For a second, his heart felt full.
But later, as he was walking out—walking, not being shoved—he pushed his feelings away. He reached into his back pocket and ran the flash drive between his fingers.
There was something wrong there.
Something very wrong.
His Kinley—his only friend in all of this—was full of shit.
Five years ago, he had been chosen for the May Day parade.
Not Kinley.
And five years ago, there hadn’t been a parade.
It had been canceled due to rain.
Maybe she just had her facts wrong. Maybe it happened the year after. Or the year before.
But Tyler didn’t think so. His mother was on the parade committee, and he was pretty sure she would have mentioned a serious injury.
He wanted to believe Kinley. He told himself to believe her. But there was something wrong.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not on the walk to find the purple Jeep. Not when he arrived at home. Not until his brother confronted him in the front hallway, his voice hushed and urgent.
“Do you have it?” Jacob asked, standing close enough that Tyler could smell the wheatgrass smoothie on his breath.
Tyler stepped out of his shoes. His mother hated when people tracked things into the house. He reached into the waistband of his jeans and pulled out a small package wrapped in dark yellow paper and secured with careful strips of packing tape.
“Here.” Tyler handed the packet to his brother. “Make it last, okay? I don’t have access for a while.”
His brother tucked it under his arm. “Thanks, man. Listen, you’re resourceful. I’m sure you can handle it.”
Tyler narrowed his eyes and followed his brother into the kitchen. “No, dude. I can’t.”
Jacob filled himself a glass of water and turned toward him, leaning against the sink. “You will find it, Tyler. If you don’t, Mom and Dad might get suspicious.”
Tyler stared at Jacob. “Is that a threat, big brother?”
“You’ll figure it out.” He laughed, like it was all some big freaking joke.
“You’re not funny,” Tyler told him.
Jacob dumped the water out in the sink. “I know.”
Cade
Wednesday, June 17
“Doesn’t look like you’ll be having class tonight.”
Cade looked up from his Wheaties. They were his father’s favorite—he actually really believed that Breakfast of Champions stuff, and it was all they’d had at the house for years and years. Once, Cade had snuck Froot Loops in to share with his sister, and when his father found out, well . . . Cade may as well have been sneaking heroin.
“What do you mean?” Cade asked. His father was scrolling through his iPad, like he did every morning now. A couple years ago, he had declared paper passé and decided e-books and e-papers were the only things worth his time.
“Who was your teacher? Stratford?”
Cade’s pulse sped up, until it seemed like little lightning bolts were speeding through his body. “Yeah?” he asked, forcing his voice to be level. Calm. He thought about what he’d normally say about Stratford. “He’s such an asshole.”
His father raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat. “Well, you might want to keep that opinion to yourself. It would appear he’s missing. He was last seen”—he paused, scrolling through the paper—“last Friday. Probably after your class. It appears that he was headed through the parking lot, toward his home.”
Cade forced himself to take another spoonful of Wheaties. They were dry and scratchy in his throat and a pain to swallow. Wait. Hadn’t Kip said he’d seen him after class? He must have gone to the police.
“He didn’t show at class on Monday,” Cade said, chasing another soggy rectangle of wheat around his cereal bowl. “I told the office. We waited a little longer after that, but eventually the whole class just left.”
“You told them?” His father pointed at him. “You?”
Cade suddenly was uncomfortable, like he was too big for his chair. “Uh, yeah. Just the receptionist. She didn’t seem concerned. Stratford’s a little . . . intense. I didn’t want him blaming the class when no one was there.”
Mr. Sano shook his head. “Just surprised you were the one to do the right thing. That’s all.”
Cade should have been used to it. He should have. It wasn’t like his father didn’t do this every time they were together. But still, the words burrowed their way through his skin and into his stomach, where they sat, weighty and sick.
Mr. Sano laid the iPad on the table and considered his son. He pointed at him with the spoon.
“Cade, if there’s something going on, I need to know. You need to tell me.” He paused. “Your sister talked to me, and I helped her, you know.”
“Yeah, you helped her, all right.”
Cade’s father clenched his hand into a fist around the spoon and rested it very calmly on the table. “Would you have preferred she suffered the alternative?” he asked. His voice was quiet. Except for the death grip he had on his utensil, he was a picture of tranquility.
This was when he was at his most dangerous.
“No, sir.”
“That’s what I thought,” Mr. Sano said. He dropped his spoon into the bowl, and milk slopped out onto the table. He didn’t bother to clean it up. He never did. That was for maids.
Cade finished his cereal and began to stand up, but his father directed him back to his chair with a single look.
“What are you going to do with your day, now that studying is out?”
Cade knew the answer. “I’m going to see about a job. Maybe an office aide or something.”
“Women’s work,” his father snorted. “Still, better than nothing. Want me to make a call?”
“No, Dad. I’d like to do this on my own, if that’s okay with you.”
His father nodded, and for a moment, he almost softened. “Give it your best.”
Sweeping up his iPad, he left without another word. It wasn’t until he was gone—far gone, into his car and backing out of the driveway—that Cade said what he had wanted to.
“I’m not my sister.”
The only reply was the distant echo of one of the maids vacuuming down the hall.
But it didn’t matter. His father would never believe that. Cade stood up and carried his bowl to the sink. He brushed his teeth and grabbed his keys. He was leaving.
But he wasn’t going to look for a job.
He was going to get through this whole unpleasant situation and he wasn’t going to ask his father for any help. What would his father really do for him, anyway? Get him a good lawyer? Have him turn himself in? Nothing that could really fix anything.
He climbed into his car and backed up out of the driveway. But he didn’t go anywhere. He just drove. And drove. He drove by the school, and he drove nearly all the way to the farm before he turned around. And he stopped by the river to look at the waters, which were still higher than normal. He’d heard there had been storms up north, too. Flooding, even.
He hoped that meant Stratford’s body was being carried farther away. He imagined it going all the way down to the ocean, where it would sink into the sea and be eaten by sharks or some other hungry ocean animal.
He sank down onto a half-rotted branch that had fallen from a tree during the storm.
He needed time to think. To plan. Because he had something in mind.
And it all had to do with the extra bike he had in the garage.
Ivy
Thursday, June 18
It was Garrett. It was the guy she loved. It was who she needed.
Hey, Ivy girl! How are you?
She pretended that he had texted her first. She pretended that she had not sat in front of her phone for thirty minutes, deep in indecision, her heart radiating an incredible, thick pain, needing someone who understood everything, before she typed out a pathetic, incredibly needy three-letter text: Hey.
And he’d texted back. She’d been sitting on the couch, channel-surfing through cartoons (her guilty pleasure). Her mom, who was sitting in the corner, was paging through an old issue of Martha Stewart Living, and hadn’t even complained.
Best of all, Garrett texted back in less than ten minutes. With her nickname.
It was almost like he still cared.
I am great, she texted. Taking the summer class. How are you?
She pretended to watch Gravity Falls until he texted back.
Awesome. Just left the pool. Are you recovered?
Ivy winced. Of course the last thing he remembered about her was her body splayed out beneath the vending machine like a half-squashed bug.
Still. It was better than him knowing—
She cut her own thought short. Wait. What was he doing at the pool? The Garrett she knew hated pools. He preferred video games, and for an occasional exercise session, he made a fool of himself at the skate park, pretending to be a punk.
All healed. Thanks for your help.
No prob, he texted back.
She hesitated, biting her lip. Would he see her? Did he want to see her? She took a deep breath and watched the minutes tick by, ever so slowly, until an appropriate amount of time had passed that she wouldn’t seem overeager.
Maybe we could get coffee and catch up.
His reply was almost immediate.
Just let me know when.
And for the first time since everything happened, she smiled. Actually smiled, in a way that reached her eyes and down to her heart.
If Garrett came back to her, if everything just went back to the way it was, then maybe she could pretend that this horrible, sick little section of her summer was just a dream.
She put her phone on the coffee table in time for Daniel to come crashing through the front door into the entryway.
“Mom!” he said. “Hey, Mom!”
“She’s in here,” she called to her brother. It was weird—even though he was almost thirty, she was definitely the more mature one. Whenever he showed up at home, he just wanted SpaghettiOs and his laundry done.
He walked into the living room, beaming. “Hey, Mom. Hey, Ivs.”
Ivy smiled at her brother. “What’s up? You look like you just got laid.”
Daniel grabbed a pillow off the chair and threw it at her, but he was still grinning. “Don’t be nasty, sis.”
“Ivy!” her mother said, appalled.
“Come on, Daniel,” Ivy insisted, muting the TV, “what’s got you all excited?”
“First case.” He made a fist-pumping motion with his arm. “And it’s a big one!”
Her mom jumped up from the chair, and Martha Stewart Living landed on the floor, the pages splayed out. “Oh, honey!” she said. “I’m so proud of you! Sit down and tell us all about it.” She pointed at the couch next to Ivy, and her brother thumped down, rattling the whole living room. She never understood how he got to be so tall—the rest of the family was in the upper half of the five-foot range, but Daniel was almost six-six.
“Well, it’s actually Ivy’s professor,” Daniel said. “Ivy, I’m sure you heard, he disappeared last week. Just poof, and he was gone. No one can find anything. It’s like Keyser Söze shit.” He chuckled.
Ivy’s heart stopped. Just stopped. Her blood was in her ears.
“Keyser who?” her mother asked.
The bottom fell out of Ivy’s stomach. “So you don’t know anything so far?”
He shook his head. “His wife’s batshit and they got in a fight. He might’ve taken off for a few days, but his car never left the driveway. I guess the dude loves walking, so we’re going to search the parks. See if something happened.”
“The parks?” Ivy asked. Did the river run through the park? Oh God, she didn’t know. What if his body washed up in the park?
Daniel turned to her. “Yeah, apparently the dude is into hiking. The fight was a blowout, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we found the dude way up there, just waiting for his wife to cool off. Still, we’re treating it like a real case, and the boss is letting me really take a big role here.” He paused. “So, Ivs—any way I could question you?”
“What?” Ivy asked. “No!”
“Come on, please?” He put his hands together. “You’d be doing me a huge solid here. I could use the experience so when I question someone real I won’t sound like an amateur. Besides, you know Stratford. You can tell me about him.”
“Stratford’s a jerk,” Ivy said. “And no. I don’t want to play cop with you, Daniel. You’re old. Can’t you handle your own job?”
“Ivy!” Mrs. McWhellen said. “Really! Don’t you want to help your brother? He’d do the same for you.”
Daniel gave her his dorky, too-sweet smile, the one he saved for when their mother was around, and she felt like she might throw up. But what was weirder—throwing up during fake questioning, or declining it altogether?
“Fine,” Ivy said. “But not today. I’m super PMS-y.”
Daniel shook his head. “I noticed. Call me. Mom, you can sit in too, if you want. It’ll be fun.”
“Sure, sweetie.”
Their mother smiled, delighted.
Ivy felt her lunch writhe in her stomach.
“Great,” she said. “Can’t wait.”
Daniel snorted. “Cheer up, sis. It’s not like you killed him.”
Mattie
Friday, June 19
Dr. Stratford was everywhere.
Everywhere Mattie looked.
His picture was on the news three times a night. His face was pasted on telephone poles. He was on the radio of his new car as he drove it around the neighborhood, trying to fill his mind with something else.
He was on at least three posts on Facebook so far, and two of those were from people who didn’t even live here. They were from home.
That meant news of Stratford’s disappearance had traveled. It wasn’t just here anymore.
Mattie’d even posted it on his own page, thinking that if he didn’t he’d looked callous and awful. (And he wasn’t.)
(Only, he was.)
Just last night, his mother had called, worried about the effect that Stratford’s disappearance was having on her son. And she didn’t even protest when Mattie told her his aunt had purchased him a brand-spanking-new car. She seemed relieved that he wouldn’t be riding his bike anymore.
He didn’t tell her it was missing.
“Just be safe,” she pleaded. “No one knows what happened to your professor!”
“Can I come home?” Mattie asked. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“But what about your class?”
“Who knows?” Mattie said. “The next few classes are canceled while they look for him. It’ll probably just be canceled altogether if they can’t find him. Or if they do, maybe he won’t want to finish it.”
“Don’t sound so hopeful,” his mother said, and laughed. The sound had made Mattie want to die.
Mattie felt that way a lot. The wrong word, the wrong sound, even, set him off. He felt that way right now, as he sat outside on his balcony, one leg dangling off the stone balcony.
If he fell, would he die when he hit the concrete below?
He looked across his aunt’s property toward Ivy’s house, crouched lower on the hill. He wanted to talk to her.
But he deserved to be alone.
His phone buzzed and for the first time since he’d moved, it was Derrick calling him. And not because Mattie had called him first, or because Mattie had texted him two thousand times.
He was just calling.
Mattie answered the phone and sat down on his window seat. The screen was warm against his ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mattie? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” Mattie said. “Hey, Derrick.”
The name sounded funny to him. Unused. Felt funny, in the way that although they hadn’t broken up, maybe they didn’t belong to each other anymore. But that didn’t matter to Mattie. He
was thrilled to be talking to Derrick. He had a pins-and-needles feeling all over his body and he wished, so badly, that his mother had let him come home.
“What’s up?” Derrick asked.
“Not much. I missed you.” Mattie stood up and opened the door to his balcony. The air was still and hot and thick, and the faintest breeze ruffled the leaves on the trees.
“Yeah. Anything else going on? I hear your neck of the woods is pretty weird right now. Like, creepy, Texas Chainsaw Massacre weird.”
Mattie looked around the room, pretending not to know what he was talking about. “Yeah, it’s crazy. And I’m living with my aunt. You should see her house. It’s huge! And I got this new car. It has—”
“What about the murders?” Derrick interrupted, impatient. “I heard it’s like murder central up there.”
“Murders?” Mattie repeated.
“You know. Your professor.”
Did he know? If he knew, why didn’t he just say it?
“Um, he disappeared, I guess.” Mattie hated talking about it. Hated. It. He was afraid he was going to agree with the wrong thing, or use a wrong tense, (like was instead of is) and give everything away.
Not that he didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t said anything. He was as much as part of the murder as Cade and Kinley.
“That’s all you’ve got?” Derrick sounded disappointed, and Mattie knew he was pouting. Suddenly, he wanted to give him more.
“It was after class one night,” Mattie offered. “A Friday. This guy in our class was the last to see him. Kip. He was walking across the lot.”
That scared Mattie. He had lain awake every night since, wondering what Kip had really seen. If he knew anything. Or if he just wanted to be the one to talk to the cops.
“And then what?”
“Um. That’s pretty much it. We all went to class on Monday, and he just didn’t show up at all. We waited, and one of the guys told the office. We just went home.” Mattie leaned his elbows on the railing. For a second, he wanted to pitch his phone into the pool, so he’d never have to talk to anyone again. But he clung to Derrick’s voice in his ear.
Derrick sighed, like Mattie was boring him. “So. What do you think happened? What are people saying?”
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