There’s nothing on the walls. Nothing for us to find. Elliot and my mom were probably talking about someone else that morning, anyone else. We’ve driven through the night to look at the room of a random kid, who will end up meaning nothing to us. We’ve been trying to force the connection, seeing it everywhere, even in things that don’t exist.
This room feels like it’s hovering in the in-between, just like Liam’s room felt to me when I hid upstairs at Nolan’s house. Like it’s the ghost of a room, waiting for someone, with all the life sucked out of it.
Nolan frowns, looking around. “When you don’t have answers, you don’t know what to do….”
“Answers don’t always make things easier,” I say.
Nolan’s face changes, and he reaches for me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…That was a terrible thing to say.” But he sets his jaw, looking out the window. He means it, I realize. He thinks it’s better to know, even if the knowing is horrific. What must it be like, living in that house, for him to think my life is the better option? What must it be like here?
“It’s all terrible, Nolan,” I say.
He nods once, and then his eyes widen. Downstairs, a door creaks open. We stare at each other, frozen. Nolan grabs my arm and pulls me into the closet, shutting us both inside. We’re pressed together, chest to chest, the clothes and hangers swaying around us, and I can feel his heartbeat against his ribs, as fast as my own must be beating. His breath against my forehead comes quickly, and I try to slow my breathing, to calm myself. It isn’t working. Someone’s here.
Nolan grabs the clothes, to keep them still. I hold my breath.
The house is older, and I can track the person just from the creaks in the wood, doors opening, cabinets closing, water in the pipes.
I start to relax, thinking we just need to wait this thing out. Maybe someone forgot their wallet, or something else they needed, and they’ll be on their way again. But seconds later, we hear footsteps coming up the stairs. I start to panic.
And then, as the steps get closer, they start moving faster. Oh God, we left the door to this room open. My entire body tenses, and I can feel Nolan’s doing the same.
The steps stop at the door of the room. And then a voice. “Hunter?” She sounds younger, our age—I imagine the teenager in the family picture downstairs.
My hand tightens on Nolan’s arm, and he pulls me closer.
The footsteps approach, and it sounds like she’s mumbling, “You’re such a jerk—”
I hold my breath, counting the seconds, hoping she turns away. Nolan’s fingers are trembling against my skin. Then, in three quick steps, she storms across the room and yanks open the closet door.
I close my eyes, as if that can stop the inevitable. And I throw my hands in the air, as if that’s ever stopped anyone.
“What the—”
The girl in front of us is probably around our age, and she’s quickly backing away. Her blue eyes have gone wide, and her mouth, colored with bright pink lipstick, has dropped open.
“Wait!” I yell after her, thinking she’s going to call the police, or worse.
But she has her phone in her hand, held out to us like a weapon. And she’s still backing away, into the hallway. We should run, too. We should run before we’re found by someone else.
“We’re friends of Hunter’s!” Kennedy shouts, and everyone freezes.
Oh God, I hope she has a plan.
The girl turns around, her grip still on the doorway, like she’s about to take off at any moment. “Did Hunter send you here?” And then she no longer seems afraid. She narrows her eyes, holds out her hand again. “Whatever you took, leave it. Or I will call the police, and you can tell him that.”
Huh?
Kennedy shoots me a look, as if she, too, is unsure where to go from here. “No, sorry. We went to school with him. And no one”—she clears her throat—“no one seems to be looking anymore. We just thought…”
“You thought what?” the girl asks, her knuckles still white from the tension in her fist.
I hold my breath, waiting. Her face is hard, unreadable. “We thought…we thought…” But even Kennedy is coming up empty.
The girl continues. “You want me to believe that Hunter didn’t send you here? That instead, you decided to just break into his house, looking for clues?” She looks between the two of us skeptically. “How the hell did you get in here, then?”
“The key,” Kennedy says, “in the backyard.” She holds it out, fingers trembling. The girl stares at her hand, frowning. She doesn’t come any closer.
“Nothing to see here, kids. The police have been through here already. There’s no mystery. So how about you get the hell out of my house, before I call the cops?”
“You found him?” I ask. I don’t get why his photo is up on our wall, if so.
She laughs. “Hardly. Hunter doesn’t want to be found, so he won’t be. But I don’t need to see him when the money from the downstairs jar goes missing. When my mom’s diamond bracelet goes missing, and also his favorite food from the fridge. I thought you were him, when I heard you up here.” She rolls her eyes. “He is officially the worst, if he thinks we don’t notice.” She shakes her head. “My mom refuses to accept it, though.”
“You think he ran away?”
“Think?” She starts to laugh, then stops. “He’s done it before, but he always comes back. So yeah, I’m sure. Who else would be stealing our things without breaking in?”
“I don’t believe it,” Kennedy whispers, though I don’t think she’s talking to this girl. I think she’s talking about the search, how it’s just led us here for nothing. A whole empty universe that makes no sense.
But this girl isn’t having it, Kennedy’s denial. “Yeah?” she says, leaning into her hip. “That building behind the old Rollins factory?” she asks, like we should know what that is. I nod, an instinct. “Swing by at night. You’ll see what I mean. He’s been here recently, and he never stays far from where he can get money. And right now, that place is us.”
I walk slowly toward the hall, pulling Kennedy along, because I’m starting to think we’re actually going to get out of here without her calling the police, when she grabs my arm—no longer afraid, but pissed. “Hey, what’d you say your names were?”
I scramble, panicked. “Liam,” I say, the first thing that comes to my mind. This is who I’m doing this for, after all. Kennedy tips her head, like she understands, and says, “Elliot.”
The girl’s face scrunches up in confusion. “Oh. Huh. Okay. Yeah, I’ve heard of you.” I can see Kennedy tense beside me, her eyes widen. “I just thought you were…”
“You thought what?” I say. Kennedy appears stunned, and unexpectedly short on words.
“His boyfriend. I thought Elliot was a guy. Sorry, I heard him on the phone with you when he was back once this fall. I just assumed…”
Kennedy looks to me, her eyes impossibly wide, almost tearing up. Her mouth drops open, and I can see her processing, fitting the pieces back together. The connection, it’s here. I can see her believing again.
The signal sent her to my house so we would find this boy. This boy who, we now have proof, knew Elliot Jones. Not only that, who might have been Elliot’s boyfriend.
We are supposed to find him.
The girl steps closer before speaking. “I hope you’re not mixed up with whatever’s sent him running, Elliot. Really. If he won’t show his face, there’s probably a reason, knowing him. I’d hate to see you disappear, too.”
Then she takes the key from Kennedy, eyeing us slowly. “I will call the police if I see you here again.”
Kennedy nods, and we head down the stairs. But before we’re out the door, we hear her call after us. “If you find him, tell him it’s time to come home already.”
* * *
—
As soon as we’re back at my car, out of breath, Kennedy grabs my arm. “Holy crap. Did you get the address?”
“The old Rollins factory? Yeah, look it up on your phone, see if you can find it.”
She turns her phone on and cringes when she sees the display. She must have a bunch of calls or texts from Joe. But she clears her throat and opens a map program.
Her hands are shaking, and she has to enter the information twice before she gets it right. “Okay,” she says. “It’s a factory. Says it’s closed, though. Come on, I’ll put the address in.”
We follow her phone’s directions, and as we drive the streets in the daylight, everything comes into focus: this is an old mill town, full of brick factories, some boarded up. Like the town itself is disappearing.
We drive by the address of the old factory, but we don’t stop. It’s a large rectangular building with small windows, all covered up, and there’s too much movement across the street. It appears to be some construction site, with a crane, men in hard hats, several bulldozers. At first I think maybe they’re renovating the factory into some new space. But then I see I was mistaken: the wrecking ball, the dumpsters, the garbage trucks. They’re taking it down, piece by piece.
“We’ll come back after work hours,” I say. “She told us to check it out at night anyway.”