie prompted.

“Yes, his great uncle has a long, long record for violent crime. Some strange ones too.”

“So it runs in the family?” Kalan asked.

“Given some criminal records from the men on his mother's side, too, it's possible that violent aberrant genes run throughbothsides of his family.”

The librarian’s words fell heavily into the middle of the car. Kalan felt his shoulder blades pull together at the thought of that. But what did that even mean? They already knew he was a violent serial killer. The fact that it ran in his family was interesting but didn’t help them find Marina—which was the one thing he thought this little outing was about. He was opening his mouth to ask, when Ivy filled the gap beautifully.

“From that information and newspaper clippings, I knew where to look and what names to look for. The Holden family owned—and still does—a farm just north of Benedict.”

“Where's Benedict?” He asked and was granted an answer from the front seat in stereo.

“Just south of Stromsburg! It’s where the call came from, telling us that Marina was still alive.” Seline said it with such hope that it made him feel what she was feeling. AndHoly shit!No wonder they were on the road. Between the call and Ivy’s information, they may have actually found Marina Balero. If the caller was right, they might just find her alive.

Ivy was still doling out information and requiring his dedicated attention. “The Holden family farm outside Benedict is a hundred acres that no one has farmed for a generation. At least as far as the records show. The last living Holden died there about fifteen years ago. I'm struggling to find formal records, but it could have easily fallen into Sanders’ hands.”

Kalan was struggling to keep up with all the bits and pieces that Ivy was now raining down upon them. He was piecing it all together and trying to think if there was anything he should do or say or ask.

“But there’s one more thing,” Ivy added, her tone suddenly making him worry. It had changed abruptly from information-dump to warning.

“I found this out after I talked to you, Seline.”

Kalan watched as the two women in the front seat straightened, ready for whatever the additional news might be.

“The great uncle with the strange criminal record? He’s the last one to be listed as an occupant on the farm. He’s the one who died there fifteen years ago … and honestly, the death is still listed asunknown causes.”

“You think he was murdered?” Kalan asked, not liking where any of this was going. He was about to like it even less.

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