“Can you just tell us, Riley?” Natalie asked. “Maybe if we know who it is, we can help figure out if it means anything.”
And coming from her, it made up my mind, because, honestly, who did I owe more to . . . Moose or Natalie? So I told.
“Do you want to tell about the lighter, too?” Sarah prompted as she wrote his name on the whiteboard. I sighed, explaining what we’d found, but Natalie stopped me a sentence in.
“When was this?”
I looked at her, realizing suddenly that we’d never told her we’d gone back. Thankfully, Sarah took over, addressing Nat directly.
“We went to your house, Natalie. Riley and I. And mapped the . . .” She hesitated, obviously choosing words carefully. “The living room, the scene.”
John raised his eyebrows. “Like forensics?”
Sarah nodded. “We’ve been studying it in physics. We thought it might help. I’m sorry, Nat.” She winced. “I hope you’re not mad.”
Nat shrugged noncommittally, but was obviously not happy. “So, what about the lighter?”
I finished, explaining how I’d found it and why it mattered. John spoke up immediately. “There’s no way the police would have missed that,” he said.
None of us spoke, uncomfortable telling a cop’s son the things we’d been saying among ourselves, but he got it.
“Listen, I know the police here don’t process scenes like this often, and maybe you think they bungled it, and maybe in some ways they did. But think about it,” he said, addressing me and Sarah particularly. “You were there, you did the forensics work too, so you know how painstaking it is and how carefully the whole area is looked at. Do you honestly think they’d have overlooked a lighter lying on top of the blood they were examining?”
No. I didn’t. “Maybe someone planted it there afterward,” I suggested.
“Who?” Tannis said.
“What about Richie Milosevich?” I could see all of their eyes widen. I went through all the connections—Moose’s visits to the Miloseviches’ house, how Richie had been the first to point the finger at Galen, the stuff about his sister and how his family had felt after. I had myself convinced by the end, until John said,
“That all makes sense except for one thing.”
“What?”
“He and his parents have a rock-solid alibi for Dash weekend. They weren’t even in town.”
Sarah crossed the freshly written name off her whiteboard, leaving just Moose and Galen.
“And Moose swears he didn’t do it. I think he’s telling the truth. Plus, he’s too short,” I reminded her.
She nodded and crossed him off too.
“Wait,” John said frowning. “What was that?”
Sarah told him what we’d come up with at the trailer.
John shook his head. “Something’s not making sense here,” he said. “I’m pretty sure my dad said it was just the opposite. They were looking for someone short.”
“Well, that would really narrow the suspects,” Tannis said. “Maybe you guys did it wrong.”
“Sarah got it dead-on in class,” I said defensively.
“No pun intended,” Trip said.
Nat looked like she’d had just about enough.
“It’s possible,” I said. “I think we were careful . . .” I glanced at Sarah, who nodded. “But we’re obviously far from experts.”
“So where does that leave us?” Tannis asked, exasperated.
“Pretty much where the police are,” John suggested wryly. “Without a clue.”
CHAPTER 26
“HOW MUCH LONGER?” NATALIE ASKED. She was sitting beside John Peters, huddled under a wool blanket. We’d come out to see Tannis’s race, the last one of the season. The cars were all lined up, Tannis’s father and brothers standing in the pits. I saw Jed hopping around, trying to stay warm.
“They should have gone by now,” Trip said, glancing at the big clock. “If I’d known we’d be sitting out here for an hour, I’d have brought some beers and a cooler.”
“You mean a heater,” I said.
“Yeah, that, too.”
The forecast had said it was supposed to hit forty, but sitting on the metal bleachers at the racetrack, it felt about twenty degrees colder. I could see my breath, and kicked myself for forgetting gloves.
I had a blanket all to myself, though. The fifth wheel. Nat and John. Trip and Sarah. Me.
“Look!” Natalie said, pointing to the track lights that finally turned on, signaling red to the drivers at starting positions. At the same time the loudspeaker announced the start of the race.
“Finally,” Sarah said. She was sitting at the other end of the bleachers. I’d let them settle in first before choosing the farthest seat away. I wondered if she’d noticed.
The track lights changed to yellow, then green. The cars took off in clouds of dust and a roar of engines.
We could see right away it wasn’t going to go well for Tannis.
I’d been to a handful of her races before, plus seen her practicing at the track, but I’d never seen her driving like she was here. She completely miscalculated the first curve, turning late, then swerving hard left and almost skidding out.
“Jeez,” Trip said. “What is she doing?”
She made it around the next lap okay, but you could see that her timing was off, her accelerations erratic. Twice she almost bumped into other cars, and edged away at the last second, seemingly more by luck than intent.
“She’s usually better than this, isn’t she?” John asked, turning to me. He’d never been to a race, but it was pretty obvious this wasn’t how you won them, and everyone knew Tannis had plenty of trophies to show for her time at the track.
“Yeah,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sarah biting her lip. Nat’s hands were clenched tight. I think we all felt that way, hanging on to the hope that Tannis would somehow pull it together in the remaining seven laps.
She came in dead last. We all looked at each other. I’d been dying to get out of the cold before, but now, not so much.
“This is going to suck,” Trip said. Reluctantly we stood and walked toward the pits.
We waited to the side while Tannis talked with her dad and brothers. I wondered if maybe there’d been something wrong with her car. I caught a glimpse of her face, pale with dark circles under her eyes. She was sick, I realized.