Why would he go anywhere else? He had the sheriff to protect him.
She retrieved the blanket and gas can and continued her walk toward the house. The brush was thick. Claire felt a moment of panic where she wondered if she’d gotten off course, but then she saw the green roof of the house. She walked in a crouch. The windows were still boarded up with weathered plywood. Claire stayed low anyway, because she knew that there was a slit in the den windows that showed the driveway, so it followed that there would be others.
The overgrown back yard hadn’t had time to absorb the slow, sloppy rain. Claire heard dry grass crackle under her feet. The swingset groaned as a strong wind swept through the open field where the Amityville barn had been. Claire kept clear of the area. She used her feet to press down a patch of tall grass to create a staging area for the blanket and its contents.
She studied the back of the house. The plywood board she and Lydia had pried off the kitchen door was leaning up against the side of the house. They had left it on the ground where they’d dropped it. She assumed Paul had neatly leaned up the board beside the door. He had probably straightened up inside the house as well. Or maybe he’d left the silverware strewn across the floor as a sort of alarm so that he would know if someone tried to enter the house.
Claire was more worried about getting Paul out of the house than her going in.
She bent down to the gas can and took the cap off the flexible spout. She started to the left of the small back porch off the kitchen, dripping gasoline down the slats of wooden siding that covered the exterior of the house. Claire worked carefully so that the gas got into the seams between the boards. She raised up the can every time she passed a window, soaking the plywood as much as she could without making too much noise.
Claire’s heart was pounding so loudly when she walked up the front porch steps that she was afraid the noise would give her away. She kept her eyes on the garage. She tried not to think about Paul in there with Lydia. The roll-up metal door was still padlocked from the outside. The hasp was secure. His murder room. Lydia was locked inside his murder room.
Claire turned back around. Quietly, she made a half-loop back around the house, double-checking her work underneath the boarded-up windows. By the time she was finished, she’d poured a crescent of gasoline around the left side of the house, covering the front porch, the bedrooms, and the bathroom. Only the kitchen and garage were left untouched.
Step one: complete.
Claire returned to the foil blanket. She knelt down. She was sweating, but her hands were so cold she could barely feel her fingers. She said a silent apology to her mother the librarian as she ripped apart the Shelley collection. She wadded and rolled together the pages into a long wick. She unscrewed the spout from the gas can. She shoved the wick inside, leaving around six inches of exposed paper.
Step two: ready.
There were two long flares from the backpack. Claire kept both in her hand as she walked to the front of the house. She stood underneath the sewing room. The empty street was behind her. At the gas station, she had read the instructions for lighting the flare. It worked the same way as striking a match. You pulled off the plastic cap and struck the sandpaper side to the top of the flare.
Claire pulled off the plastic cap. She looked up at the house. This was the moment. She could stop now. She could go back to her car. She could call the FBI in Washington, DC. Homeland Security. The Secret Service. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
How many hours would it take for them to get to the house?
How many hours would that give Paul alone with her sister?
Claire struck the top of the flare. She jumped back, because she hadn’t anticipated such an immediate, blazing plume of fire. Sparks dripped at her feet. The flare made a spurting sound like a faucet turned on full blast. She felt a quiver of panic at what she was doing. She’d thought there would be more time, but the fire was rapidly eating away the seconds. The gasoline had caught. Reddish orange flames