“No one sent this to me,” I say, practically yelling myself. “I’ve never seen it before.”
It’s then I hear the footsteps overhead. Two men come down the steps, carrying boxes in their outstretched arms. “What…” I stand, stepping closer, until I can see into the boxes as they pass: my computer, my bag, my things.
“Dad? Mom? What did you do?”
Agent Lowell steps into my path, preventing me from getting any closer. “They didn’t do anything, Liam. It’s our job to track down anything that might help us. We’re going through your computer and electronics right now, to see if there are other copies of the photo.”
I moan. What they will find on that computer is a mapping of the park where my brother disappeared. Articles about the Jones House. The documentation of my search for the unexplained in Freedom Battleground State Park, and more. It should clear me, but I worry it will seem like something else. Like I’m looking for something instead.
“One more thing. We need your phone,” he says, holding out his hand.
“No,” I say.
“Nolan,” my dad says. “It’s not yours. It’s ours.”
* * *
—
I have no more connection to the outside world. The bathroom fills with steam from the shower, my image disappearing in the glass. I catch a glimpse in the fog, and it’s Liam instead.
I look down at the sink and imagine him that day.
Standing in the bathroom, the drop of blood in the sink. The hiss. The razor clattering.
The tension rises, like there’s static, like something’s going to burst through this room. I keep picturing it, over and over. Like Liam is there, showing me something.
I’m cold and shaking by the time I leave the bathroom, my hair nearly dry, like I’ve lost a gap of time.
I feel like a prisoner in my own home. My things are gone. My connections to the outside world are severed. No one here wants to believe me.
I need to talk to Kennedy.
* * *
—
I’d call her, but my phone is gone. I don’t know her number by heart. At least I have my car keys. The sky is dark, and I’m only half-concentrating, and by the time I park in front of their ranch house, it’s almost ten at night.
But I’m not of sound mind to stop myself. I ring the bell, and it’s Joe who answers.
“I need to see Kennedy,” I say, but he stands firmly in my path. “I know she’s grounded. I’m sorry. Please, I need to see her.” My voice cracks on the word please.
But she’s already there, pushing Joe aside. In pajamas, hair wet and braided down her back.
Joe steps aside, and her hand is on my elbow, pulling me in.
Nolan stands in my doorway, looking terrified. There’s no other way to describe it. His eyes have gone hollow, and his skin is pale, and his hands are trembling. There’s this desperate yearning in his eyes, and I think it struck Joe as well, because he doesn’t object. This is clearly an emergency.
“Are you okay?” That’s my first thought, over anything else, but then I feel ridiculous because he’s obviously not okay.
Nolan, now in the house, seems to calm slightly. “They took my phone. I would’ve called first but they took it. They took everything.”
Joe gives me this look over Nolan’s head like he’s worried about his behavior, or what he might do, so I sit him at the table. “You’re not making any sense, Nolan. Who took everything?”
He shudders, then finally seems to realize where he is, and who is listening. “The email with the picture came from the library,” he says, lowering his voice. “The library they think I work at. They think I sent it from there.” His words are fine as razors. His eyes wide and pleading. “They took all my electronics, to check.”
“Oh.” I open the fridge to get Nolan a drink, then look at Joe, still standing in the foyer, watching us, and give him this eye signal like, he needs to leave us.
Are you sure? he mouths, and I nod. We need to trust each other, and he is. He’s trying.
“I’ll just be in my room, if you need me,” he says loudly, like he’s speaking to make sure Nolan hears.
I wait until Joe disappears down the hall, but he leaves his bedroom door wide open.
“Tell me what happened,” I say.
“They think it was me,” he whispers, and my hand shakes as I pour the can of soda into a glass in front of him. I tighten my grip so he doesn’t notice. Nolan’s on edge, coming apart. Marco’s words briefly echo in my head: Be careful. I remember him telling me about Nolan and his brother’s girlfriend. A motive. A quick zing of unease passes through me, but I shake it off.
Marco doesn’t know him. None of them do.
“They think I sent it. That I know where Liam is. What happened to him. But I don’t.”
I nod. “I know.”
He looks up, his eyes meeting mine, our faces inches apart. “Do you believe me?” he asks, and it’s so open and pleading that I think I could ruin him with one word.
“Yes,” I say, without hesitation. It isn’t about evidence, or proof, or a balance of pros and cons. It’s simpler than that. It’s Nolan, and I believe him.
Most people see something, some evidence, and then they believe. But I think maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe you believe first, and then it changes you, so you can see what else is possible.
* * *
—
Nolan stays until midnight, talking at my kitchen table. He claims he’s rarely even been to the library. I used to go plenty, meeting up with study groups in the fall. Marco and Lydia used to head there after school sometimes, and I’d join them. College kids, home for the weekend, earbuds in to block out our noise. I don’t recall ever seeing Nolan there. The library is built into a slope and set up for privacy—books with reading areas on the main level, cubbies with computers, all arranged at angles around the downstairs.
It could’ve been anyone. They’re focusing on him because they were looking at him to begin with. But I also get a chill, realizing that someone nearby sent that picture. If not Nolan, then still someone.
I haven’t realized how much time has passed until Joe comes out of his room and says, “I think it’s time to go. As long as everything’s okay.” He looks at Nolan then. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Nolan says, pushing back from the table. “Sorry. I’m sorry for intruding.”
“It’s all right. Get home safe.”
I walk him to the door and we linger in the doorway, like neither of us is sure what to do now, to break the moment. And also, Joe’s watching. So I just go with my gut and weave my arms around Nolan’s shoulders, pulling him close. I can feel the sigh that escapes when his arms circle me back.
“I can email you, when I get to school tomorrow,” he says.
“Okay.”
I watch him walk all the way to his car, and I watch until the car drives down to the end of the street, just to be sure of him.
* * *
—
When I close the door, I turn around, and Joe’s there, arms crossed over his chest.
“It was an emergency,” I say.
“I know, I could tell. But, Kennedy, I heard what he said—weren’t you both just at the library together?”
I look away, remembering the lie, and his face darkens.
“I need to know, Kennedy, how you know him. I need to know what’s going on. The trust has to work both ways here.”
I fidget with the braid running down my back. This isn’t how I was planning to explain this to him. But the panic is tightening something in my chest. Something’s happening, and we’re running out of time, and if I can’t trust Joe, then who do I really have left?
“We met because of something we both found,” I say.
“I’m not following.”
“There was a signal,” I say. “On Elliot’s satellite dish.”
Joe blinks slowly, trying to process. “What are you talking about?”
“The dish, pointing out at space. Here, wait.” I race to my room and fish through my backpack for the flash drive. It’s in my hand, extended toward Joe, as I walk toward him. He hasn’t moved from his spot in the hall. “Here. It’s all here. Last weekend, I pulled a signal. Only it’s coming through where no signal should be. I’ve been trying to see if I can replicate it.”
He stares at the flash drive in my hand but doesn’t take it. “Back up a second. You’ve been by the house?”
I push the flash drive at his chest again. “Joe, you’re not listening. There’s a signal. And Nolan’s been receiving it, too.”
He doesn’t answer. I wonder if he’s debating something. If he believes me. I hold the flash drive in my open palm, begging him to see.
“I know who he is, Kennedy.”
“What? Who?” My arm drops to my side.
“Nolan. Nolan Chandler. I know who he is, what happened to his family.”
“This has nothing to do with—”
“This has everything to do with this. Listen to yourself. Two people receiving a signal. Two people who—”
He stops talking, turning to face the window.
Quietly, I ask, “Two people who what, Joe?”