Page 91 of Poison Wood

“What’s that?” Grant says.

A strange sound escapes my mouth.

Grant looks between Johnny and me. “What’s going on?”

Johnny looks at me, and I answer for him. “That’s the coat Heather Hadwick was wearing the night she disappeared.” I stare at the red coat in Johnny’s giant hands, and every hair on my arms stands on end. “Did you send your sister here to look for that?”

Johnny’s eyes widen but he doesn’t answer me.

“Johnny?” Grant says.

“What are you doing with that coat?” I say to Johnny.

Grant looks between us. “Okay, maybe we need to find a place where we can all talk. Johnny, what do you think?”

“How the hell did the police not find that?” I say, but the answer comes instantly. Police miss evidence all the time, especially when they come from a department that doesn’t handle a lot of crimes. Even evidence in large cities gets missed. But this coat getting missed is big.

“Someone told me it was important,” Johnny says.

“Who?” I say, but I have a feeling I now know who else Laura Sanders contacted.

“It’s my insurance,” Johnny says.

“Johnny,” Grant says.

I tilt my head. “Insurance for what?”

“I’m not going back,” he says. “I’ll die before I go back.”

“You’re not going back anywhere,” Grant says.

Birds trill and twitter in the limbs above us, and clouds move over the sun, dropping the temperature.

“Why do you think you’d have to go back?” I ask Johnny.

“Because no one is going to believe me.”

“About what?” I say.

“About what happened that night?”

“This isn’t about Heather, is it?” I say, my mouth going dry. “This is about the skull.”

Johnny stares down at me, and for a moment I think he’s going to lunge at me, but he doesn’t. He turns and runs.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Piedmont, Louisiana

Saturday, February 16, 2019

1:41 p.m. CST

“Johnny,” Grant screams. He looks back at me. “What the hell?”

Grant jogs toward the front of the school, and I follow. An engine revs behind the school, and a moment later the black SUV is racing toward us.

“Shit,” Grant yells. He grabs my arm and pulls me close to him as Johnny races past us, the back tires spinning in the gravel as he guns it and lurches forward.