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impress him. First place in the Coral County writing competition, and the youngest author to ever be published in a Best of Horror Anthology didn’t matter. If anything, the accomplishments seemed to make him more invisible.
    Heath’s mother was still a great mom, when she wasn’t tied up with one of Jase’s stupid town functions, or retreats.
    Outside of that, the only person who seemed to care at all about him was his papa, and even that felt more like someone just keeping an eye on him in case of…well, who knows. Maybe he cared and didn’t know how to show it, or maybe he was holding on to see if his grandkid’s properly functioning brain paid off down the road. Whatever the old man’s reason, Papa Schultz was there. He was present. All Heath had to do was ride his bike down to the library, and there he was.
    Papa Schultz was his biological dad’s dad. Heath was forbidden to have any contact with his real dad, per both Papa and his mother. The guy was a head case, a drunk and a grade A scumbag. When your own father says these things about you, it’s more than a bad relationship. His mother had been young and misguided, hooking up with his dad, getting pregnant and having to forgo college to raise him. Where Papa’s hatred came from was still a bit of an enigma, and afternoons at the library were notably less awkward when conversations about his real dad were avoided.
    Tonight, his mom and Jase were in New Hampshire, doing one of their vacation/conference combos. They’d left him with Papa Schultz when he was a kid. Now that he was almost thirteen, he got to try a weekend at home alone. At least they’d acknowledged that he was responsible.
    Mother had told him to phone Papa if at any point he became uncomfortable. He doubted that would happen. And if he did call Papa, it would be over that curious Sawyer kid. Heath had overheard him asking Papa about some missing girl. Papa had put on his big white smile, but Heath knew the old man’s faux faces when he saw them. After the Sawyer kid left, Papa fidgeted, stroked his goatee and rapped his fingers on every flat piece of wood furnishing in the building, practically hopping up and down to have the library to himself. Heath had felt the long, antsy stares; he’d finally given in to the old man’s anxiety attack and headed home.
    What his papa didn’t know was that he had circled back and watched him through the basement window as the old man tossed the newspapers the Sawyer kid had been looking at in the building’s still-functional furnace. While his interest was already piqued by his papa’s public antics with Sawyer, the latter display made the old town mystery impossible to dismiss.
    Maybe a twelve-year-old boy, even a responsible one, needed supervision after all. Heath would be visiting his papa in the morning.

Chapter Sixteen
    Li’l Ron was out the door by 9:00 a.m. His nan was gone, his father too.
    His father had known her. That’s what he’d said. She was a friend of a friend . Who? Who was this friend? The man who’d threatened him last night? It had to be, didn’t it?
    Li’l Ron wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything right now except that he had to speak with Sweet Kate. He needed to know more.
    He hopped on his bike, pedaling past a truck parked across from Mr. Henley’s house. Hunters weren’t supposed to be this close to houses. The woods are pretty dense out here though, he supposed. The guy or girl could’ve trekked through the marsh and up into the hills. The license plate read SGS . Li’l Ron wondered if it was an acronym. If it was, he didn’t know it. He pumped his legs, propelling his chariot onward.
    Stefan Schultz finished pissing behind the big pine tree, zipping his fly and turning in time to see the Sawyer boy pedaling past his truck and heading away from town. He picked up his hunting rifle—part of his ruse, he hadn’t hunted in years, but it would serve to answer any questions about his being here—and made