Page 153 of Bang

"The same thingyouknow, if you'll ever admit it."

I refused to go there. "So Cami – she's alright then?"

"More or less. She's on her way home."

Was she?I looked toward the driveway.

Arden said, "In case it wasn't clear, I meant her family's home in Petoskey."

Right. I knew that.

When I looked back to Arden, she added, "She left town maybe thirty minutes ago."

I frowned. "Driving what?"

"My SUV."

I didn't ask what Arden would be driving in the meantime. Brody had plenty of vehicles to go around. But Iwascurious. "So tell me, did she get her things?"

"You mean the things that magically appeared on our back deck sometime in the middle of the night?"

"Maybe," I admitted.

Yesterday, after everything had gone to hell with Cami, I'd been a busy guy. I'd had both damaged vehicles towed to the shop, and then I'd purchased a new vehicle on the fly – a heavy duty pickup with its own snowplow.

Afterward, I'd gone out searching for Cami's purse.

From Brody, I'd heard about those two assholes tossing the purse out the window maybe a mile or two from the mall.

I'd started at the mall and worked my way back, walking most of the way. In the blowing snow, it had taken me hours to find it.

But I had.From what I could tell, nothing inside had been taken or damaged, including Cami's cellphone.

I'd boxed up the purse, along with the rest of the things I'd pulled from the smashed SUV. Finally, just before dawn, I delivered all of it to Brody's back deck.

Arden said, "The plastic sheeting was a nice touch."

Before leaving Brody's deck, I'd covered the stacked boxes with plastic to make sure that Cami's things remained free of snow.

But to Arden, my only reply was a noncommittal shrug.

She continued. "And it's funny that somebody – and we all know who that somebody was – didallof this in the middle of the night. During a blizzard. Whennormalpeople would be hunkered down in their homes."

"Yeah, well…some people aren't normal, are they?"

"If you mean yourself, trust me, you're gonna not get any argument from me – which brings me to the reason for my visit."

"Which is…?"

"Iknowwhat you did – and I don't mean recently. I mean six years ago."

Shit.

In a careful voice, I said, "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"You kept me out of trouble."

I knew what she meant. During Brody's senior year of high school, there'd been a weekend explosion in the chemistry lab, resulting from the unfortunate combination of a gas leak and Brody's disposable lighter.