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the size of some of the kitchens he’d had outside of Claysville. Shelves ran from floor to ceiling, and as he looked he realized that there were runners in the floor so as to slide any of the front shelves forward and to the side. Behind these were another set of equally stocked shelves. Maylene had enough food to cook for the whole town.
    He slid a shelf forward and to the left.
    “Damn,” he whispered. Floor to ceiling was stocked with whiskey and Scotch. Bottle upon bottle lined the shelf, all label forward, sorted by brand, five deep.
    Maylene had never seemed drunk, didn’t smell like the bottle, but unless she was running some sort of speakeasy, there was no way any one person could need this much liquor. If she got drunk every night, it still would’ve taken years to drink this much. If it had always been so, it wasn’t any wonder now where Ella and Rebekkah had found their never-ending supply of liquor all those years ago.
    Byron slid the next shelf over and saw the same sort of overstocked shelf, this one full of unmarked bottles of clear liquid. He took down a bottle and twisted the cap. There was no seal to break.
    Moonshine?
    He sniffed. It didn’t have any scent.
    Not shine.
    He dipped a finger in the neck of the bottle and touched his finger to his tongue.
    “Water?”
    The town’s water was tested regularly. There wasn’t a thing wrong with it. The grocers didn’t carry much in the way of bottled water, finding the idea of buying water foolish, and these bottles were clearly not from any store.
    “I don’t get it.” Byron examined the bottle in his hand, turning it around, looking on the bottom and under the lid. The only identifying mark was a date written in black indelible marker on the bottom. Home-bottled water, a distillery worth of whiskeys, and enough food for years of living. Short of preparing for End of Days–style catastrophes, this didn’t make sense. Maylene wasn’t any more religious than the rest of Claysville, and she certainly hadn’t seemed like she was planning for any sort of Armageddon.
    And stockpiling food and booze doesn’t explain why anyone would kill her.
    Byron closed the pantry door, set the bottle of water down on the countertop, and walked upstairs. He didn’t know where to send a sample for testing, but it was something.
    Except bad water doesn’t result in torn-up bodies.
    Upstairs, everything looked perfectly in order. Even the beds were made. In the bathroom that Ella and Rebekkah once shared, someone had set out a hand towel, bath towel, washcloth, and one of those little seashell-shaped soaps. It looked homey.
    The guest bedroom that was once Rebekkah’s room had a quilt folded at the foot of the bed, and Maylene’s bed had fresh linens on the night table as if whoever tidied up wasn’t sure if changing the linens was a good idea or not. Byron wasn’t sure either. His father had kept his mother’s things out for months, even going so far as to spray her perfume in the air every so often. The shadow of her presence had lingered long after she was gone.
    For a moment he considered sitting down, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. It was one thing to come into Rebekkah’s home to look for something, some clue, some anything to answer the questions he knew she’d have. It was another altogether to make himself at home.
    He paused in the doorway, remembering the first time Rebekkah had dealt with the death of a loved one.
    Rebekkah sat on the edge of her bed. Her face was wet with tears, and her sobs were the gulping-gasping kind. He’d seen grief before; sobbing people were normal in a funeral home. Those people weren’t Rebekkah, though; seeing her in pain was different.
    Byron went over and pulled her into his arms.
    “She’s gone,” Rebekkah said against his chest. “Dead, B. She’s dead.”
    “I know.” He could see Maylene watching them from the hallway. She didn’t come in; instead, she nodded at him approvingly.
    Rebekkah