“No,” he said, the sound of his voice drowned out by the howling rain. He couldn’t let all of them get dragged down into this. Allison was wrong. Jason had balls. He had balls enough to do the right thing.

Instead of working on his paper, he opened his Internet browser. A quick search brought him to the right place. He found the contact information buried in the site map. Jason clicked on the icon to write new mail, but changed his mind. He didn’t want this traced back to him. It was the coward’s way out, but Jason would rather be an honest coward than a jailed whistle-blower. There was no denying his culpability in all of this—extortion, fraud, who knew what else. The feds would be involved. This might even count as attempted murder.

Jason opened up the Yahoo account he used for porn and pasted the contact address into the email. He spoke aloud as he wrote, “I don’t know if you are the right person to talk to about this, but there is something seriously wrong going on at your Grant County …” Jason’s voice trailed off as he searched for the right word. Was it a site? A location? Facility?

“Hey.”

Jason jerked up his head, surprised. “You scared the crap out of me.” He fumbled for the mouse to close the browser.

“You all right?”

Jason glanced nervously at the computer. “What are you doing here?” The stupid email program was asking if he wanted to save. Jason moved the mouse again to minimize the page. It still asked if he wanted to save.

“What are you writing?”

“School stuff.” Instead of hitting Save, Jason pressed the Delete key. The program closed down. He could hear the laptop’s fan clicking, trying to cool the processor enough to complete the request. His dissertation flashed up, then disappeared. The screen went black.

“Shit,” he whispered. “No, no, no …”

“Jason.”

“Just give me a minute.” Jason tapped the space bar, trying to wake the computer. Sometimes that’s all it took. Sometimes, it just needed to know he was paying attention.

“You asked for this.”

“Wha—” Jason pitched forward, his jaw snapping shut as his face slammed into his computer. The plastic was hot against his cheek. Dark liquid pooled around the keys. He had the crazy thought that the computer was injured, bleeding.

Wind gusted in from the open window. Jason tried to cough. His throat wouldn’t comply. He coughed again. Something wet and thick came out of his mouth. He stared at it, thinking it looked like a piece of pork. Pink flesh. Raw meat.

Jason gagged.

He was staring at his tongue.

CHAPTER NINE

WILL FELT LIKE A THIEF AS HE SNEAKED ACROSS THE LINTON YARD and climbed into his Porsche. At least the driving rain gave him an excuse to keep his head down and move quickly. He jammed the key in the lock and was inside the car before he realized there was something trapped under his windshield wiper. Will groaned. He pushed open the door and tried to reach around to the wiper, but his arm wasn’t long enough. His sleeve was nearly soaked through by the time he got out of the car again to retrieve the plastic sandwich bag.

Someone had left him a note. The paper was folded in two, safe inside the plastic. Will glanced around, trying to see up and down the street. No one was milling about, which was unsurprising, considering the awful weather. There were no parked cars with the engines running. Will unzipped the bag. He caught a whiff of a familiar scent.

Fancy soap.

He stared at the folded piece of paper, wondering if Sara was playing some kind of joke. He’d paced the floor of her family’s romper room half the night, replaying in his mind the last five minutes of their conversation. She hadn’t said anything, really. Or had she? There was definitely a look in her eyes. Something had changed between them, and it wasn’t a good change.

Other than Will’s wife, there were only two people in his life who knew about his dyslexia. Both of them had found their own special ways to make him miserable about it. Amanda Wagner, his boss, threw out occasional bon mots about him being professionally incompetent at best and mentally incapacitated at worst. Faith was more well-meaning, but she was too nosy for her own good. Once, she’d peppered Will with so many questions about the disorder that he’d stopped talking to her for two whole days.

His wife, Angie, was a combination of both responses. She had grown up with Will, helped him write school assignments and work on papers and fill out applications. She’d been the one who reviewed his reports and made sure he didn’t sound like a backward chimp. She was also prone to dangling her help in exchange for things she wanted. And they were never good things. At least not good for Will.

In their own way, all three women made it clear that they thought something was wrong with him. Something not quite right with his head. With the way he thought. With the way he handled things. They didn’t pity him. He was pretty sure Amanda didn’t even like him. But they treated him differently. They treated him like he had a disease.

What would Sara do? Maybe nothing. Will wasn’t even sure if she had figured it out. Or he could just be fooling himself. Sara was smart—that was part of the problem. She was a hell of a lot smarter than Will. Had he tripped up? Did she have some kind of special doctor’s tool to trap unsuspecting morons? He must have said something or done something that had given himself away. But what?

Will glanced back at the Linton home to make sure no one was watching him. Sara had developed a weird habit of lurking behind closed doors. He unfolded the notebook paper. There was a smiley face at the bottom.

Did she think he was a child? Was she out of gold stars?

He pressed his fingers to his eyes, feeling like an idiot. There was nothing sexy about a barely literate thirty-five-year-old man.

He looked back at the note.

Thankfully, Sara didn’t write in cursive. She didn’t write like a doctor, either. Will put his finger under each letter, moving his lips as he read. “Fun …” His heart did a weird double beat in his chest, but quickly he realized his mistake. “Funeral.” He knew the next word, and numbers had never been a problem for him.

He stared back at the front door. The window was clear. He checked the note again. “Funeral home 11:30.”

And a smiley face, because apparently she thought he was intellectually disabled.

Will stuck his key into the ignition. Obviously, she was talking about the time for the autopsies. But was this also some kind of test to see how well he could read? The thought of Sara Linton examining him like a lab rat made him want to pack his bags and move to Honduras. She would feel sorry for him. Worse, she might try to help him.

“Hello?”

Will jumped so hard he slammed his head into the ceiling. Cathy Linton was standing outside his car with a pleasant look on her face. She had a large umbrella over her head. She motioned for him to roll down the window.

“Good morning, Mr. Trent.” She was all smiles again, but he had fallen for her sweet-southern-lady crap once before.

“Good morning, Mrs. Linton.”

Her breath was visible in the cold. “I hope you slept well.”

He looked back at the house, wondering why this was the only time Sara wasn’t lurking behind the door. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

“I just went for my walk. Exercise is the best way to start the morning.” She smiled again. “Won’t you come in and have some breakfast with us?”