“The Sentry,” I corrected.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem like such a great time to test boundaries. Even before all this nonsense, we agreed no running at night.”
“I completely agree,” Dad said. “Which is why I’ll be in the car, close behind, slowly following her.”
“Really?” Jillian gave me a look. “I spent all this money to make you look cool and you’re going to let your dad drive behind you while you jog?”
“Dad, you don’t have to. As long as I don’t do laps around the Langsom place, I can’t see the Sentry having a problem with it.”
“Right. Let’s expect the guy writing anonymous letters about blood in the walls to rationalize like that.” My mom rolled her eyes. “I also worry about you following her in the car, frankly. You read about these things all the time—parents who stop paying attention for a second and accidentally drive over their own children.”
“Okay, now you have officially lost your mind,” Jillian said. “I was on your side, Mel, but I cannot get behind the fear that Brad’s going to run her over with his car.”
“She’s too fast for one thing.” My dad beamed.
We were all having fun together. I don’t know why I couldn’t have just enjoyed those few minutes. But I had to pick at it, like an old scab I just noticed. “Miss Abbot says the Sentry began sending the letters a while ago, when the Langsoms still lived there. So whoever it is, he’s not targeting the Donahues. He started with the Langsoms. But that sounds crazy too. Because how could you have any beef with the Langsoms? They’re so nice to everyone.”
I figured on getting a kick under the table from Jillian, but she just looked disappointed in me. She stood up and started to clear. When my mom said, “I’m sure someone has a reason,” it didn’t feel safe to make eye contact with anyone at the table. She said, “But that’s life, right? If you haven’t made anyone angry, you probably haven’t really lived.”
I stood up. “Should I do the dishes?”
Mom shook her head. “No, if you’re going to run, run now.”
I could still feel Jillian’s eyes on me. “Thanks, Mom,” I said, and I meant it. But I also meant Sorry, Mom. For bringing up the Langsoms, for trying to provoke some outpouring of hostility, for ruining the moment.
As I climbed the steps to my room, I heard Jillian half teasing my mom. “I bet you fifty bucks Grace Abbot’s writing the letters.”
“No way. I saw one, remember. Grace Abbot has much better handwriting.”
“Oh God—she has that perfect penmanship. Do you remember? But this is totally the type of thing she would do just to stir stuff up around here.”
“Jillian—she would not!” Then I heard the smile in my mom’s voice. “Her letters would have been amazing. She would have included a quote from Macbeth or something.”
“Yes! Exactly.”
It occurred to me that Miss Abbot would have taught my mom and Jillian in high school. I spun right back down the stairs.
“Hey! Did you guys all go to school with the VonHolt kids?”
All three of them looked at me in horror.
Mom recovered first. “Olivia, what on earth has gotten into you?”
“I just wondered.”
“Don’t wonder about that story.” Dad used his laying-down-the-law voice. “Go on and get ready. Let’s get moving.”
“Okay, but did you? It’s not like it’s some deep dark secret.” I looked at Jillian.
“I’m just appalled that you thought we were that old,” she responded. “Those kids were almost fifteen years ahead of us. Listen—did the latest Stalker letter include any Shakespearean references?”
“You’re not helping, Jill.” Mom sounded exasperated. “Olivia, we didn’t go to school with the VonHolts. They were real people, though. Let’s try not to wrap their tragedy into this whole mess. These letters—they’re most likely just someone’s warped idea of a joke. Do you understand?”
I understood but I didn’t agree. With my father trailing behind me in his SUV, I tried to focus. Earbuds in, course mapped out—my muscles felt good but my movements didn’t. It felt like running through cough syrup. For one thing, I knew it must look ridiculous to have Dad follow, like some Secret Service agent protecting the president. If Ben happened to see, he would definitely think my parents had caught me sneaking back in the house and put me on complete lockdown.
Besides that, I couldn’t figure out how to bypass the park. I didn’t want to go back there yet and ruin it. If I ran past, it would just become a regular old park again and not the place where Ben told me his secrets. When I couldn’t stop myself, I looked back at my dad, but he just kept waving me forward. I could read the impatience on his face—he didn’t think I was on track for a good time either.
Make up time, not excuses. That’s what Dad would have told me.
Janie had texted twice—once while I was shopping with Aunt Jillian and again right before dinner. And then she called, so whether I felt ready to face her or not, I’d have to call back when I got home.
I pushed myself into a sprint—feeling frustrated with myself. I forced myself to run faster only out of a desire to get it over with. My ears throbbed since I’d kept jacking up the volume of my music, listening so loudly I couldn’t even hear my dad honking his horn.
I made it back to our porch steps and there, perched right at their foot, was a baseball glove, with the worn ball tucked inside. If you were strolling down the sidewalk and spotted it, you might not consider it out of place. You wouldn’t understand because a game of catch is only a language on the planet I shared with Ben. And I didn’t know if he left it as a greeting or a signal or what. But that’s what I was focused on—the mitt in our front yard and figuring out what it meant.
My music was still blasting, so I didn’t hear my dad coming up to me, didn’t hear what he was saying to me. By the time I looked up, he stood between me and the house at 16 Olcott. The Langsom house. Or rather: the Donahue house. Or maybe: the Sentry’s house.
Three police cars sat parked in front with their blue lights on, lighting up the late summer night.
I tried to run toward the house, but my legs were done and my dad wasn’t having it anyway.
“Hold up. Hold up now. We’ll find out what’s happening. Okay, Liv? Let’s just go inside for a minute.”
Mom and Jillian stood in our front door, holding it open and beckoning me inside. I shook my head. Up and down Olcott Place, our neighbors poked their heads out and milled around their front yards. I saw Miss Abbot drag a lawn chair out of her garage, and in any other context, that would have been hilarious. I filed it away to tell Janie about later and then promptly started to feel shaky and weak. Two texts and a phone call and I hadn’t responded all day. “How about you sit down?” Dad started to lower me to the curb and then thought better of it. He walked me back to the porch steps instead. “Over here. Melinda! Could you get us some water please?”
I kept thinking that I made it all happen. The way we used to say “Bloody Mary” three times in front of a mirror to see what we could conjure. Just mentioning the VonHolt name summoned whatever disaster had required half the Glennon Heights police force to come out. “I’m sure it’s fine,” Dad kept repeating as he rubbed circles on my back. Mom brought over a bottle of water.
“Why don’t I go over?” she said. “Someone should. They just moved here; we probably know them best.”
Dad sat next to me on the curb and we watched my mom walk toward the house.
Jillian charged out of the house. “Seriously? You’re just going to let her go over there, Brad?”
“She knows what she’s doing.” He turned to me. “We’ll wait for Mom inside.” I opened my mouth to say no, but Dad held up his hand. “Liv. I’m not asking.”
I grabbed Ben’s baseball glove and carried it inside with me. If Dad or Jillian wondered, they didn’t ask. I took it right up to my room and hid it in the space between the wall and my bed. I grabbed a fl
eece. I felt so cold. From my window, I had a clearer view of the Donahue house. It was just the same grand facade, but bathed in that blue light.
I went back downstairs and waited in view of the front door. I stared at the knob, waiting for it to turn. Eventually, both Jillian and my dad sat down with me.
When Mom finally came home, she walked into the house to find us sitting right there, leaning forward. “Hey, guys,” she said, like she had just run out to the store and maybe could use a little help bringing in the groceries. “Everything’s okay. They’re shaken up, but no one’s hurt. Everyone’s accounted for.” We must have looked incredulous. Mom explained, “Another letter from the Sentry arrived tonight.”
My dad said what we were all thinking. “They got a letter? And it required three police cars? There wasn’t some kind of violent incident?”
I stood up to look out the window. The squad cars had gone. It looked like every light in the Donahue house had been switched on.
“Well,” Mom said, “it was a disturbing letter. And you know, I don’t think the boys down at the station get a lot of calls to answer. They were very thorough.”
“Our taxes at work.” Dad stood up then, like he needed to test out his legs. “Come here for a second.” His voice sounded gruffer than usual as he wrapped his arms around my mom. “I should have gone over instead. I don’t know what we were thinking.” When my mom stepped back, he pulled her in again. Jillian and I exchanged looks. They never acted like that.
“It was good that I was there. I helped calm down the kids. That let Gavin and Lindsay focus on the officers’ questions.”
“Did they see anything?”
Mom shook her head. “No, the whole family was out. They came home to find the letter with the rest of the mail …” She trailed off.
“On the tarp?” I asked.
“Yeah. The police had taped this plastic sheet under the mail slot. It caught everything that came through. They sent someone out specifically to handle the evidence. They’re hoping, because this time they took such care, they’ll get prints and figure this out.”
“Did they still read it? What did it say?”
Mom hesitated. “Same kind of thing as before. Pretty disturbing.”
“Can I go over and see Janie?” None of them answered. “One of you can walk me over if you have to. But the police wouldn’t have left if it wasn’t safe in the house.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I know. And I’m sure Janie wants to see you too, but we need to give the Donahues some space tonight. It sounds like they have a lot to discuss.”
“What do you mean? What else do they need to discuss?” The three adults looked at each other but not at me. “Are the Donahues going to move?”
“Nobody said that. But it was an eventful night. Why don’t you just call her?”
Because then I wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye. I wouldn’t know if she was truly okay. And I wouldn’t know if Ben had told her about last night. My eyes swung from my mom to my dad to my aunt Jillian. No one was going to budge.
When I first texted her, I just sent Janie a string of exclamation marks. She wrote back almost immediately I know, right?
U ok?
Can u come over?
Mom said no.
The three dots on my screen blinked. Janie was thinking. Maybe later?
I weighed the kind of trouble I could land myself in, sneaking out of the house. But I’d managed it just fine the night before. Wasn’t my friendship with Janie worth the same kind of risk as my nothing with Ben?
Four houses down, she was staring at her phone, waiting for my answer. Yeah, I wrote. Will text then. Then I erased the text just in case. Every day I got sneakier. I showered and dressed in black leggings and a dark T-shirt. Nothing that screamed cat burglar, but it made me feel slick, like I could creep around unnoticed in the night.
By the time I got back downstairs, Jillian had left. “She said to tell you she’d give you a call tomorrow; apparently you’re not done shopping.” My mom hugged me. “Want to watch a movie?”
We ended up picking a romantic comedy and I dozed off on the sofa before the people in it stopped stumbling around and figured out they loved each other.
I woke up curled up on the couch, snugly tucked under a blanket, the TV turned off. My parents had left the kitchen light on, leaving just enough illumination so that I wouldn’t wake up scared. It stung how easy they made sneaking out for me. Let her sleep, Mom would have said. She’s had such a scare. She needs her rest.
I checked my phone. 12:30 a.m. Just one text from Janie: ???????????
Ten minutes, I replied.
Once I hit send, I’d committed myself. No backing out. I found my sneakers and stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening. My dad snored loudly enough that I could hear him a full floor down, but that complicated matters with my mom. How could she possibly have fallen asleep next to that? I listened for a second layer of waking noise in the background. Nothing. So for the second time in as many nights, I slipped out the back door while the rest of the house slept.
It took more effort to be brave when Ben wasn’t there to impress. And apparently, adrenaline had affected the rest of the neighborhood too. Dotted along the street, porch lights still shone in houses that had sat dark the night before. I kept my eyes focused on 16 Olcott and tried to glide through the backyards until I reached Janie’s. I even covered the screen of my phone while I texted her: Here. Out back.
I reached up and tried the back door. Locked. And then it suddenly swung open, almost smacking me in the face.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Ben’s voice rumbled low and furious. He switched on the flashlight on his phone, blinding me.
“Ben?” I shielded my eyes.
“You better hope so.”
“Janie asked me to sneak out. Let’s not act like you’re unfamiliar with that concept.”
“The two of you don’t share a whole brain between you, do you?” He swung the light down. “It was kind of nuts of me to go see you last night, absolutely insane for you to come here now. What if my dad was staying up, keeping watch? What if he had a gun?”
“No offense, but with his temper your father should not own a firearm,” I said. But I knew Ben was right. He wouldn’t hear me admit that, but I understood. “Janie texted me. I felt like I had to.” We stared at each other. “You know why.”
His eyes darted away from me, right along with the beam of light. “I think she’s asleep.”
“Would you go check? Please? Maybe her phone’s not getting reception?”
“She’s asleep or she would be down here. I’ll tell her you snuck out.”
“Okay.”
“And that you won’t be doing it again.”
“Okay.”
“You should go—”
“You left your baseball glove. You know, on the lawn. That was you, right?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “I guess I thought maybe we could talk. But that was before. Then tonight happened. Everyone’s going to be watching more closely now.”
“Okay.” I knew other words. I just worried it would be too difficult to pronounce them.
“You’ll see Janie tomorrow. I’ll be around too. Okay, Livvie?” He didn’t even wait for me to answer. He shut off the flashlight.
I stayed there for a minute or two with my back against the screen door, wondering if Ben still sat there leaning against the other side. When I felt the door give a little, I knew he had been and also that he had stood up and gone. It took everything to stop myself from calling out—but I wouldn’t let myself plead pathetically. And I wouldn’t let myself get caught. “Okay,” I whispered, and made my way back, wondering whose eyes followed me home.
Ben must have kept his promise though, because my mom woke me up first thing in the morning. “Olivia, Janie’s downstairs. Dad’s left for work and I’m headed to town. Okay to send her on up?”
“Yeah, sure. She’s here, like at the house? Right now?”<
br />
My mom smiled. “She said she got your message. She seems fine.” Mom took a step away and then came right back. “I’m all right with you girls spending time here, but if you go to Janie’s, I need to know an adult’s home. There, in the house, with you. No negotiations, okay?”
I nodded; it was reasonable, after all.
I almost tackled Janie when she came through the door, which probably doesn’t count as the best way to handle trauma victims, but I was so glad to see her.
“What happened?” I asked. “Are you okay? Do they know anything yet?” She hugged me back, hard, so I just kept chattering on. “Did Ben tell you? I tried to sneak out. I mean, I actually did sneak out, but you must have fallen asleep already. When I finally got there, Ben gave me this whole lecture about safety and your father and guns.”
Janie sniffled and laughed. “My father doesn’t keep guns.”
“I know, right? I think that’s a really smart decision.” We both giggled. Janie needed to wipe her eyes, either from laughing or crying.
“I don’t know why I’m getting so emotional. It was just another letter. The police sergeant kept talking about escalating behavior, but it’s the same kind of letter written on the same paper. They seemed to know us more this time around.”
“What do you mean?”
Janie pulled out her phone to show me a picture. Black ink, creamy background.
I felt cold all over again, the same way I couldn’t get warm the night before, waiting for word that the Donahues were safe. I pulled my comforter off my bed and wrapped it around myself. “You don’t think this is worse than the earlier letters?”
“Whoever wrote it wanted a reaction,” Janie answered. “And they got one. The whole cavalry showed up.” She looked past me, to my bed. “Is that my brother’s baseball glove?”
I still felt cold, but my face went warm. “Is it? My dad found it on our front lawn. He thought maybe it was someone’s from school.” I handed it over to her as if I hadn’t spent the night with my hand tucked inside like some kind of minor league creeper.
“He’s been acting even more bizarre than usual lately,” Janie said. I stayed still and blank. “Ben. Not your dad. It started when the police first interviewed us—you were there. And then last night he didn’t even come home until after the police had come back. He walked in all casually like the cops usually swarm around our house.”
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