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  The sarcasm in her voice is obvious, so I don’t bother answering.

  “I told you, Alden, this isn’t a TV show. Besides, don’t you think her parents would notice her missing and report it to the police?”

  “Unless they think she’s at camp, too.”

  “And how would that work?” Charlie scowls. “You’re not making sense.”

  I open my mouth, then close it. I decide to change course. “I’ve been keeping my eye on Greg.”

  Charlie’s scowl deepens. “What do you mean keeping an eye on him?”

  “Not following him. Just…watching him when I see him in the hall.”

  Charlie starts to say something, then stops and shrugs. “So?”

  “He doesn’t seem himself today.”

  “Oh, really.”

  “You know how he is. Smiling all the time. Always friendly.”

  “All that to hide the fact that he’s really a vicious killer.” Charlie wiggles her fingers in front of her face while singing the beginning of the theme from The Twilight Zone. A year ago the two of us binged the entire series during spring break. We loved it.

  “He’s just not himself, Charlie. He’s quiet, sullen.”

  “Maybe he misses Amy.”

  “I thought I caught him looking at me a couple of times in the hall.”

  “So?”

  “It might be because he saw me running away at Miller’s Park.”

  “But you weren’t sure he even saw you, right?”

  “Well…yeah. I mean, no, I’m not sure he saw me.”

  “You’re not sure about a lot of things.”

  “But, Charlie…”

  “Yes?”

  “He doesn’t have his backpack today.”

  Charlie blinks.

  “He always has it at school,” I continue. “With all that sports stuff on it. He had it yesterday when I was following him. But not today.”

  After a few seconds, Charlie asks, “What’s he carrying today?”

  “An old gray one.”

  “It doesn’t mean—”

  “I told you what I saw at the park.”

  “What you thought you saw.”

  I lean in. “If he killed Amy with it, it might have her blood on it. I thought I saw blood on it. Which is why he couldn’t bring it to school today.”

  “Maybe he just broke a strap.”

  I glare at her in silence.

  “I’m going to regret this,” she says, shaking her head. “What do you want to do?”

  “Come with me to Miller’s Park. Help me look for evidence.”

  “Evidence? The police were there, don’t you think they would have found something?”

  “They expected to find a body. When they didn’t and figured they just got pranked, they probably didn’t look too hard.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Charlie, it wouldn’t hurt just to take a look.”

  “The police might still be keeping an eye on the park, you know.”

  “Why would they if they didn’t find anything the first time? If we see a police car, we’ll just leave.” I give her my best imploring look. I can tell she’s wavering.

  “What evidence do you think we’ll find?”

  “I don’t know. Blood on the grass. Or somewhere. Maybe we’ll find Greg’s backpack. He might have left it there or threw it in a trash can.”

  “That’d be pretty dumb of him,” Charlie says. She goes silent. I know to wait and keep my mouth shut as she thinks about it.

  Finally, she says, “All right. We’ll do it. After school. Let’s go to my house, we’ll use my bikes. If we get there and see a police car, we won’t stop. We’ll just keep going, and we’ll forget about it. Clear?”

  “Clear,” I say.

  Chapter Five

  After lunch, I see Greg a few times in the hall. He doesn’t look my way either time. Meeting Charlie after school, she says, “You know, we could just call her house.”

  I’m too busy looking for Greg among the crowd of departing students to respond right away. I don’t see him, which means he probably has baseball practice today.

  “Earth to Alden.”

  “What?” I say, looking at her. “Call her house?”

  “Sure,” Charlie says. “I call, ask for Amy. If one of her parents answers and tells me she’s not there because she’s away at camp for the weekend, I’ll ask for her cell number, claim I need to ask her about a homework assignment or something. I’ll call her cell, Amy will answer, I’ll hang up, and we’re good. We don’t have to go look for ‘evidence.’” She used air quotes for “evidence.”

  I put my hand on her wrist as she takes out her phone. “Shouldn’t you use the phone booth?”

  “To call her mom?” Charlie says. “Nah. Let’s live dangerously.” She dials for information, asks for Sloan on Grantham Street. She hits the speakerphone so I can hear as the operator places the call.

  A female voice picks up. “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Amy, please?” Charlie asks, putting on an extra sweet voice.

  “She’s not here,” the voice responds.

  “Oh. Do you know when she’ll be home?”

  “I’m afraid she’s gone for the weekend at a camp. May I take a message? She’ll be home Sunday night.”

  Charlie gives me a knowing smirk. “Would you mind giving me Amy’s cell phone number?”

  “I understand they don’t allow cell phones at the camp.”

  “I really need to talk to her about an important class assignment, Mrs. Sloan.”

  “Oh, I’m not Mrs. Sloan. Did you need to speak to her?”

  Charlie hesitates. “Sure,” she says, shrugging her shoulders at me. I shrug, too, though I feel nervous as hell.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the voice says. “I should have said if you want to speak to Mrs. Sloan, I’ll need to take a message, too. She and Mr. Sloan don’t return from their trip until Monday afternoon.”

  My heart seems to stop. Charlie says, “Trip?”

  “They’ve been out of town since Wednesday. Amy left last night or this morning, I’m not sure which. I’m house-sitting and just got here this afternoon. I can take a message for either one of them.”

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll see Amy at school on Monday.”

  “Maybe I should take your name—”

  “Thanks so much,” Charlie says quickly and hangs up.

  We stare at each other. Ultimately, I break the silence. “Amy’s parents have been gone since before she was supposed to leave. Before I saw Greg…do what he did.”

  Charlie doesn’t respond.

  “Which means they wouldn’t know something’s happened to her. They think she’s at church camp.”

  “Oh, come on. You don’t think they’d have called her when she was about to leave, to say goodbye?”

  I dig in. “Maybe they couldn’t. So they called her Wednesday night or Thursday morning to say bye.”

  Charlie digs in, too. “Or had her call when she got to camp? To make sure she got there okay?”

  “The house sitter said cell phones weren’t allowed.”

  “There must be some kind of phone at the place. She still could have called.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But with what I saw at the park yesterday, even you have to admit this is suspicious.”

  Charlie opens her mouth, then closes it.

  We stand together in silence. It’s a pretty warm day, but I feel a deep chill go through me.

  “All right,” Charlie finally says. “Let’s go to Miller’s Park. See what we can find.”

  We walk to her house and go inside just long enough to drop off our books. Then, pulling out Charlie’s two bicycles, we take off.

  Chapter Six

 
Miller’s Park looks the same as it did yesterday. Abandoned. Beat up. Like no one has been here in a long time. There are no police cars in sight, so we wheel our bikes inside.

  A trash can sits near the entrance. Not a lot of garbage in there, so it takes me less than a minute to go through it. “No backpack,” I announce.

  Charlie puts a hand above her eyes to block the sunlight as she peers out. “Where did you see Greg and Amy?”

  I point. “At the other field. Near first base. Then they walked over behind that dugout wall.”

  “And where were you?”

  “Behind these bleachers.”

  “That’s pretty far,” Charlie says. “Okay, let’s split up. You take one side of the park, and I’ll take the other. See if one of us finds the backpack. Though, like I said, he’d be stupid to leave it here.”

  “Maybe we’ll find some other clue.”

  Charlie shrugs, and we begin our search, taking a good twenty minutes to scour the park. Nothing. I find another trash can, but it’s empty. No trash or a backpack. I check behind and under bushes and the edge of the outfield by the far fence. Again, nothing. Frustrated, I meet Charlie back where we started.

  “I’ll stand here behind the bleachers,” she says. “You go to where they were standing while you were watching them.”

  I trot out to the second field and stand on first base. Charlie’s disappeared behind the bleachers.

  My phone rings just as she reappears, her cell to her ear. “Why are you calling me?” I ask.

  “You’re pretty far out there,” she says from my phone. “I’m not going to yell. Walk to the wall, go behind it, then come back out.” I do as she asks, waiting a couple of seconds before stepping out again. While Charlie heads toward me, I start to check the ground behind the wall.

  “I looked there already,” she says when she reaches me. “No backpack and no blood, either.” She glances toward the bleachers. “That’s a good distance. Where was she lying on the ground?”

  I move to the spot. “About here.”

  “And where were you when you saw her?”

  Pointing, I say, “Over there on the other field, a little past the backstop. I was trying to get a better angle.”

  “That’s pretty far, too,” Charlie says. “And you only saw her for a few seconds, right?”

  I nod.

  “Okay. Walk to where you were standing when you saw her.”

  I jog to the backstop then walk past it until I’m at the same angle as yesterday. We never hung up, so I put the phone to my ear. “I was about here,” I say.

  “Good,” Charlie responds. “I’m going to lie down on my stomach. After I do, watch me for fifteen seconds. Then come back and tell me whether I was holding my breath or breathing. You got it?”

  “Got it,” I say.

  I set my cell’s timer for fifteen seconds while Charlie lays on the ground. “This about right?” she asks from my cell.

  “Yes.”

  I start the timer, watching Charlie intently until the alarm goes off. Then I run to the wall. Charlie is on her feet by the time I get there.

  “Well?” she says. “Which was it?”

  To be honest, I’m not sure. So I guess. “You were holding your breath.”

  “Nope. I was breathing the whole time.”

  “Maybe we should try it again.”

  “How about we don’t,” Charlie says. “Hey, don’t look so unhappy. It’s good news we didn’t find anything. It means you were probably wrong. Whatever it was you saw, it wasn’t Amy lying dead on the ground. Besides, if she really didn’t show up at camp, don’t you think the people in charge there would have called her parents, and they’d be home looking for her? Face it, Alden, she’s at camp having fun with the other Jesus freaks.”

  “Don’t call her that,” I hear myself say.

  “Sorry. I mean other God-fearing, religious teenagers.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “Why? You have a crush on Amy?”

  Heat spreads across my face as I turn away and start examining the grass behind the wall.

  “Wait a minute. Do you have a crush on Amy?” Charlie asks.

  “Let’s look some more…” I keep checking the grass.

  “I never thought of you as being interested in the religious type.” Her tone softens. “Amy is a nice girl, though. Too nice, in my opinion. But if you…” She stops. I’m still not looking at her. “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Looking for blood,” I say.

  “I told you, I looked here already.”

  “Did you check the wall?”

  “Check the wall?”

  “Look here.” I point to a copper-colored spot more than halfway up the wall about the size of a quarter. “That could be blood.”

  Charlie moves in for a closer look. “It could be anything.”

  “When Greg hit Amy with his backpack, she might have hit her head against the wall before she fell. Then some of the blood got on the backpack.”

  Charlie peers closely at it for several seconds. “Maybe,” she says. “A big maybe.”

  I refuse to give up. “We should keep looking in case we missed something.”

  “We didn’t miss anything, Alden. It’s time to go.” When I don’t say anything, she sighs. “Monday’ll get here, Amy will be back from camp, and everything will go back to normal.”

  “All right,” I say, my shoulders slumping. “I guess you’re right.”

  “I’m always right,” she announces, taking a step.

  She stops. Looks down.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I think I stepped on some…” She crouches down to the grass and comes back up scrutinizing something in her hand. Wordlessly, she gives it to me.

  I recognize it immediately. A silver cross, beautifully ornate, dangles on the end of a chain. I’ve seen it before, many times. Every day at school, in fact. If it isn’t hanging from Amy’s neck, she’s playing with it, rubbing the cross between her fingers as she walks between classes. She may not even know she does it. But I know. I’m guessing the whole school knows.

  “Read the back,” I hear Charlie say.

  Turning the cross over, I find engraved words: To Amy. Love Mom and Dad.

  “It proves she was here,” I mutter. “Look, the clasp is broken. What if it fell off when she…” When she what? Tripped and fell to the ground? Was making out with Greg? Or when Greg hit her with his backpack?

  Charlie’s voice is soft as she says, “She’s supposed to be at church camp.”

  I look up. Her gaze is still on the cross in my hand. “So?”

  “She loves that cross,” Charlie says. “I’ve never seen her without it. She probably sleeps with it.” Her eyes dark and intense. “No way would she go to church camp without it.”

  “It could be all right. If she lost it—” I start, realizing I’ve suddenly become Charlie and she’s become me.

  Charlie interrupts with a shake of her head. “A friend of mine told me about how one time Amy jumped up from her desk right in the middle of Mr. Talbot’s lecture, all frantic because she’d realized her cross wasn’t around her neck,” she says. “She insisted she had to find it, got Mr. Talbot and the whole class searching everywhere in the classroom for it. It turned out it was on the floor just inside the door. She was so relieved she actually cried. Believe me, she’d have been back here looking for it. And she would’ve remembered she was behind this wall with Greg. We found it just by chance. Amy would have combed every inch of this spot, the whole park if necessary. She would have found it.”

  Now we’re both looking at the cross again. Charlie says, “The only way she isn’t wearing this…”

  I finish for her. “…is if she’s dead.”

  Chapter Seven

  Last summer, on the day my pare
nts were killed, I remember how loud the siren was inside the police car, blasting at me from all sides.

  A police officer sat in the back seat with her arm around me, while Charlie’s father drove as fast as he could. Being the chief of police, he probably should have stayed behind at Milton Park to deal with the shooting’s aftermath; my parents were only two of six people shot that day. But he was there, rushing me to the hospital, just a few minutes behind the two ambulances that carried my mother and father.

  The officer next to me was talking, but I couldn’t hear her over the siren’s scream. Chief Walker seemed to say something every now and then as well, but I couldn’t hear him, either.

  It didn’t matter, though. I didn’t need to hear them say, “It’s going to be all right,” when I knew it wasn’t true. I had seen my parents lying on the grass together, in their own pools of blood before the paramedics arrived and took them away.

  When we got to the hospital, a doctor took us into another room. I didn’t need her to tell me that my father had died on the way in the ambulance, and that my mother had made it into the hospital before she died.

  I already knew they were both dead.

  And that things were never going to be all right again.

  Chapter Eight

  A good investigator always makes a plan.

  Charlie and I hurry back to school to see if Greg is still at baseball practice. If we follow him, we might be able to learn something. Or maybe we’ll find he never showed at all. That he bowed out, feigning sickness, so he could get rid of a body. But the team is already finished by the time we get there. No way to tell if Greg had ditched or not. We bike to his house, but no one seems home. A playground across the street makes it easier for us to look like two people just talking instead of keeping an eye on the Matthes house.

  “Maybe we should see if he’s at the mall,” I say. “He might be there.”

  “He could be anywhere,” Charlie points out.

  “You go. I’ll stay here in case he comes home. I’ll text you if he does, or you can text me if you find him.”

  “What if he’s not at the mall?”