Chapter 40

Joe sat up and rubbed his head. “I don’t think so.” He nodded toward the man under the towels. “He alive?”

The deputy glanced up. “Dunno yet.” He dropped the wrist and reached for a pulse point on the neck. Long moments later, he looked up. “Don’t think so. What happened here?” He nodded toward the man’s fallen shotgun. “That his or yours?”

“His,” Joe replied. “He shot out our bedroom window there.”

The charred side of the house was clearly visible in the headlights. The deputy sniffed the air, no doubt detecting the gasoline scent, and cast his eyes over the broken glass near the man’s body.

The deputy sighed, apparently reaching the same conclusion Ed had reached earlier. “You two injured?”

“Joe’s got glass in his foot.”

“And shoulder,” Joe added. “And Ed’s arm is burned.”

Ed looked at the wet towel Joe had wrapped around his forearm. He’d been so focused on everything else that he’d forgotten about his own injury. It throbbed under the towel now, though.