Bogeyman. Gayle Wilson

only one meaning for the combination of those two phrases. Despite having reached it, she still didn’t understand. “Why would you think that?”

      “Then it wasn’t? Somehow, when you came to the office the other day I thought it might be.”

      “You’re talking about the house that burned. Why in the world—” Some premonition of what Cade must have been about to say stopped her breath.

      It would explain so much if there was, as he’d intimated, a connection between the house they’d been living in and the murdered child. It wouldn’t explain everything, of course. Not unless you were willing to believe that the dead maintain some bond with the things of this earth, but still…

      “From what you said that day, I thought maybe you knew. Audra Wright grew up in that house. Lived there until she married Abel Comstock. Old Miz Wright lived there until her death, maybe sixteen, seventeen years ago.”

      “Audra Comstock,” Blythe repeated softly, beginning to realize the implications.

      “Sarah’s mother.”

      And the Miz Wright Cade had mentioned would be Sarah’s grandmother, Blythe realized, thinking of the strength of that tie. In her experience, an unbreakable bond. Especially in this locale, where family was the cornerstone of one’s existence.

      All this time she and Maddie had been living in the home of Sarah Comstock’s maternal grandmother, and she hadn’t even known it. Not until the same night that house had been reduced to ashes.

      7

      Blythe had been wrong about the impending dawn. Delores’s old Chevrolet wasn’t yet parked in the driveway of her grandmother’s house. Nor could she see any lights on inside.

      “Doesn’t look like Miz Ruth’s up.” Cade’s comment reinforced her own assessment.

      “What time is it?” She leaned forward to look through the windshield as he pulled the cruiser parallel to the front steps.

      “A little before five.”

      “Delores should be here soon.”

      Neither of them said anything for several seconds. Finally it dawned on her that Cade undoubtedly had other things to do.

      Like put a call in to the fire marshal.

      “We’ll get out and wait on the porch. My grandmother will be awake in a few minutes. She always gets up to unlock the door for Delores.”

      Blythe could remember her mother arguing that the housekeeper should have a key to the house “just in case.” Neither her grandmother nor Delores had wanted that. She suspected that what they primarily objected to was any proposed change in the way they’d done things for so long.

      “Actually, I’d rather you all wait inside the car, if you don’t mind.”

      “Why?” Blythe’s fingers were already wrapped around the door handle in preparation of getting out.

      There was a slight hesitation before Cade answered her. “Because right now I don’t know what went on out at your place tonight. Until I do…I prefer both of you to be where someone can keep an eye on you.”

      The idea that they might be in danger hadn’t crossed Blythe’s mind, despite the shadowy figure on the edge of the woods and Cade’s mention of arson. Was he suggesting that whoever had been out there might have followed them here?