LITMIR.BIZ

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to prop the door open, her head turning back and forth wildly, but there was nothing close enough for her to reach. She let it close and squinched up her face as it met the doorjamb. I realized I was mirroring her expression.

      I breathed a sigh of relief as she came to help me. “Turn him over!” Her voice was urgent.

      I followed her orders, and she grabbed him under his arms as we awkwardly made our way down the driveway. “He’s bleeding!” she said.

      We shuffled away from the garage as fast as we could while carrying his full weight. I made the mistake of looking down at him. His shirt was soaked with blood.

      I heard sirens approaching and felt a wave of relief that everything would be okay.

      Then the air around us seemed to contract and my heart stopped.

      The garage blew up in a flashing burst of light and the loudest boom I’d ever heard, and the sky blue door hurtled toward us.

      Chapter 3

      In the movies, an explosion sends the actors flying through space with their arms and legs splayed out. This time, the hot blast sent us toward the ground in a heap of tangled limbs. My face bounced on Benson’s boots and I had the strange thought that the metal buckle outline would be forever pressed into my face.

      I sat up slowly and saw Yollie nearby, with a lifeless Benson in between us. She shook her head, looking as dazed as I felt.

      Somehow the door had completely missed us, squeezing past like the Knight Bus in the Harry Potter novels and landing almost in the street. Small bits of garage debris rained down all around us.

      A fire truck stopped at the end of the driveway and several firefighters raced up to help us.

      “You okay?” I asked Yollie, but my voice sounded like I was underwater.

      She stared down at Benson. “He’s dead.”

      I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly, but I scooted crab-like a few steps back. “What?”

      She pointed a shaking finger and I followed it to the small hole in the side of his neck.

      * * * *

      Pure chaos followed. EMTs swarmed all three of us, asking Yollie and me our names and checking our vital signs. The firefighters doused the small fire on one fragment of a wall, which was all that was left of the garage, but stayed away from the flames shooting from the open gas line.

      Once they made sure Yollie and I weren’t seriously injured, they moved us across the street to the waiting ambulance. I couldn’t take my eyes off the scene, details cascading through my brain like a roll of photos clicking by.

      The pulsing vein in the forehead of the man yelling into his phone at the local utility company to turn off the gas. The acrid smell of charred wood and melting plastic. The splat of boots on the wet pavement. The iridescent whiteness of the sheet covering Benson.

      Yollie and I waited in the back of the ambulance. The police officers who arrived in the first patrol car asked us if we were okay, and then moved to the body, waiting for someone further up the chain of command to take over. They placed crime scene tape to keep people a block away.

      A local news van showed up and I was suddenly grateful for the distance.

      My ears crackled and then seemed to release, like recovering from an airplane ride, and I could hear better. “Someone had to make that explosion happen,” I said slowly, figuring it out as I spoke. “To cover up Benson’s…murder.”

      “Oh my God,” Yollie said. “Benson is dead.”

      “Why would someone kill an oboe teacher?” I didn’t really expect her to answer.

      “I have to let Steven know I’m okay,” Yollie said. She felt around for her phone, but it was gone, now part of the crime scene.

      I pulled mine out of my back pocket and handed it to her. When she was done, I texted my dad a cryptic message. Had a problem at the oboe teacher’s house. Will text more when I know something.

      He responded right away. That explosion??

      Shoot. He’d already heard about it. We’re both fine but we can’t leave yet.

      I’m on my way.

      Please just stay there and take care of Elliott and I’ll keep you updated. Besides, you won’t be able to get past the crime scene tape.

      He sent me an emoji of an angry face, along with Fine, making me smile. I still couldn’t get over my dad using emojis.

      “I know I should feel bad about Benson,” Yollie said, with a hitch in her voice. “But I can’t stop thinking that now he can’t help Steven get into college. He just needed a couple more months. It’s like I have this selfish loop playing in my mind, over and over.”

      I reached out to grab her hand. “It’s the adrenaline. It’s making your brain think only about self-preservation.”

      More fire trucks arrived, probably because of the high fire danger at this time of year, and the firefighters spread out, monitoring the surrounding area.

      Then a sheriff’s car arrived and out stepped Detective Norma Chiron and her partner Detective Ragnor. She stopped to talk to one of the police officers before coming over to us.

      I’d met Norma the first time I’d found a dead body, and I recognized that hunter’s look in her eye. It didn’t matter that we’d become friends since then. Both Yollie and I were in her sights as possible suspects for whatever just happened.

      She walked up to us. “Are you two okay?”

      She must have heard from the officer that we were cleared by the EMTs, but wanted our confirmation before questioning us.

      When we both nodded, she told Yollie, “Detective Ragnor will drive you to the station and Colbie will ride with me. The patrol officer will bring your car.”

      We both gingerly stepped down from the ambulance. Yollie winced and I limped, the aches of being hit by an explosion making themselves felt. “Who knew being blown up could be so painful?” I asked.

      Yollie gave me a grim smile and glanced over at the sheet covering Benson. “It could have been much worse.”

      * * * *

      The only question Norma asked on the short trip to the sheriff’s station was, “Are you sure you’re fine?”

      I nodded, feeling somewhat as if I might cry. I excused myself to the ladies’ room once we got to the station and saw a bruise blooming on my cheek. For some reason, that made me tear up even more, but that stopped when Norma led me to the interrogation room. They called it a conference room, but I knew what it was.

      Norma was all business. She wanted to know why I was at Benson’s house with Yollie and was particularly interested in Quincy’s fight, asking me in several different ways what I knew about it.

      “Look,” I said. “I was at one of Benson’s lessons exactly one time and heard him being abusive. There has to be lots of disgruntled parents, and students too. Plus, if he’s that much of a jerk to people who are paying him, how does he treat the rest of the world?”

      Norma raised her eyebrows. “But we know of only one person who punched him.”

      “Quincy is not capable of killing someone,” I said, understanding right away where she was going.

      She nodded. “Tell me again why Yollie chose this time to go to Mr. Tadworth’s house.”

      “Oh for crying out loud,” I said, losing my patience. “You think Yollie did this and used me as a cover? Why would she try to save him? Believe me, she was as surprised and shocked as I was when we saw he was dead. And especially when we were almost blown up.” The last two words were said very loudly.

      Norma didn’t let up, and once again I went through how and why we arrived at the

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