Part 30 (1/2)

No heat, and no fear, either.

And then Conner West's car exploded.

Tiffany ducked her head and covered it with her arms as both doors flew open. For an instant she felt herself being pelted with shards of broken gla.s.s and splashes of burning gasoline. She rose up, intent on trying to crawl to whatever shelter she could find, but before she could move any farther, her eyes met Conner West's.

He was still strapped in his seat belt behind the wheel, staring at her through the shattered winds.h.i.+eld of his car. She could hear him screaming as the fire consuming his car began to consume him as well.

A moment later his screams faded as his face began to blacken, and then- Her mind rejecting what she was seeing, Tiffany dropped back to the ground, rolled over into the ditch, and lay still.

Sarah stood frozen where she was, listening to Conner's screams until the heat seared his lungs and his throat and his howl of agony finally died away. Only when his cries were overwhelmed by the roaring of the flames engulfing his car did Sarah, still holding Nick's hand, stumble backward, away from the flames, away from the nightmarish sight.

”Let's go,” Nick whispered, his fingers tightening as he pulled her away from the inferno. ”There's nothing we can do.”

Sarah was about to protest, but as the flames flared higher, she realized that he was right.

Whatever had happened-whatever actually caused the car to burst into flames-there was nothing either one of them could do now. But before she followed Nick back into the woods, she looked back one last time.

What was it?

What could have happened?

The flames she and Nick had seen weren't real-they couldn't have been.

And yet they must have been. Conner must have seen them, too. Seen them, and been so frightened that he tried to turn the car away before it hurtled directly into the fire.

Instead he'd succeeded only in spinning it around and slamming it into the stone wall and ...

And dying in the fire the car crash had caused.

Shuddering, Sarah let Nick pull her deeper into the forest.

The faint glow from somewhere off to the left barely penetrated Mitch Garvey's consciousness. Though his body was steering his truck along the road from the correctional facility-a road so familiar that he could have made every turn blindfolded-in his mind he was already at home, stretching out in his Barcalounger with a beer in one hand and the remote to the new TV in the other.

But when the glow exploded into a tower of flames, he was jerked out of his reverie and pulled the truck to the side of the road. Getting out, he glanced around to get his bearings. Maybe he should just ignore it-there weren't any houses out here, so how bad could it be? He'd much rather just go home to Angie's supper and a quiet evening watching whatever was on the tube. But that impulse vanished almost the moment it arose. It wasn't that easy to see a fire and just walk away from it. At least it wasn't for him. As long as he could remember, he'd always loved fires. There was something about watching a house burn down, and listening to the roar of the flames as they consumed things you'd never think would burn at all, that aroused things in him that only Angie used to be able to rouse. Indeed, as he gazed at the flames now, the excitement began rising inside him.

But where was it?

And what was burning?

He looked around again, then spotted one of the mileposts. He was still two miles from Warwick, and given the way the road he was on turned through the next mile and a half, he knew where the fire had to be.

Somewhere near the old construction road.

Angie, supper, and TV could wait.

Just past the old inmate cemetery, Mitch turned left onto Fox Hollow Road, which was covered with an undisturbed layer of snow. He switched the winds.h.i.+eld wipers onto high and slowed down-no need to end up in the ditch, especially with snow starting to come down steadily.

He reached for the cell phone that always lay on the pa.s.senger seat when he was driving and dialed 911.

”Do you have an emergency?” the 911 operator asked after she answered on the second ring.

”This is Mitch Garvey. I'm on my way home on the main highway and there's something burning off to the north. I just turned onto Fox Hollow Road, and it looks a little bit east.”

”A house?”

”Can't be-no houses out here. Think it's got to be on the old dirt road. Maybe a car or something.”

”We'll send a truck right away.”

Mitch closed his phone and slowed the pickup as he approached the turnoff onto the old construction road, then made the right turn onto the narrow road, which was already covered with snow. Mitch sighed-for years the town had been dithering about turning this into a jogging and biking path, but year after year nothing happened, and more kids came out here to get into mischief.

And practically every year, at least one of the girls came home pregnant. Still, at least he didn't need to worry about that-Tiffany was a good G.o.d-fearing girl.

The glow in the sky was getting brighter. Mitch slowed even more, came around a turn, and there it was. A car-or at least what started out as a car-was on fire. It was slewed crosswise, its front crushed against the retaining wall, the rest of it almost completely blocking the road. The winds.h.i.+eld was shattered and the one door he could see was flung wide open, its window as ruined as the winds.h.i.+eld.

He pulled as close as was safe, then got out of his truck.

And recognized the car.

Acid flowed into his belly and up his chest as he watched it burn, the usual excitement of seeing flames clawing at the night sky fading quickly away.

A bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, Mitch backed away from the intense heat, opened his phone again and dialed Dan West's home.

The first faint wailings of the fire engine's siren floated through the night as he leaned against the front fender of his truck while he waited for either Dan or Andrea West to answer.

Ed Crane couldn't get Mitch Garvey out of his mind.

More than an hour ago he'd put his empty chow tray onto the conveyor belt that took it back into the kitchen and started toward the common room. He was looking for nothing more than an empty seat to watch some television before going back to his cell for the night.

He caught a glimpse of a dark blue uniform out of the corner of his eye, but hadn't thought much about it until a hand landed hard on his shoulder and pulled him backward, spun him around, and slammed him into the wall.

It was Mitch Garvey, who put a palm on his chest, keeping him pinned to the wall. Prisoners filed by, and Ed didn't have to look at them to know their eyes were staring straight ahead, none of them willing to get involved with whatever was going on between him and the screw.

”Sarah's becoming a problem,” Mitch said, his voice low and his face too close to Ed's. ”And you're part of Sarah's problem. You and Bettina Philips.”

”How could I be a-”

”I'm doing the talking here,” Mitch interrupted, his face hard. ”So listen up. Maybe I can't keep you from seeing Sarah, but I can d.a.m.n well keep you from seeing Bettina Philips. Problem is, I don't want to have to fill out all that paperwork. So I'm telling you right now that if Bettina Philips comes here to see you again, you just refuse to see her. Got it?”

What the h.e.l.l was he talking about? Ed wondered. How could Sarah's art teacher be part of whatever ”problem” Sarah might be causing?

Then he'd gotten it: she wasn't a problem for Sarah-she was a problem for Mitch Garvey.

”I don't think I-” Ed began.

”Listen to me!” Mitch said through clenched teeth as he pressed Ed even harder into the wall. ”Maybe we can't stop her from going to art cla.s.s, but that's it! There's something wrong with the Philips woman. She's not Christian, and I won't have your brat having anything to do with her. Not as long as she's under my roof. Got it?” Mitch said through clenched teeth as he pressed Ed even harder into the wall. ”Maybe we can't stop her from going to art cla.s.s, but that's it! There's something wrong with the Philips woman. She's not Christian, and I won't have your brat having anything to do with her. Not as long as she's under my roof. Got it?”