“We changed our minds. But we didn’t know you needed tickets ahead of time,” I add, giving Liz my most ingratiating smile.
Liz crosses her arms over her chest, ready to argue until Daisy puts a placating hand on her arm. “Oh, I’m sure it’s okay now that the dance is more than half over. Right, Liz?” No response, but Daisy presses on. “Principal Slate wouldn’t want to turn anyone away. Not on a night like this, when the school is trying to bring people together. And we need every penny we can get for the reward fund.” She flashes the kind of sweet, winning smile that probably got her elected to student council all four years at Echo Ridge High. Liz continues to glower, but with less certainty. I guess Daisy’s secret relationship with Declan is still under wraps, or Liz would probably be a lot less charitable.
“We’d really appreciate it,” I say. Malcolm, wisely, keeps his mouth shut.
Liz holds out her palm with an annoyed snort. “Fine. Five dollars. Each.”
Malcolm hands over a ten and we walk with Daisy into the gymnasium. Loud, thumping music hits us again, and I blink as my eyes adjust to the dim lighting. Purple streamers and silver balloons are everywhere and the room is packed with dancing students. “Should we look for Mia and Ezra?” Malcolm asks, raising his voice to be heard over the thumping noise. I nod and he turns toward the center of the room, but Daisy pulls at my arm before I can follow.
“Can I ask you something?” she shouts.
I hesitate as Malcolm disappears into the crowd without realizing I’m not behind him. “Um, okay,” I say, not sure what to expect.
Daisy puts her head close to mine so she doesn’t have to yell. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About Ryan Rodriguez and the bracelet?” I nod. We hadn’t gotten much chance to discuss that on Thursday, once Mia and Daisy’s parents came home and started hyperventilating over Mia’s head injury. She told them she tripped headfirst into the fireplace mantel. “It’s been worrying me. Why do you think he might have given it to Lacey? Do you know something?”
“No,” I admit. I don’t want to catalog all my vague suspicions to Daisy, especially after what she’d said that day: There’s this whole other layer when you’re one of the only minority families in town. Sometimes I forget how…not diverse Echo Ridge is. But when I look around at the crowded gym, I remember. And it feels less harmless to toss speculation around about someone whose last name is Rodriguez.
Besides, even though I crossed Daisy off my suspect list after getting to know her better, I still think Declan is sketchy. Malcolm might not talk to him much, but I’m sure Daisy does.
“It’s just because he knew her,” I say instead.
Daisy’s brow creases. “But…it’s not like they were friends.”
“He was so devastated when she died, though.”
She straightens up in surprise, her pretty eyes wide. “Says who?”
“My mother.” Daisy still looks confused, so I add, “She saw him at the funeral. When he got hysterical and had to be carried out?”
“Ryan Rodriguez did?” Daisy’s tone is incredulous, and she shakes her head decisively. “That didn’t happen.”
“Maybe you missed it?” I suggest.
“No. Our class was small, we were all on one side of the church. I would’ve noticed.” Daisy’s mouth curves in an indulgent smile. “Your mom was probably being dramatic. Hollywood, right?”
I pause. Daisy’s response is almost exactly what Nana said when I brought it up a couple of weeks ago. That didn’t happen. Then, I thought Nana was being dismissive. But that was before I’d fully experienced how odd Sadie can be when it comes to talking about Echo Ridge. “Yeah, I guess,” I say slowly.
I don’t think Daisy has any reason to lie about Ryan’s behavior at Lacey’s funeral. But does Sadie?
“Sorry, I separated you from your date, didn’t I?” Daisy says as we spy Malcolm emerging from a crowd in the middle of the room. “I better circulate and make myself useful. Have fun.” She waves and heads for the sidelines, pirouetting to avoid a couple of theater kids starting a dramatic waltz as the music slows down.
“What happened to you?” Malcolm asks when he reaches me. He looks more disheveled than he did when we got here, like someone who found himself at the edge of a mosh pit but didn’t go all in: jacket unbuttoned, tie loosened, hair mussed.
“Sorry. Daisy wanted to ask me something. Did you find them?”
“No. I got intercepted by Viv.” His shoulders twitch in an irritated shudder. “She’s already lost Kyle and she’s not happy about it. And she’s mad at Theo because he brought a flask and Katrin’s half drunk.”
I scan the gym until I spot a bright-red dress. “Speaking of,” I say, nodding toward the dance floor. Katrin and Theo are slow-dancing in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around his neck like she’s trying to keep from drowning. “There she is.”
Malcolm follows my gaze. “Yep. Doesn’t look much like a killer, does she?”
Something in me deflates. “You think I’m ridiculous, don’t you?”
“What? No,” Malcolm says quickly. “I just meant— Whatever might happen isn’t happening right this second, so…maybe we could dance?” He slides a finger beneath his tie and tugs to loosen it further. “Since we’re here and all.”
My stomach starts doing that fluttering thing again. “Well. We do need to blend,” I say, and accept the hand he holds out to me.
My arms circle his neck and his hands graze my waist. It’s the classic awkward slow-dance position, but after a couple of offbeat sways he pulls me closer and then, suddenly, we fit. I relax against him, my head on his chest. For a few minutes I just enjoy how solid he feels, and the steady beat of his heart beneath my cheek.
Malcolm leans toward my ear. “Can I ask you something?” I lift my head, hoping he’s going to ask if he can kiss me again, and almost say yes preemptively before he adds, “Are you afraid of clowns?”
Huh. That was a letdown.
I lean back and stare into his eyes, which look steely gray instead of green beneath the dim lights. “Um. What?”
“Are you afraid of clowns?” he asks patiently, like it’s a perfectly normal conversation starter.
So I go with it. “No. I’ve never understood the whole clown phobia, to be honest.” I shake my head, and a stray curl grazes my lips and sticks to the gloss. Reminding me, once again, why I don’t wear makeup. Before I can figure out a graceful way to extricate it, Malcolm does it for me, tucking the curl behind my ear and letting his hand settle briefly on my neck before it returns to my waist.
A jolt of energy shoots down my spine. Oh. All right. Maybe lip gloss has its uses.
“Me either,” he says. “I feel like clowns get kind of a bad rap, you know? They just want to entertain.”
“Are you, like, their spokesperson?” I ask, and he grins.
“No. But there’s this clown museum in Solsbury— Well, calling it a museum is kind of a stretch. It’s this old woman’s house that’s crammed full of antique clown stuff. She gives anybody who shows up a giant box of popcorn and she has, like, six dogs that just hang out there in the middle of all the clown memorabilia. And sometimes she plays movies against one of the walls, but they don’t always have clowns in them. Or usually, even. Last time I went the movie was Legally Blonde.”
I laugh. “Sounds delightful.”
“It’s weird,” Malcolm admits. “But I like it. It’s funny and sort of interesting, as long as you’re not afraid of clowns.” His hands tighten on my waist, just a little. “I thought maybe you’d like to go sometime.”
I have a lot of questions, starting with Only me, or me and my brother plus Mia? and Will it be a date, or is it just a strange thing you like that nobody else will do? and Should we get you one hundred percent cleared of any felonies first? But I bite them back and respond with, “I’d li
ke that.”
Because I would.
“Okay. Good,” Malcolm says with a crooked smile. Suddenly, whatever rhythm we’ve managed to find vanishes; he steps on my foot, I clock him with my elbow, my hair sticks to my face for reasons I can’t even comprehend. It’s all going to hell very quickly, until he freezes and says, “Do you see Katrin?”
I look toward the center of the gym where we’d seen her last, but she’s gone. “Theo’s still there,” I say, tilting my chin in his direction. He’s doing a terrible job of trying to look casual while pouring the contents of a flask into his Solo cup. “But I don’t see her.”
The music switches to a fast song and Malcolm motions for me to follow him. We wind our way off the dance floor, weaving in and out of the crowd, and circle the perimeter of the auditorium. I catch a couple of people staring at Malcolm, and before I can think too much about it I grab hold of his hand. I spot Mia and Ezra within a bigger group, dancing frenetically. Daisy is off to the side with a couple of chaperones, standing slightly apart from them with a preoccupied expression. It makes me wonder what homecoming was like for her five years ago, watching the boy she loved and her best friend get crowned king and queen. Whether she was jealous—or unconcerned, thinking her turn would come soon enough.
And I wonder what it was like for Sadie more than twenty years ago, there without her sister, dancing with a boy she must have liked at least a little bit. A perfect night turned into a cruel memory.
“She’s not here,” Malcolm says, but just then, I see a flash of bright red where I wasn’t expecting it to be.
The far corner of the gym has an exit next to the bleachers that’s been covered with balloons and streamers in an attempt to make it look inaccessible. Katrin emerges from beneath the stands and, without checking to see whether a chaperone’s in sight, pushes the door open and slips outside.
Malcolm and I exchange glances. The straight path to the door is strewn with dancing classmates and chaperones, so we stick to the edge of the gym until we come to the opposite side. We slip underneath the bleachers and make our way along the wall toward the door, encountering only one couple making out. When we emerge on the other side, we look around more carefully than Katrin did before following her out the door.
It’s cool and quiet outside, the moon full and bright above us. Katrin’s nowhere in sight. The football field is to our left, the front of the building to our right. By unspoken agreement, we both go right.
When we turn the corner nearest the school entrance, Katrin is standing frozen near the Echo Ridge High sign. Malcolm tugs me back into the shadows as she half turns, and I spy a clutch in her hands. My eyes strain and my breath catches as I watch her fumble with the clasp. Even though the sensible part of my brain wonders what she could possibly manage to fit in there other than keys and a tube of lip gloss, I pull out my cell phone and set it to Video.
But before Katrin can take anything out of the bag, she drops it. My phone frames her in almost cinematic moonlight as she freezes, bends at the waist, and vomits loudly into the grass.
ELLERY
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8
Post-homecoming Echo Ridge seems tired on Sunday, as though the entire town is hung over. Church is emptier than usual, and we hardly see anyone while we run errands with Nana after. Even Melanie Kilduff, who usually jogs past at some point while we’re doing yard work, is nowhere in sight when Ezra and I pull weeds from the side lawn.
“So how did you end things with Malcolm?” Ezra asks.
I yank on a dandelion and accidentally behead it instead of pulling it out by the roots. “I mean, you saw,” I say, annoyed. The dance ended promptly at ten o’clock last night, and we all got herded out of the auditorium like cattle with a strict curfew. Daisy beat Nana’s deadline by fifteen minutes. Nana stayed up unusually late, hovering around Ezra and me, and I ended up texting him an update of my night instead of describing it in person. “We said good night.”
“Yeah, but you must’ve made plans, right?”
I extract the rest of the dandelion and toss it into the plastic bucket between us. “I think we might go to a clown museum.”
Ezra frowns. “A what now?”
“A clown museum. That’s kind of beside the point, though, isn’t it?” I sit back on my haunches, frustrated. “I really thought something else would happen last night. With Katrin, I mean. But all we did was catch her in the dastardly act of throwing up.”
Ezra shrugs. “It wasn’t a bad idea. She’s pretty central to everything that’s been going on around here, but…” He trails off and wipes his brow, leaving a faint smear of dirt on his forehead. “But maybe we should let the experts handle it. Give the receipt to the police. You don’t have to tell them how you got it. Malcolm could say he found it.”
“But then it doesn’t make any sense. The only reason the receipt is meaningful is because Brooke was trying to get it back.”
“Oh. Right.”
The faint roar of a car engine approaches, and I turn to see Officer Rodriguez’s police cruiser pass our house and turn into his driveway a few doors down. “Too bad our local officer is so sketchy,” I mutter.
“Haven’t you given that up yet?” Ezra asks. “Daisy told you last night that Officer Rodriguez didn’t make a scene at Lacey’s funeral. Nana said the same thing. I don’t know why Sadie would say he did if it wasn’t true, but at the very least, whatever she thinks she saw is open to interpretation. Other than that, what has the guy done? Taken a bad yearbook photo? Maybe you should give him a chance.”
I get to my feet and brush off my jeans. “Maybe you’re right. Come on.”
“Huh?” Ezra squints up at me. “I didn’t mean now.”
“Why not? Nana’s been after us to bring over those moving boxes, right? So he can pack up his house before he tries to sell it? Let’s do it now. Maybe we can feel him out about what’s happening with the investigation.”
We leave our yard tools where they are and head inside. Nana is upstairs dusting when we gather a couple dozen flattened cardboard boxes from the basement. When we shout up to her what we’re doing, she doesn’t protest.
Ezra takes the lion’s share of the boxes and I grab the rest, following him outside onto the wide dirt road that leads to the Rodriguezes’ house. It’s a dark-brown Cape, smaller than the rest of the neighborhood homes and set back from the street. I’ve never seen it up close before. The front windows have bright blue flower boxes, but everything inside them looks like it’s been dead for months.
Officer Rodriguez answers within a few seconds of Ezra pressing the bell. He’s out of uniform in a blue T-shirt and sweatpants, and his hair looks overdue for a trim. “Oh, hey,” he says, pulling the door open wide. “Nora mentioned she’d be sending those over. Great timing. I’m taking some things out of the living room now.”
He didn’t invite us in, exactly, but I step into the hallway anyway. “You’re moving?” I ask, hoping to keep the conversation going. Now that I’m inside the Rodriguezes’ house, I’m more curious about him than ever.
Officer Rodriguez takes the boxes from us and props them against the wall. “Eventually. Now that my dad’s gone it’s too much house for one person, you know? But there’s no rush. Gotta figure out where to go first.” He lifts an arm to scratch the back of his head. “You guys want something to drink? Water, maybe?”
“Do you have any coffee?” Ezra asks.
Officer Rodriguez looks doubtful. “Are you allowed to drink that?”
“We’re, like, five years younger than you,” Ezra points out. “And it’s coffee. I’m not asking you for meth.” I snicker, even as I realize that Ezra must have a decent comfort level with Officer Rodriguez to give him a hard time like that. He doesn’t usually openly challenge authority figures, even as a joke.
Officer Rodriguez smiles sheepishly. “Well, your grandmother’s kin
d of strict. But yeah, I just made some.” He turns, and we trail him into a kitchen with mustard-colored appliances and old-fashioned flowered wallpaper. Officer Rodriguez pulls a couple of mismatched mugs out of a cabinet and roots around in a drawer for spoons.
I lean against the counter. “We were wondering, um, how things are going with the investigation about Brooke,” I say, feeling a familiar tightening in my chest. Some days, like yesterday, I’m almost busy enough to forget how every passing hour makes it less and less likely that Brooke is going to come home safely. “Any news?”
“Nothing I can share,” Officer Rodriguez says, his tone turning more businesslike. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard on you guys, having seen her right before she disappeared.”
He looks like he means it. And right now, as he fills a snowman mug with steaming coffee and hands it to me, he seems so nice and normal and decidedly non-murder-y that I wish I’d brought the car repair receipt with me.
Except I still don’t know much about him. Not really.
“How is her family doing?” Ezra asks, settling into a kitchen chair. There’s a stray penny on the table in front of him, and he starts spinning it across the surface.
“About as you’d expect. They’re worried sick. But they appreciate everything the town is doing,” Officer Rodriguez says. He crosses to the refrigerator and opens it, pushing around the contents. “Do you guys take milk? Or half-and-half?”
“Either,” Ezra says, catching the penny midspin between two fingers.
I peer into the attached living room, where an oversized picture of three little kids hangs over the mantel. “Is that you when you were little?” I ask. Since I have so few of my own, family photos are like catnip to me. I always feel like they must say a lot about the person they belong to, which is probably why Sadie hates them. She doesn’t like giving anything away.
Officer Rodriguez is still looking through the refrigerator, his back toward me. “What?”
“That picture over your fireplace.” I set my mug down on the counter and go out to the living room for a closer look. The top of the mantel is crowded with more pictures, and I gravitate toward a triple-frame one with what looks like graduation photos.
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