Fire in the Stars Read Online Free Page A

another.
    All the usual equipment of a middle-class homeowner. Nothing unusual struck her. He had an entire cabinet of fishing paraphernalia, but no guns or hunting gear. Phil had grown up in rural Manitoba with an annual family tradition of duck and deer hunting, but since his first encounter with tribal violence overseas, he had rejected all guns.
    But that was before Nigeria.
    Amanda turned to Sheri, who was examining his supply of fishing rods. “Did he have a gun?”
    Sheri whipped her head back and forth. “He hates them now more than ever. My … my friend wanted to take Tyler moose-hunting last fall — that’s almost a Newfoundland rite of passage — but Phil blew a fuse.” She paused, fingering the long, slim rods. “He’s taken two of his salmon rods and his wading gear. That’s not much help, since salmon brooks and rivers are everywhere.”
    â€œThat’s good, though,” Amanda said. “It shows he’s still following a plan.”
    Her cellphone had gone to Phil’s voicemail again so Amanda dialled a third time. From deep in the farthest corner of the shed came the muted sounds of a trumpet call. Both women rushed over. The sound was coming from somewhere in a pile of equipment beside the fishing cabinet. They tossed aside a folded tarp, dug out a bag of fertilizer, and began to shove aside the stack of tires. The trumpet trill grew louder. Finally, half hidden beneath the tires, Amanda found the phone.
    The front screen was completely filled with notifications, most of them text and phone messages from Sheri and Amanda, none of them even opened, let alone answered.
    Sheri craned her neck over Amanda’s shoulder to catch a glimpse. Seeing the unread messages, she swore.
    â€œOh, spectacular! So now he doesn’t even have a phone!”
    Still squatting in the corner, Amanda glanced around the shed. How had the phone ended up buried under the tires? Someone had to move a tarp, a bag of fertilizer, and four heavy tires in order to hide it there. That made no sense. If Phil had simply put his phone down while collecting his fishing gear, or if it had fallen out of his pocket, it should have been sitting in plain sight, on top of the tarp, not underneath.
    It was almost as if he had hidden it on purpose. But why go to all that trouble? If Phil wanted to get rid of the phone, so that no one could reach him or track him, why not just throw it in a Dumpster on his way out of town?
    She tried to imagine the twisted path of Phil’s reasoning. He had discarded his phone, but rather than throwing it away, he’d left it within easy earshot of the house. Had that been deliberate? Had he known that a little ingenuity and detective work would discover it? Was he counting on that? Was he counting on the confusion and worry that discovery would provoke?
    Amanda held the phone in suddenly nerveless fingers. Did he want Sheri to find it, she wondered? And to know that he had chosen to cut all ties? Did he want her to know that he was beyond reach? Beyond salvation?
    The ultimate revenge.
    She stood up, bumping into Sheri in her haste to turn around. “I think you better call the police.”

Chapter Three
    T o Amanda’s surprise, Sheri balked. She leaned over to peer at the spot where the phone had been found. “He could have just dropped it and it slid down there.”
    â€œBut he would have looked for it.”
    â€œMaybe it fell out of his pocket while he was getting his fishing gear, and he didn’t even notice until after he left. Phil’s like that, you know. Mr. Unreliable, remember?”
    â€œBut he’d have a checklist. All those years of training —”
    Sheri set her jaw and headed out of the shed. “He would hate it if I called the cops on him. Even if he did leave the phone behind on purpose, so what? He just needs his space and time. This is a small town, and people have sharp tongues and long