“Strange message,” said Jack.
“Agreed. It’s also strange that someone tossed it right after we showed up. As if they don’t want us catching onto something.” She studied the postcard. “It sounds like some kind of coded language. Like the writer is trying to convey something about Lightkeeper Bay.”
“Like what?”
“Not sure. We need to find out more about this former doctor of his.”
They both stared at the postcard. His nostrils prickled. Damn, that smell really was?—
“Get out of the car,” he said grimly, grabbing Tina’s arm.
“What?”
He shoved open her door and pushed her out, then launched himself out of the driver’s side. He stumbled around the car to her, and grabbed her hand. She didn’t ask questions, just ran with him.
A moment later, his Audi burst into flames, intense, fast-moving, all-consuming flames.
24
“I think you just saved our lives.” Tina couldn’t get over that fact. “Which is supposed to be my job, by the way.”
“You’re welcome,” Jack said dryly. They were back at the Spotted Owl Inn, where they’d left their things, though they hadn’t planned to stay another night. Now there was part of her that wanted to curl up in that cozy, still-mussed bed and forget the feel of heat beating against her face. Jack was toweling off after his shower, while she was downing her umpteenth glass of water. Nearly burning to death in a car really dehydrated a person.
“You know I already thanked you. Just in case, thank you. Again. Special thanks to the screenwriter who researched flammable medical fluids. I’d almost forgotten about that episode.”
Luckily, Jack had remembered the scene in which the bad guy had set fire to a hospital room using only a surgical sterilizer. That “medical waste” smell that he’d noticed had nothing to do with her. The back seat had been drenched with ethylene oxide.
Someone had wanted to scare them, but maybe not kill them.
Now that the adrenaline had faded, Tina had analyzed the situation and decided that the former was more likely, but she couldn’t count out either possibility.
But who wanted to scare them and why? Was it related to Mark Peterson? If so, did it have to do with the Night Light murders, the barn fire, or something going on currently?
“We should have gotten the visitor logs for Peterson,” she told Jack. “I want to know who’s come to see him and when. I also want to know about this former psychiatrist.”
“If we go back we need to rent a car.” Jack spoke the words mournfully. The loss of his Audi in such a spectacular way had clearly been a shock.
“I think taking a Lyft might be safer. That way we’ll keep switching vehicles. Same as how we got back here.”
In case they were being followed, they’d switched Lyfts twice, although she was pretty sure that their lengthy interview with the Rutland police had probably scared off any pursuers, at least for the time being.
“What if they can track our phones?”
“Then we’re screwed no matter what we do because we’re talking about people with access to spyware.” She went into the bathroom to pee, but left the door propped half open. Her comfort level with Jack had gone through the roof ever since he’d saved their lives. Steam lingered in the bathroom from his shower and made her think of last night. It felt so long ago, like one of those before-and-after markers. Before we nearly died in Jack’s car, and after.
“Your phone’s ringing,” he called to her. “It’s Marigold.”
“Can you answer it? Tell her I’ll be out shortly. Please don’t tell her I’m peeing. That kind of thing is on a need-to-know basis.”
She heard the chuckle in his voice as he answered her phone, then the quiet as he listened to whatever Marigold was saying. She flushed the toilet and washed her hands, trying her best to hear over the sound of the water.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Jack wore a bemused expression. He put the phone on speaker. “Tina’s back. Want to repeat that, or should I explain?”
“Hey Tina. So I dug up the potato patch at the Sunderland place but the only thing I found was an old plastic water pistol, you know, those little toy shooters kids used to play with? It was pretty grimy and ancient-looking, like it had been in there a while.”
“What about the soil? Did it seem freshly dug up or more hard-packed?”
“Fresh-ish. Not hard-pack, but not buried yesterday, either.”
