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twin mattress.

    “Was this your room?” I asked Barrett, knowing full well he and his sister had come to live with their grandparents after their father had been killed.
    Barrett grunted something that sounded like an affirmative.
    But the room didn’t look occupied now.
    “I don’t see your duffel,” I said.
    Barrett, however, didn’t respond.
    He led the way into a cheerful room fresh with autumn air breezing through the open window. Yellow rosebuds decorated the wallpaper. More perked up the comforter and shams heaped on the white iron bedstead. Mrs. Barrett had even placed a skinny vase of real late-season blooms on the old-fashioned oak dresser. In bright orange and hot pink, zinnias dressed in Queen Anne’s lace greeted me much more joyfully than Barrett had.
    “This was Elise’s room,” he said.
    It was the first voluntary comment he’d made all morning.
    “It’s lovely,” I told him.
    He turned to leave.

    “Barrett, the sheriff says there’s nothing wrong with Eric Wentz.”
    Barrett halted in the doorway, but he didn’t turn to face me. “Go home, Jamie.”
    And just like that, he was gone, striding down the hall and jogging down the stairs.
    I hustled after him, stuck to his trail as he cut through the house and into the kitchen.
    Mrs. Barrett turned from puttering in the sink—and pretending she wasn’t listening for any snatch of conversation between her grandson and me.
    “Adam, Kayley and I have to open the shop soon, but—”
    Barrett blew past her and out the back door.
    I followed him, and behind the house, I found a brief deck and a deep yard. Flowers for cutting were dying at the edge of a small vegetable garden. I could just spy the edge of the driveway where it curved before arcing toward the big red barn. An outbuilding, painted the same sunny yellow as the house, sat at the apex of the curve. At one time, it might’ve been a carriage house. From the look of its double-wide door, I’d have said it had been converted into a garage during the last century, however.
    A wooden staircase clung to the side of the structure. It led to a landing on the second story. Barrett jogged up the steps, bumped his way through a whitewashed door up there.
    Without waiting for an invitation, I did the same.
    For all intents and purposes, the space above the garage appeared to be a one-room apartment. On the floor, braided-rag rugs in every color under the sun mapped out where different domestic activities should take place. On an enormous oval rug, an armchair and mismatched loveseat kept close company in a kind of sitting area. A small runner ran the length of a tiny kitchenette. And in an alcove of its own, a wide bed with cannonball posts boasted rag rugs on each side.

    The place would’ve been endearing, really. Except Barrett had made a mess of it in the few days he’d stayed here. Discarded clothes and crushed beer cans littered nearly every horizontal surface. Dirty dishes grew crusts in the kitchenette’s sink. On the bed, a Lone Star quilt lay in twists as if Barrett had tossed and turned in his sleep before spending last night in the jug.
    “Barrett,” I said, “what’s going on?”
    Without acknowledging me, Barrett began to strip off his clothes. He hauled his filthy sweatshirt over his head, dropped it on the floor. He kicked his boots to the corner and discarded his socks.
    And then he shucked his trousers.
    If I’d ever wondered whether Barrett preferred briefs or the mystery of boxers, here was the answer. Boxers, charcoal gray knit and riding low on his hips, didn’t do a thing to hide the multitude of scars along his side. They were crazy crescents, souvenirs of his time in a war zone when shrapnel had torn into him like so many shark’s teeth.
    And his body bore evidence of his recent surgery, too. His left leg was thin, the musculature atrophied from weeks in his cast. But most noticeably, a new scar, thick and red, four inches long and as fat as a night crawler,