Residents of Bone Lake Resilient in the Face of Plant Closure. The article quickly covered the accident, Mr. Jameson’s responsibility, the lost military contract, and the subsequent permanent closing of the factory. The mayor had submitted a vague, PR-ready answer about how Bone Lake was a robust community that would survive this setback, and the few residents interviewed gave answers that were even more vague, if that was possible.
“One guy screws up and it all goes away,” said Wally Watting, who lost his job as a quality inspector at the plant after working there for seven years. When asked about the specifics of the accident that led to the plant closing, Watting had no further details to provide other than those that were already delivered in the official report. “It was just gross human error, not the plant’s fault at all, but that doesn’t matter, apparently,” Watting said. “I guess now it’s just time to move on. Best not to think too much about it.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Something wrong?” Dex asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve seen these words before. Or heard them, actually. Whenever I ask someone in town about the plant closing, they give this line—‘best not to think too much about it.’”
Dex tilted his head to look down at the paper in my hand. His eyebrows knitted together again. “They say that exact line?”
“There’s got to be an explanation,” I said. And then I tried to think of what that explanation might be. Maybe everyone in town had read this article and started unconsciously quoting Wally Watting?
I shook my head. I’d come back to the weird line later. Right now was about finding Dad.
“Why did my dad have a copy of this locked up with his research anyway?” I asked. “The plant had nothing to do with the meteorite . . . right?”
Dex shrugged. He pointed to the last page of the article, which had one of Dad’s business cards attached to it by a paper clip. Across the top edge of the card, Dad had scribbled, also in red ink, X10-88.
“X10-88 . . . What’s that?”
Dex moved even closer to get a better look at the card, his shoulder bumping against mine. His hair smelled like maple and sugar, like he’d just been in Cindy’s kitchen.
“I’ve never heard of it,” he said. “But look, Penny . . .” He pointed to the lettering on my dad’s business card with one long finger. There was Dad’s name, and his “job title” of Reporter, and his phone number and email. “This is a new card. Look at his email.”
“You’re right,” I murmured. My dad had used the same old Hotmail account for years before Strange World finally forced him to get a business email—last summer.
“That means I was right! This note he made in red pen is new,” Dex said. “Hold on.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed X10-88 into Google. “Nothing’s really coming up. . . . Looks like it’s the designation for some sheet metal products. . . .”
“I’ll do some more research,” I said, stretching my back. “It might mean nothing at all—”
I was interrupted by a loud banging noise. Dex jumped a little, and it took me a second to realize someone was knocking on the front door.
I opened the door to see two men standing on my front porch. They were both of average height and build, both with pale skin and dark, brownish hair. The man on the right had a squarish jaw, and the other wore a bright yellow tie with a gray chevron pattern. Other than that, they were practically identical, down to the dark suits with crisp white shirts and shiny, shiny shoes.
They looked like the men I’d seen at the sheriff’s office earlier that day, but I couldn’t be 100 percent sure. Their faces were incredibly generic; they’d be a sketch artist’s worst nightmare.
“Miss Hardjoy?” the man on the right asked. He took off a pair of sunglasses, revealing small blue eyes. The man with the yellow tie kept his sunglasses on.
“Uh, yes,” I stammered. “That’s me.”
The man on the right held up a white card with writing on it. “My name is Agent Rickard, and this is Agent Shanahan. We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“The . . . FBI?” It was a dumb question to ask, but my head was still adjusting to the fact that two federal agents were standing on my front porch. That they’d asked for me by name.
“We’re investigating the recent murders in Bone Lake. You were present at the discovery of the last two bodies, yes?”
It was a question, but Agent Rickard said it like a statement. Next to him, Agent Shanahan remained immobile, his eyes completely unreadable behind his dark sunglasses.
“I . . . yes. But I thought the sheriff was investigating . . . ?”
“The first victim was a resident of Wisconsin, and the second two are residents of Michigan, killed in the same way. That makes this a multistate investigation. We were called in to assist.”
His words bounced around in my head. Something about what he was saying didn’t add up, but before I could really catch hold of that thought, he went on.
“We have a warrant to search the premises of one Mr. Ike Hardjoy. This is his primary residence, yes?”
Again, that question felt like it was really a statement. My heart sped up at the word warrant. I was still standing in the doorway, blocking the two agents from the inside of the house. But I knew I couldn’t keep them out if they had a warrant. I wondered if Dex was standing somewhere behind me, or if he was in Dad’s office still, surrounded by all his creepy notes on aliens. What would the agents think if they searched Dad’s office? Would everything in there help build a case against him? Could it possibly paint him into looking like an unhinged killer?
I stalled, my hand gripping the edge of the doorway.
“Miss,” the second agent spoke up, “the paperwork’s in order. We’re going to need you to move.”
Agent Rickard took one step forward, and I couldn’t do anything but step back, letting them in. They both immediately headed toward Dad’s office, as if they knew exactly where to start looking.
“My dad didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, finally finding my voice as I followed them back through the hallway. “He’s missing. He might be in trouble.”
They didn’t answer me.
I was just two steps behind the agents by the time they walked through my dad’s office door. Some of his papers from the open safe were still strewn about on the floor, but I noticed many of the piles were noticeably smaller, with some papers missing. Dex was missing, too. And the office window was wide-open, letting in the breeze from the backyard. I stifled my sigh of relief.
“We’ll start in here, miss,” Agent Rickard said, pulling a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. “Please wait in the front area until we are done.”
It was stated like a request, but I knew it wasn’t one.
I walked back into the living room and perched on the edge of the couch, unsure what to do with myself. Should I offer the agents water? Should I turn on the TV or check my phone? Nothing seemed right. Instead, I stared out the front window, at the agents’ black car, which sat parked in front of our yard.
The shiny, new-looking black car.
I nearly jumped off the couch. The wayward thought that had been bouncing around the back of my mind suddenly thudded into place. These agents had said they were called in to investigate the murders after Bryan and Cassidy had turned up in the woods, because they were killed in the same way as the out-of-state hiker.
But I’d seen that car before. I’d seen it driving around Mrs. Anderson’s street. I’d seen it moving slowly past my own house.
Two whole days before Bryan and Cassidy’s bodies had even been found.
Nineteen
OVER THE NEXT few hours, the agents ended up removing every book, file, and scrap of paper from my dad’s office, packing them up into plastic tubs and loading them up in their sleek black car. They took some papers from his bedroom, too, and all of the spare notes that had collected over the years in the junk drawer of the kitchen. They snapped photos of e
very inch of the house, opening every drawer and cupboard. They even searched my room, not that there was anything to find except for bags of old homework and bottles of dried-up nail polish.
The agents had only taken seven boxes total, but now that they were gone the house felt emptier. Like it was missing something vital.
I was still sitting on the couch, wondering what to do next. My laptop was open and stretched across my thighs, but I was struggling to concentrate. My eyes skipped over my folder full of notes for my Northwestern article. Instead, I clicked to open a new folder and paused before naming it, finally settling on one simple word—DAD.
I spent the next few hours typing up everything I knew about Dad and the bodies in the woods. It was early evening when my phone rang, Micah’s name flashing across the screen. I paused briefly before picking up, unsure what to expect.
“Hey, Micah.”
“Penny, some FBI agents just left my house,” Micah said, with no preamble. He sounded agitated, even a little panicked, which was at least better than the zombielike trance he’d been in the night before.
“Yeah, they came here, too,” I said. “What did they want from you?”
“They asked me some questions about last night, but . . . mostly they wanted to know about you. And your dad.”
My heart stuttered.
“I told them I didn’t know anything about your dad, but they kept asking questions. They really freaked out my mom. I haven’t seen her this bad in a while.”
“Are you okay? I can come over.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I had time to think about them.
There was a pause on the phone, and I wondered if I was overstepping. Micah had just lost two friends, and now federal agents had upset his mom—because of Micah’s tenuous connection to me—and, therefore, my dad. What if I was the last person he wanted to see?
But to my surprise, Micah breathed out a relieved-sounding sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “That would be great.”
It took roughly twenty-five minutes to pedal over to Micah’s house. He lived off a country road, about a mile from Millers’ barn. The small ranch house looked like it was fighting a battle with the Michigan elements and slowly losing. The front yard was meticulously mowed, but the porch steps were broken in a few places. The windows were spotless, but the roof was sagging after one too many winters with heavy snow. It was getting dark as I walked toward the front door, and only one room in the house appeared to be lit.
When Micah answered the door, he looked terrible. His eyes were hooded, his hair unwashed. He clearly hadn’t shaved, so there was a fine line of stubble along his jaw.
“Thanks for coming,” he said, his voice subdued. He moved aside to let me in.
I took three steps into the house before stopping in my tracks. The living room was clean, bright . . . and a veritable shrine. The walls and shelves were covered from top to bottom in framed photographs, trophies, and ribbons. Pictures of Micah in his football uniform, one for every year since peewee league. Framed photos of his teammates from every year as well. Micah in an elementary school graduation photo, Micah holding a fish, Micah with his first buck, Micah in a homecoming crown.
“My mom likes to frame stuff.” He smiled, a bit sheepish and embarrassed, which was at least better than the grief and worry that had been coming off him in waves just moments before.
“I can see that,” I said, trying to smile back.
“She says it helps her remember the good things,” he added.
In the middle of the mantelpiece was a giant, framed photo of Micah’s dad. I recognized Mr. Jameson from the dozens of newspaper articles I’d read about the plant closing. In the picture, Mr. Jameson was thin, with hair that curled over his forehead. I thought about the file I had on him that was sitting on my laptop and felt guilty again for keeping it from Micah . . . but now definitely didn’t seem like the time to bring it up.
“Where is your mom, by the way?”
Micah gestured down a dark side hallway. “Resting. This has all been kind of hard on her. It’s been hard on everyone in town, I guess.”
I thought again of Cassidy’s parents, how they’d looked standing in front of the police station, like the whole world around them might crash to pieces at any second. Like maybe it already had.
“Yeah,” I replied softly.
Micah sat down on the cushion of a pink love seat, and I hesitated for a moment before perching on an armchair nearby. He looked over at me and rubbed one hand nervously over his knee before clearing his throat.
“I never got the chance to apologize to you,” he said.
“What?” I asked, surprised.
“For last night, before . . . well, during our date—I really didn’t know that Kevin and those guys were going to show up.”
“Oh. Right.” So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours that I’d almost forgotten how I’d come to find Bryan and Cassidy’s bodies in the first place. How Micah had laughed instead of defending me.
“I mean, I told them where we were going, but I didn’t know they’d come out. And when they showed up, I just . . . I didn’t handle it well. Sometimes it feels like I do that stuff without thinking, you know? Kevin makes a joke and I laugh, I go along with it. It’s just second nature to not . . . rock the boat, I guess.”
“Hmm,” I said, not sure how else to respond. It was kind of a lame apology. But in that moment, Micah looked so empty that it seemed cruel to hold that against him. “It’s okay. I really haven’t given it much thought since everything that happened. But, um, thank you, for apologizing.”
The corners of his mouth lifted, just a little.
“So you said the FBI came here, too?” I asked, leaning forward.
Micah looked grateful to have the conversation move on. “Yeah. At first I told them the exact same things I told the cops—how we found the bodies, how it was Bryan’s truck . . . but they didn’t really seem to care about that stuff.”
“You said they asked about me? And my dad?”
“They wanted to know what you and I were doing out in the woods, how well we knew each other. They asked me if you were close to your dad or if you knew anything about his work. They thought you might have been lying about not knowing where he is.”
“They actually said that?” I asked.
“Well, not outright. It was just clear they didn’t think you were telling them everything, and they thought you might have told me more. Because we were, you know, out there together . . .”
“What did you tell them?”
Micah shrugged. “I mean, nothing really. I told them we went out looking for your dad in the woods, but we didn’t find anything. I told them you didn’t seem to know where he was, and you hadn’t heard from him since you got to town. I mean, that’s true, right?”
I thought of the email and shifted my eyes away from his gaze.
Micah’s own eyes widened. “Oh, crap, is it not true? Did I just lie to the FBI? Or not lie, exactly, but, like, mislead—”
“No,” I interrupted, putting out my hands. “You didn’t lie. Or mislead. I honestly have no clue where my dad is right now.”
And that much was true. There was no need to bring up the email. Micah probably wouldn’t believe me if I told him it had been written by someone else, but sent through my dad’s account. After all, if the sheriff hadn’t believed me, why should he?
Dex did, answered a small, defiant voice in my head.
But I pushed that thought away. Dex also believes aliens built the pyramids.
I focused my attention back on Micah, who was looking at me intently. “And that’s all the FBI wanted to know about?” I asked.
“Yeah, basically. They kept pushing the issue, and that’s when my mom started to get upset. She can be . . . pretty protective.”
Glancing quickly around the living room again, I thought that might’ve been a bit of an understatement.
“Penny, sorry for asking this, but I . . .” This time it was Micah
who shifted his eyes away from mine, looking uncomfortable. “I mean, do you think . . . is it possible your dad . . . might have something to do with all this?”
And there it was, the question I’d been struggling with for hours. The question I was no closer to solving. But somehow, hearing it come out of Micah’s mouth felt like an affront. Him asking that question was different than me asking it, or Dex asking it. I felt my defenses rise as I quickly straightened my back.
“No,” I said, my voice sharper than I meant it to be. “My dad is out there somewhere, missing. There’s no way he hurt Bryan or Cassidy,” I said, sounding confident. “Or that he’s involved in this.” I was less confident about his general involvement. But I didn’t want Micah to know that.
“Okay,” Micah said, giving a quick nod. “Okay.”
But he didn’t fully believe me, I could tell. I sat taller.
“The more time the FBI spends focusing on my dad, the less time they’ll put toward looking for the real killer.”
“But if he’s hiding from them . . .”
“He’s not hiding from them. He’s . . . well, I don’t know what he’s doing. But I’m going to find out. I’ll find him, Micah, if I have to search every inch of the woods to do it.”
I said the words so forcefully that I almost believed them.
But Micah looked taken aback. His eyes widened, and he lurched forward and grabbed my hand tightly. “Penny, no, you can’t do that,” he said.
I looked down to where Micah’s fingers gripped mine. They were long, calloused from football, cool to the touch. I was reminded of the night before, just before everything went wrong. When he’d leaned forward, ready to kiss me . . . so much had happened since then, but I still felt something when his hands wrapped around mine. Something that was hard to shake. Something I wasn’t sure I wanted to shake.
“Please, Penny,” Micah said.
I tried to focus and ignore his hands on mine.
“What do you mean, I can’t? He’s my dad. I have to find him. You were helping me just yesterday. . . .”
“But it’s not safe now. People are winding up dead in those woods, people I know, and . . . and I don’t want you to be next.”
The Truth Lies Here Page 15