She stops, spinning the chair around, with that pen in her mouth again. She takes the pen from between her teeth, twirling it in her fingers, and seems to choose her next words carefully. “I can stay here, see what I can find. As long as you don’t mind.”
“Yes,” I say, so grateful that I can feel my face pulling into an almost-smile. “Thanks. Okay, call me if you find anything?”
She waves a hand, but she’s already turned away, focusing on the screen again.
As I walk my bike back around the side of the house to the driveway, I freeze. There’s a car in the drive. It’s old, and blue. It must be a Realtor checking out the house before a showing. I mentally kick myself, knowing I didn’t lock the front door on my way out. I imagine whoever’s in there fixing the paintings, making a phone call. The door was unlocked. It looks like someone’s been in here again.
Moving as silently as I can, I make my way to the car, whose back window is covered in a layer of dust. I think about dragging my finger through the dust, leaving a message. Maybe Boo or Help or SOS. No. Maybe Get out. Run.
I wrinkle my nose. It all feels too cheap. I worry I’m losing my edge.
Mission failure.
I don’t know what exactly I’m doing in the house, what I expected to find. A connection, maybe. A sign. I’m looking for proof that the world is more than it seems. I’m looking for the reason my device freaks out near Liam’s room, even when there’s no electricity running through the house.
I need to turn off the electricity here in the Jones House, like I did at home. But after a quick search of the downstairs, peeking my head into each of the bedrooms, I can’t find the electrical box, and there doesn’t seem to be a basement.
Best guess, it’s out in the garage. If there is a garage. There doesn’t seem to be a door leading to one, though, so I decide to check outside.
From the back window, two structures are visible: the first, nearby, is a stand-alone double garage, with windows. Beyond that is some sort of horse stable or something. I take the side door through the kitchen, walking down the small wooden steps, which look like they were added on recently, or replaced. A cicada cries from the nearby trees, setting off a whole colony of them, until it sounds like they’re screaming. My hands are shaking, and I keep thinking this is some sort of sign, some warning, and I should turn around and get the hell back to my car.
If it were nighttime, I probably would.
The garage has a double door that appears automated, with no handle on the outside, but there are several windows along the side. Peering in, I don’t see any cars or boxes or anything. Just packed dirt, and beyond, a fuse box set into the wall. Bingo.
The windows don’t open, but the door around back does—thankfully unlocked, as there’s nothing of value inside. Inside smells like exhaust and gasoline, as if there was once a car in here. But now there’s only the ghost of it left behind.
There’s some sort of master switch below the fuse box, a red lever, and I pull it to the side. But as I do, the lights brighten for a second, as if there’s a sudden surge of electricity instead of a cutoff. Like the light in the hallway, too bright, buzzing. And then everything goes dead.
I head back into the house to take a few quick readings, but it’s all more of the same. Three bedrooms and a dark staircase. There’s nothing here.
Nothing like in Liam’s room. Nothing that makes me believe there’s any sort of remainder here—some energy, or just something left behind.
I don’t go upstairs, though. I don’t set foot on that staircase. It feels like a line I am not meant to cross. The back of my neck prickles, like someone’s watching.
I quickly return to the garage and flip the master switch on again. Then I make sure to lock the side door and do my best to leave no trace of myself inside the house before exiting through the front door.
But when I’m halfway down the porch steps, the sun catches off the metal of my car, and I halt. Something’s wrong. I walk closer, holding my breath.
The rear window of my car is covered in handprints. Like someone was trapped in the backseat, trying to escape. I imagine their face pressed up against the window.
A shiver runs through me, and I picture, for a moment, Liam.
I picture, in another moment, Abby.
I run my finger through the dust, streaking through the handprints, and see that they were left on the outside, by a real person. Still, it gives me the creeps.
I take the edge of my sleeve and run it across the window, erasing them.
Someone’s been here. Or someone’s still here. I’m not alone, and I’m the one who’s not supposed to be here. I quickly slide into the front seat, locking the doors behind me. Then I check the time on my phone, to make sure I’m home in time to cover for my dad.
There’s a missed call and a voice mail from an unknown number. I start the car, the air conditioner choking out gasps of cold air, and I keep peering in the rearview mirror to make sure no one is about to sneak up on me, telling me to get out of here.
I play the voice mail, but there’s nothing there. No, that’s not true—there’s something, I just can’t hear it well. Turning up the volume, I listen again. Just static. Nothing more.
I call home, just to check. My parents have already lost one child, and in case it was one of them trying to reach me, stuck with some bad connection, I’d hate to make them worry.
“Nolan?” My dad picks up so quickly I assume it was him.
“Hey, did you call me?”
“No.” He drops his voice. “It must’ve been your mother. Abby’s here, Nolan. With her parents.”
I’m squinting out the windshield toward the woods, trying to figure out what Abby and her parents have to do with anything. If maybe he had to call them to cover for him on the phones because I got the time wrong.
“I thought I had until the afternoon,” I say.
There’s this pause, where I think I can hear something else. Almost like static, cutting in and out. Until he speaks again. “You need to come home, Nolan.”
* * *
—
Nobody notices at first when I walk in the front door. Dave and Sara or Clara, the college kids who were here to volunteer, appear to be gone. Abby is wedged between her parents on our family room sofa, the three of them sinking together almost comically. My mom is in the chair across from her, and my father stands behind her, his hand on her shoulder. There’s a stillness here that seems heavy. I’ve seen it before. After the chaos, after the search of the woods and the search of his room and the police interviews, after everyone left, and we were all alone, facing the facts.
Abby sees me first. “Nolan,” she says, and my parents turn around. This may be the first time she’s spoken to me since the incident in the car. Abby’s always been thin, but college seems to have sharpened her edges. Or maybe it’s just me that’s changed. I can’t look at her without feeling my stomach knot.
“Nolan,” my dad says. “Come sit.”
But I don’t. I stay exactly where I am, one foot out the door. “What’s going on?” I say.
My dad reaches an arm for me, like he’s trying to compel me closer.
“Dad?”
He shakes his head. “We don’t know,” he says. “Abby got an email, and we’ve just called Agent Lowell—”
“What?” I say, because none of this is making sense.
It’s Abby who speaks this time. “I got an email,” she says. “Last week. It said, I know what happened to your boyfriend, and—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I swing the door shut behind me then, cutting her off. Making her jump. Firmly in this house now, I shake my head at her. Oh my God, the whole case is going to happen again, over a stupid email. “It’s probably a joke,” I say.
Her mother is holding her hand. They are mirror images, staring at me.
“Why would someone joke about that?” my dad says.
“Have you met the Internet?” I ask, walking closer. I know they understand. The number of tips that come in that are useless. More than that, that are careless.
I narrow my eyes at Abby. “Which email address?” I ask her.
Her wavy blond hair hangs partly over her face, and she peers up from behind it, her eyes watering. “My college one.”
“Who would have your new college email, from something that happened two years ago?” And why would someone contact her, instead of me? Instead of my parents? The police?
“It wouldn’t be hard to find it,” she shoots back. “You can search for it on the campus website.”
“Dad,” I say, trying to appeal to him, but his eyes have this hyperfocused look I know too well. And my mom hasn’t moved since I walked through the door. I feel sick. It’s happening again, and I can’t stop it.
“Abby, enough,” I say, turning away from her and waving my arm at my parents. “Can’t you both see this is for attention? She was the grieving widow and everyone felt bad for her here, only she’s not here anymore, and now she’s no one.”
“Nolan,” my dad almost yells. My dad doesn’t yell. But this comes close.
Abby sucks in a quick breath. “You are so cruel,” she whispers.