“Can I help you?” the girl behind the counter asks in a chirpy voice. She’s wearing black scrubs with gold embroidery on the pocket. It’s probably supposed to look staid and official, but it just makes her look like an undertaker.
“Nope.” I flick a glance at the parking lot. Mrs. Amos’s car is gone. I duck out of the ER and start walking toward home. I check the time on my phone: it’s almost six o’clock. Parvati seemed hell-bent on talking to me after the funeral. That half smile she gave me—she was going to head in my direction before she got distracted by something in the woods. She wouldn’t disappear like that and stay gone for no reason. I consider a pair of possibilities, one grimmer than the other: 1. Whoever killed Preston lured Parvati into the woods and snatched her. 2. Parvati saw something suspicious in the woods and ran off on her own to investigate. The probability of each feels about equal.
The sun is dropping in the sky, and the breeze is picking up. The cool air clears some of the haze from my brain. As I turn the corner onto my street, I debate calling Langston. I bet he and Marcus were at the funeral somewhere. Maybe they lured Parvati into the woods for a little extra debriefing. It’s not any weirder than Langston pretending to be my uncle and bailing me out of jail, is it? I try to make that possibility seem real. Then I see the dark sedan parked in front of my house. McGhee and Gonzalez are walking up my driveway as I approach.
McGhee kneels down and puts his cigarette out against the cement porch. “Got a minute?” he asks, slipping the butt into his pocket.
“Can I say no?”
“We can do this somewhere else if you’d prefer.”
“Might as well get it over with.” I hold the door open for McGhee but let it bang shut on Gonzalez as he tries to enter. He swears under his breath.
My sisters are all parked on the sofa watching television. The sagging upholstery is threatening to swallow Ji and Jo whole.
Darla enters from the kitchen, her face red from standing over the stove. Her lips flatten into a hard line when she sees me with the agents. She bends down and gathers one twin under each arm protectively, as if she thinks FBI agents eat babies for snacks. “It’s almost dinnertime,” she says.
“We’ll only be a few minutes, ma’am.” McGhee nods to her.
“Don’t you think your lawyer should be present for this, Max?” Darla asks nervously.
My lawyer. Right. Probably, but who knows how long it’d be before she could get here?
“It’ll be okay,” I say. “I’ll just tell the truth like you said.” Once again, I pray that my hair is doing a good job of hiding my head wound. Darla will freak if I start dripping blood onto the carpet.
“If you’re sure . . .” She trails off. Ji and Jo squirm in her arms. “Come on, Amanda.”
“I want to stay and watch,” my sister says. She mutes the TV volume and stares at the agents in fascination.
“Trust me, they’re boring.” I reach out and ruffle her scraggly hair. “I’ll tell you the story later and it’ll be way cooler.”
“Promise?” she says, looking reluctantly at McGhee and Gonzalez.
“Promise.”
“Okay.” Amanda clambers down off the sofa and follows Darla into the kitchen.
McGhee clears his throat. “Mind if we take a seat, Max?”
“Go for it.” I sit in the old recliner and let the agents share the sofa. McGhee ends up on the sagging side, and I almost feel bad for him. His knees are approaching his chin, and it looks like he’s going to need help getting up.
He grimaces and adjusts his weight, pulling a plastic dinosaur out from underneath his thigh. He sets the toy gently on the ground. “We’ve spoken to a few people who were present at the funeral today. Did Colonel Amos assault you?”
“He grabbed me,” I say. “But a tree did most of the damage.”
“Are you going to press charges?” McGhee pulls his mini notebook out of the pocket of his shirt.
“Nah.” Tempting, but what good would it do? It won’t bring back Parvati, and I get why he did it. I probably would have attacked him too if our roles had been reversed.
“Due to her relationship with Preston DeWitt and the ripped fabric recovered at the scene, we’re treating Ms. Amos’s disappearance as possibly related to Preston’s murder until proven otherwise.”
“Are you guys here to blame me for her too?” I ask.
“Should we?” Gonzalez smirks. “Want to make a full confession?”
I resist the urge to give him the finger. “Here’s what I have to confess. I showed up at the funeral around four. I stayed away from everyone and watched. It was about four thirty when I saw her go into the woods. I tried to stop her, but once she decides to do something it’s pointless to intervene.”
“Do you think what happened is connected to Preston’s death?” McGhee asks.
“Duh.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Preston disappears. Someone tries to frame me. Preston turns up dead. And now Parvati is missing too? The three of us hung out together. Is anyone else dead or missing? How could all of this not be connected?”
“Violet Cain is dead,” Gonzalez says. “How does she fit in?”
I shrug. I’m not ready to tell them I think Violet and Senator DeWitt had an affair, that somewhere out there she has a son who is Pres’s half brother. They won’t believe me without proof. “What do you guys think?”
“Do you know anyone who has it in for you?” McGhee asks.
I shake my head, which disorients me a little. Gingerly, I reach up and touch the back of my scalp. There’s still a damp spot, but it feels like my blood has clotted at least. “That part blew my mind at first. Who could possibly hate me enough to screw me over in such an epic way? Then I realized maybe it had nothing to do with me, maybe whoever decided to set me up just picked the most convenient target. Preston’s poorer, less popular friend. How could you go wrong?”
McGhee scribbles something in his notebook. “What about Ms. Amos? Enemies?”
“Only the dudes she beats up in karate class.”
“And Preston?”
“Rich guys always have enemies. I’m sure plenty of people were jealous of him.”
“Jealous enough to kill?”
Jealous enough to burn down a house? That’d be pretty jealous, all right. “Who knows?” I say.
“Why exactly do you think Ms. Amos went into the woods?”
“I think she went to pick fucking blueberries.” This is what I mean about cops. Why does everything have to be as drawn out as possible? I sigh. “Come on, guys. Obviously she saw something suspicious.”
McGhee scribbles in his notebook again. “What or who do you think she was looking at?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Preston’s killer.”
“But then why would she go after him and put herself in danger?” Gonzalez asks.
I snort. “Did you even talk to her parents? Parvati lives for danger. Nothing scares her.”
“Preston was a bit like that too, wasn’t he?” McGhee asks. “I saw him on the gridiron at homecoming.”