Looked like Wyatt had a lot of groveling in his future.

Before I headed back to Drum, I had somewhere else I wanted to see. Well, two places. I had no idea where Jim Palmer Insurance was located, but I did know how to get to Sonic. If the fast food restaurant was only a couple of blocks away, then the insurance office couldn’t be hard to locate.

I drove past the Sonic, heading south. Sure enough, after I drove a block, I saw a crowd and some bright colors ahead. As I got closer, I realized the people were gathered around a makeshift memorial that consisted of flowers, stuffed animals, and homemade signs in a business parking lot.

I’d just found the insurance office.

I’d only intended to drive by, but I found myself pulling into the parking lot of an abandoned building next door. The lot was nearly full with at least ten cars, but I found a space at the end that was partially grass.

As I walked over, I took in the crowd, which consisted of at least thirty people of all ages. A group of women were hugging each other, and a couple of men stood to one side. There were several boys who looked like they were middle-school age.

I hung back, not sure why I felt drawn to stop, but allowing myself to take in the moment. There was an eight-by-ten photo of Jim in the center, and tears filled my eyes as I stared at it. It was easy to depersonalize this, to make it all about Pam, but the truth was a man’s life had been snuffed out in an instant. Apparently he’d touched many people, and his loss would hurt for some time to come. Pam had done this. Pam had set this tragedy in motion.

No, Bart Drummond had instigated it. And while Pam might belong in a jail cell for her part, it was unfair that she alone should be punished.

I turned around and went back to my car, determined to make this right.

Chapter Sixteen

While I knew the general area where Selena Martin lived, I didn’t have an address. Since Drum was decades behind the rest of the world, the best place to look was the phone book, especially since Marco had made it sound like Selena had lived in Drum for ages. I could have stopped by the tavern to look through their phone book, but the library seemed like a better option. Fewer questions to answer.

Carnita was at her desk when I walked in, and all three computers were occupied.

“Carly, what a lovely surprise.”

“I just need to borrow your phone book.”

She laughed. “As often as you borrow it, you should see about getting one of your own. They don’t have one at Hank’s or the tavern?”

So much for not having to answer questions. “We do at both places, but it just seemed handier to stop here.” I smiled at her. “I figured I could also check on the books you ordered. Two birds with one stone.”

“They haven’t arrived yet, but I’m expecting them any day.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “Say, I meant to tell you the other day, I’m thinking of giving the kids a reading challenge. I’m going to give them prizes based on the number of books they read from the library.”

I could hear Marco in my head, telling me that I needed to stop spending money on the kids and save it for my escape. But it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t turn my back on those kids.

Which meant I just needed to make sure I didn’t have to run.

“Oh, such a good idea! I used to have a summer reading program, years ago, but now my budget is too tight. Thank goodness for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. I try to sign up every new baby I hear about to get their free book every month. But that doesn’t mean the parents read to them.”

“You’re doing the best you can,” I assured her. “And I’m picking up on the other end. Teamwork.”

She smiled. “Teamwork.” Then she reached under the desk and pulled out the phone book. “And here you go.”

I took the phone book to the round table in the center of the book section and flipped the pages until I found the Martins. There were six of them, and while Selena’s name wasn’t in the book, S.G. Martin was, with an address on Parson’s Street—the street behind the Methodist church.

I wrote the address in my notebook, then took the phone book back to Carnita.

“That didn’t take long. Find what you were lookin’ for?” she asked as she took it from me.

“I did. Thanks.” It was obvious she was fishing for information, and while I would love to ask her if she knew Selena, I couldn’t forget what Marco had told me. I needed to keep this quiet.

I headed outside and paused for a moment. My car was parked on the street, but it was such a nice day and Selena’s house was only a few blocks away…I decided to walk instead.

The house was a cute light blue and white ranch style house with an older sedan in the driveway. The landscape beds were bursting with flowers, giving the home a cozy, inviting feeling.

I walked up to the front door and knocked, hoping the car in the driveway meant Selena was home.

A youthful-looking older woman with reddish-brown hair opened the door.

“Hi,” I said, giving her a smile. “I’m Carly Moore. I know Pam from working at Max’s Tavern, and I was wondering if I could talk to you about Ashlynn.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh. I’ve heard of you. You’re the one who found poor Seth Chalmers.”

My chest tightened. This was the third time today someone had said that to me.

“Yes,” I finally said. “I did.”

“And you were with him when he died.”

A lump filled my throat. “Yes.”

She took a step backward. “Please, come in.”

I walked through the door and took in her warm and cozy living room. The furniture was older, but it looked well-worn and loved.

“Would you like a glass of tea?” she asked as she shut the door. “It’s warming up out there.”

I nearly laughed at her idea of warming up. It had to be in the low eighties at the most. I was used to it being in the nineties in Dallas. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

She gestured for me to sit on the sofa as she walked into the kitchen. “I’ve been meaning to contact you,” she said from the other room. “So you saved me the effort.”

“About Seth?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes,” she called out, and I heard the clink of ice cubes against glass. “And other things.” A half minute later she walked out with two glasses of iced tea. She handed one to me and took a seat in the loveseat perpendicular to the sofa. “I hear you’ve started a tutoring club at the tavern.”

“Oh, yes. Twice a week,” I said, taking a sip of the tea, pleased that it wasn’t sickly sweet. Iced tea in eastern Tennessee meant sweet iced tea, and some people overdid it to the point that it tasted like tea-flavored sugar water.

“How did that come about?” Her voice had a wary tone.

I could understand why she was leery. If someone who didn’t know what they were doing started incorrectly teaching the kids, it could do more harm than good. “I used to work as a tutor in Atlanta,” I said. “One of the kids who came into the tavern this spring with her parents was struggling with her math homework, so I offered to help. The mother of one of her classmates heard I knew how to do it, and they came in for dinner and asked me to help too.”