Alex had already moved to check on Seth and Tuffy. They seemed to be examining Tuffy’s back leg.
I stood and told Seth to stay down near the dogs. I gestured at Diana to check on Baxter, although the hopeless dread was already settling around my shoulders. The red and white lights of the cruiser reflected off the closest trees, leaving the rest of the woods in darkness. I wondered for a moment if Cecile could be out there hiding and decided she had probably run toward the road to get away. I was up and headed into the woods before I had time to reconsider.
“Tom, Baxter needs help!” I ran past him into the darkness and heard Mac’s voice calling me as I slipped between the trees.
I tried to calm down and focus. Tuffy’s howl was masking all other sounds in the woods and, with my back against a tree, I tried to listen past his racket to anything that might give away Cecile’s location. I continued toward the road, pausing every minute or so to listen. Tuffy finally stopped his noise, which had me concerned. Was Baxter dead? Was Tuffy hurt and unable to continue?
As I got farther from the clearing, the lights from the squad car no longer penetrated, and I moved through the trees with only weak silver moonlight to guide me. It was eerily quiet. No animals were moving about, no owls hooted. Then I heard it.
Scuffling and swearing and thumping. I followed the sound, being careful to stay under the cover of the trees. I saw two people struggling on the ground. Long white hair blended with blonde spiky hair as Cecile and Vi rolled around on the mossy forest floor. I entered the melee just as Mom cocked Cecile’s gun, which caused the rumpled twosome on the ground to freeze.
“Vi, what are you doing?” I said.
“I’m subduing a suspect.” She sat up and moved away from Cecile, who stayed on the ground. Both of them had dirt streaks on their faces and twigs and leaves hanging off their hair and clothing.
Mom walked closer and pointed the rifle at Cecile. I went to help Vi get up. She struggled to stand and favored her right leg. I grabbed her elbow and pulled her up out of her crouch. She leaned against me and began brushing leaves off her skirt.
“What should I do, Vi?” Mom didn’t glance our way but continued to point the gun at Cecile.
Cecile lay perfectly still, mesmerized by the barrel of her rifle. She wisely chose not to speak. Her eyes flicked from Vi to me to the gun. Her hope of escape evaporated when Mac burst upon us.
“What the—?” he said as he took in the scene: Vi and me covered in dirt and leaves, Mom holding a gun on Cecile, who also looked like she’d been dragged through the forest.
I tilted my head toward Cecile, and Mac went to her and pulled her to her feet. Mom lowered the weapon.
We trudged back through the woods. Vi leaned heavily on me, and I half carried her most of the way. Mom and Mac flanked Cecile, who walked with her head down, refusing to speak.
*
The next hour was a blur filled with flashing lights from the police cruiser and Tuffy’s howl. The little dog had started up again and didn’t stop until he and Baxter had been taken away to the emergency vet clinic. Andrews had radioed that shots had been fired, and when the ambulance arrived, Mac bullied them into transporting the dogs to the vet. I remembered Seth’s face, young and scared, wet with tears, as he asked if I thought Baxter would be okay. I said I didn’t know, because if I told him what I really thought, we would have stood there all night crying.
The Starks were taken into custody for the murders of Sara, Tish, and Mike Jones. I had figured out that much on my own, but I still had a long list of questions. Milo admitted he was in town to find evidence that his stepfather had killed his father in the hunting accident. He’d been digging for the rifle all this time. He filled us in on the rest: Tish had seen Cecile leave with a gun and come back without one on the night of Mike’s death all those years ago. She’d been babysitting that night and had suspected they had killed him, but she was just a kid, and no one would listen to her.
Tish kept the secret as she grew up. No one had believed her when she tried to tell them about what she saw, and then she got scared that her knowledge would put her in danger, so she let it drop. Then, two years ago, she ran into Milo in Chicago, and he asked her to do a reading for him. He said he was interested in learning about his past. She faked the reading and told him that his father’s murderer had buried the gun in the woods. Milo launched a plan to get access to the land and dig up the gun to link it to the murderer. They’d been arguing recently because she finally told him that she had faked the reading and only assumed the gun had been buried out there. They both thought Joe was the killer.