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that was not genuinely friendly. “Why are you being difficult? There’s nothing to this, Byron.” Chris waited until Byron caught up with him and then he said, “Maylene’s gone, and whatever happened, it’s happened and done. She died, the door was open, and something bit on her.”
    “You can’t think that. I saw her. We can look for fingerprints or ... something.” Byron wasn’t a detective, didn’t know what clues he’d even look for—or if he’d recognize them if he saw any. “Let me call up some people I met. One of the women I knew in Atlanta was just finishing up a program in forensics. Maybe she could come here and—”
    “Why?”
    “Why?” Byron stopped midstep. “To find out who killed Maylene.”
    Chris gave him the same sort of inscrutable look that William always did. It was galling to see it on the face of a man he’d once partied with. “They’re probably long gone. No sense chasing up the road after some vagrant. Maylene’s dead and gone. It won’t help anything to go asking questions. Not you or Bek.”
    Byron paused. He hadn’t said it, but that was part of it: he wanted to have something to say when he faced Rebekkah. At least he’d had that when his mother died, an explanation, an answer of some sort. It hadn’t made the loss any less, but it helped.
    I can’t protect her from this. I can’t fix it ... I can’t deal with her blaming me again either.
    “Just open the door.” Byron motioned at the key in Chris’ hand.
    Chris shoved the key in the lock and pushed the door open. “Go on, then.”
    For the second time in twenty-four hours, Byron crossed the threshold he hadn’t crossed in almost a decade. One of the last times he’d been in there was when Ella and Rebekkah had tried to sneak him in the upstairs window. The girls had shushed him and giggled; they had all tumbled together into an untidy pile, too high to do much more than that.
    “She’s going to need a friend more than anything. I know you’ve had your ... whatever it is, but you need to be there for her.” Chris stood just inside the door. The kitchen was now immaculate. No dishes waited in the drying rack. No blood remained on the floor.
    “They cleaned already.” Byron wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but the simple fact of the situation was that any clue he might possibly have found had been wiped away with the bleach he could still smell.
    “ ’Course they did.” Chris shook his head. “Can’t have Rebekkah coming back to Maylene’s blood on the wall. Would you want that?”
    “No, but”—Byron swept his hand around—“how are we going to find who did this if everything’s all bleached and vacuumed and whatever else they did? Maylene was killed .”
    “Maybe you ought to take your concerns to the council.” Chris didn’t follow him any farther into the house. “If it makes you feel better to look around, go ahead. Just pull the door behind you when you’re done.”
    Byron took a calming breath, but didn’t reply.
    “I’ll see you at the service tomorrow ... with Rebekkah?” In that one short phrase, Chris asked all of the questions that he wasn’t verbalizing: did you reach her and is she coming and will you help her?
    “Yes,” Byron confirmed.
    “Good.” The sheriff turned and left Byron alone.
    Because there is no crime scene to preserve. No sense of law or privacy or any damn thing that makes sense.
    Byron walked through the house. If he knew what was normal for Maylene’s house these days, it would be easier to see what was amiss. Or if they hadn’t already cleaned. The kitchen had always seemed uncommonly large, but in an old farmhouse, that wasn’t too peculiar. The pantry, on the other hand, was enough to make him wonder if every single person in Claysville was hiding some sort of eccentricity. Years ago, the girls had been adamant that they weren’t ever to open the door to it, and at the time, he hadn’t cared. Now he stood speechless. The room itself was