“Missed it,” I say tersely. “I’m not into football.”
“Not even to support your best pal?” Gonzalez stretches one arm out along the back of the sofa and rests his other on the armrest. I’m pretty sure it’s a ploy to look bigger and more menacing. It’s not working. He just looks like he’s trying to put the moves on McGhee.
“Preston owned the school,” I say. “He had plenty of support without me.” I look down at the carpet, focusing on a dot of color that looks like the remnants of a stepped-on crayon.
“Was it intimidating, having two best friends who were both popular and fearless?” McGhee asks.
“What? No. It was cool.” I don’t even bother to hide my frustration. “Look, I didn’t hurt either one of them. Why can’t you guys see that?”
McGhee flips his notebook closed. “Thanks for your information. We’ll be in touch.” He leans against the armrest of the sofa as he gets to his feet. Gonzalez bounds up after him, still moving with a weird feral energy.
“Just find her,” I say. “She thinks she’s invincible.”
What I don’t say is that I can’t handle the thought of losing her too.
After the feds show themselves out, I poke my head in the kitchen to let Darla know I’m okay. The twins are sitting in their high chairs playing with a batch of her famous edible clay. Amanda is leaning over the counter slicing carrots. Her face is a mask of concentration, her fingers gripping the knife so tightly that her knuckles are blanching white.
“Dinner in fifteen minutes, okay?” Darla says.
“Sure.” I duck into the bathroom and use a hand mirror to look at the back of my head. It’s hard to see through my hair, but the bloody spot on my scalp looks like it’s only a couple of inches long. I probe the area gently with my fingertips to make sure it’s not still bleeding and then shake out my hair. Time to make a quick phone call.
I slip out onto the front porch and call Langston. A car drives by while I wait for him to pick up. A girl wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap yells, “You’re going to burn, murderer!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. Whoever is in the passenger seat bursts into applause. They honk the horn twice, and then the car screeches off in a cloud of smoke.
“Langston here.”
I decide to skip all the bullshit formalities. “Do you know where she is?”
“Max? You sound agitated. Where who is?”
“Parvati disappeared right from Preston’s funeral. I’m sure you guys were skulking around somewhere. Did you see anything?”
“Marcus was watching the ceremony, but I was handling something . . . off-site. So Ms. Amos has gone missing? That is most unfortunate.”
“Hell yeah, it’s unfortunate. So if you or one of your thugs took her somewhere for more debriefing, just tell me. Don’t let me freak out over nothing.”
“It wasn’t us, Max,” he says. “I’ll look into it. But the people we’re investigating don’t have any connections to Parvati Amos. She’s kind of a wild girl, isn’t she? And I’m sure she was upset by Preston’s death. Maybe she’s just acting out, looking for a little extra attention.”
Acting out? That was definitely Parvati’s style, but not to get attention, at least not from her parents. She preferred it when they ignored her. Plus she’s been trying to get me to talk to her for days. She wouldn’t skip out on that meeting unless she had no choice.
I humor Darla and spend five minutes sitting at the dinner table picking at what is probably really delicious fried chicken. I can’t eat, though. All I can do is worry about Parvati. “I’m going for a walk,” I say suddenly, pushing my chair back and bolting to my feet.
Darla looks up from feeding tiny spoonfuls of mashed potatoes to the twins. More is ending up on the floor than in their mouths. “Be careful, Max,” she says.
I head back to the cemetery. It’s the only thing I can think of to do. By the time I get there, it’s a little after eight o’clock and the cops are gone. The wind is cool, but not cold. The sky is overcast, only the brightest stars managing to penetrate the thick layer of clouds. The high wrought-iron fence glints in the shrouded moonlight, and the elaborately carved headstones cast deformed shadows across the lawn. I’ve never been in a cemetery at night, and now I know why. This place is seriously scary.
Something rustles in the high grass in front of me, and I flick on the small emergency flashlight I snagged from Ben’s truck. I scan the grounds and see the golden eyes of a possum looking back at me. Creepy, but not a killer.
I don’t know where to start, so I opt for the stretch of woods that makes up the graveyard’s western border. It’s slow going in the dark. I walk straight lines, up and down from one end of the trees to the other, scanning for footprints, fabric, for any sign of Parvati. Leaves slap me in the face and branches claw at my skin. “This is crazy,” I mutter, pushing my way through another layer of foliage. But I keep going.
It takes over an hour to search the woods, and I come up empty. Next, I trace the perimeter of the cemetery, looking for anything unusual or out of place. Bats swoop low overhead. A few dry leaves flip end over end across the grass. Behind me, the graveyard gates clank in the breeze. I find a hole beneath the southeast corner of the fence where some kind of animal has been tunneling in and out of the grounds.
But there are no clues; there’s nothing that doesn’t belong here. Except for me. My flashlight starts to go dead and I almost give up. But there’s one more place I feel compelled to check out: Preston’s grave.
I stand in front of the mound of dirt, watching as the wind scatters the top layer of soil across neighboring graves. The number of flowers here is astounding—there must be at least a hundred arrangements. I think about Preston, in a box, below the ground. About Parvati missing. About how just a few weeks ago we were hanging out and everything was normal. “How did we get here?” I ask.
It’s tempting to blame it on Liars, Inc., but I would’ve provided that alibi for Pres no matter what. I wanted him to go to Vegas and hang out with Violet so things would stop being weird between Parvati and him. I remember when I finally admitted that I liked her. He had seemed so nonchalant.
It was back in May, a few weeks after Parvati transferred to Vista P. Pres and I were hanging out in his basement, eating Megaburgers and watching some crappy reality-TV show full of college kids who were clearly addicted to drama.
“So that girl Parvati from your party is in my English class,” I started.
“Oh yeah?” Pres took a bite of his burger. “She get in trouble yet?”
I laughed. “No. She doesn’t say much. Is she really that bad?”
“She’s pretty bad.” Preston smiled to himself. “In a good way.”