Page 66 of This is Why We Lied

Sara didn’t know, but she had to ask, “Do any of the guests seem familiar to you?”

“No, but I haven’t been here in a really long while,” Delilah said. “If you’re asking my opinion, the caterers were nice, but not as easy-going as I like. I didn’t talk much to the two app guys. They’re not my kind of gay. The investors, well, not my kind of assholes. Monica and Frank were lovely, though. We talked about travel and music and wine.”

Sara must have looked surprised, because Delilah laughed.

“Monica should be forgiven for being so deep in her cups. They lost a child last year.”

Sara felt a tinge of guilt for her ungenerous thoughts. “How awful.”

“Yes, it’s wrenching to lose a child,” Delilah said. “It wasn’t the same when I lost Jon, but to have something taken from you that’s so precious …”

Sara listened to her voice trail off. She could see Will walking toward the burned-out cottage with Nadine. They were deep in conversation. Sara was relieved to see that the coroner, at least, was taking the investigation seriously.

Delilah picked up where she had left off. “The thing about losing a child is that it either tears a couple apart or it brings them closer together. I blew up a twenty-six-year relationship when Jon was taken away from me. She was the love of my life. It was my own damn fault, but I would certainly like the chance to go back and do things differently.”

“Sara?” Will waved her over. “Come see this.”

Sara couldn’t think of a way to keep Delilah from following her, but at least the woman kept her distance. Nadine was shining her flashlight onto the charred remains of the third cottage. One wall was still standing, but most of the roof was gone. Smoke wafted off the chunks of charred wood that had fallen through what was left of the floor. Even with the deluge of rain, Sara could still feel heat coming off the rubble.

Will pointed to a pile of debris in the back corner. “Do you see it?”

Sara could see it.

There were several types of backpacks on the market, ranging from the style that every child carried to school to the ones designed for serious hikers. The second category tended to offer features specifically designed for outdoor use. Some were extra lightweight for day hikes or climbing. Others had internal frames to keep them rigid for heavier loads. Still others had external metal frames that could be expanded in order to carry larger items such as tents and bedrolls.

Every variation was constructed with nylon, a material that was rated by denier, a unit of density based on the length and weight of the fiber. The closest corollary would be the thread count in sheets. The higher the denier, the more durable the fabric. Add to that the various coatings that were meant to make the material weather resistant, weatherproof, and sometimes, if a silicone and fiberglass mixture was used, fire resistant.

Which was apparently the case with the backpack in the corner of the burned-out cottage.

10

Will used the camera on his phone to document the placement and style of the backpack. It looked functional and expensive, like the type of equipment a real hiker would carry. There were three zippers, all closed: one for the main compartment, one for a smaller section in the front, and another for a pocket at the bottom. The material looked stretched to the limit. He could see two sharp corners pressing against the nylon that indicated a box or a heavy book was inside. The rain had stripped away some of the black soot from the fire. The nylon was lavender in color, almost identical to the shade of Mercy’s Nikes.

Delilah came closer. “I saw that same bag in the house earlier.”

Will asked, “Where was it?”

“Upstairs,” she said. “Mercy’s bedroom door was open. I saw it leaned against her dresser drawers. It didn’t look that full, though. All of the zippers were open.”

Will looked at Sara. They knew what should be done. The backpack was a valuable piece of evidence, but it was sitting among other valuable evidence. The arson investigator would want to take photos, comb through the debris, collect samples, run tests, search for accelerant, because something had clearly been used to make sure the cottage burned. Will had been inside while it was blazing. Fire didn’t spread like that on its own.

Nadine offered her flashlight to Will, asking, “Can you hold on to this for me?”

He pointed the light downward while Nadine opened the heavy-looking toolbox she’d carried to the scene. She retrieved a pair of gloves. Then she reached into the back pocket of her coveralls for a pair of needle-nose pliers.

He trailed her with the beam of the flashlight. Thankfully, she didn’t trample through the smoldering remnants of the fire. She walked around to the back. She reached over toward the lavender backpack. With a delicate precision, she grasped the metal pull tag of the zipper between the pliers and gently tugged. The bag opened up around two inches before the teeth caught.

Will angled up the light so she could have a better look inside.

Nadine said, “Looks like there’s a notebook, some clothes, women’s toiletries. She was going somewhere.”

Sara asked, “What kind of notebook?”

“Composition type that kids take to school.” She turned her head to get a different angle. “The cover looks like it’s plastic. Melted from the heat. The bottom is full of water. Rain must’ve found its way in through the zipper. Pages are soaked together like glue.”

Will asked, “Can you read anything?”

“Nope,” she said. “And I’m not gonna try. We need somebody a lot smarter than me to handle that thing without destroying the pages.”