Payton was a sixteen-year-old girl, and Tevon was a thirteen-year-old boy. They weren’t very similar as victims except for the fact that they were young. Still, something nagged at me, something dark and scary that again made all of those hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
When I turned onto my block, I saw Donny’s car parked at the curb. “Hey, Maddie,” Donny said out the window as I stopped next to the driver’s side. “Your mom’s at work. Feel like grabbing a bite?”
I looked at the display on my phone. “It’s only three,” I said.
Donny grinned. “Feel like grabbing a snack, then?”
“What gives?”
“We should talk,” he said cryptically.
I waited for him to say more, but he simply sat there looking at me until I gave in.
Donny drove us out of Poplar Hollow all the way to Parkwick. We entered a nice Italian eatery, which barely had any patrons because it was still so early. Sliding into a booth, Donny handed me one of the menus the hostess had given us and said, “Spill it.”
At first I didn’t know what he meant. “Spill what?”
“Your mom called me today and said that another kid in the area has gone missing. She said that when the girl’s photo came up on the news broadcast last night you looked like you were about to faint. She also said that you refused to talk about it, but then you bolted over to Stubby’s the first chance you got, so she’s wondering if maybe you read for one of the girl’s parents and we might have another issue with the FBI on our hands. So come clean, kiddo. What’re you hiding?”
I set the menu down. Donny had me and he knew it. “Stubby and I went to the Poplar game against Jupiter last Friday night. We sat on Jupiter’s side, and Stubby pointed out this new cheerleader on their squad, Payton Wyly, that he had a crush on. We were near enough to her so that I could read her deathdate.”
He went a little pale. “Is she dead?”
I nodded. “Wednesday.”
“Son of a bitch,” he hissed, closing his own menu and shaking his head. “Please tell me you kept that to yourself.”
I took a sip of water but had a hard time swallowing.
“Madelyn?” Donny said sternly. “Please tell me you didn’t share that with anyone.”
I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I told Stubby.”
Donny blinked. “And?”
“See, Stubs really did have a huge crush on this girl, so he was really upset—”
Donny buried his face in his hands. “Jesus,” he mumbled. “What’d he do?”
I took another sip of water. My hands were shaking like Ma’s. “It’s what we did, Donny.”
Donny parted his fingers and looked at me with one eye. “What did the two of you do, Maddie?”
“We sent her a birthday card.”
The hands fell away and revealed his slack jaw. “You sent her a birthday card? Why the hell would you do that?”
“Payton’s birthday was Wednesday, the same day as her deathdate. We wanted to warn her, but we didn’t know how, and I’d promised you that I wasn’t going to tell anybody their deathdate, but we couldn’t just let her die without warning her, Donny!” My voice had risen, and my eyes misted. I was starting to get overcome by what’d happened.
Donny laid a hand on my arm and said, “Hey, sweet girl, take a breath. Tell me what happened and we’ll figure it out, okay?”
I wiped my eyes and tried to calm myself, feeling embarrassed because we were in a public place and I was sure I’d called attention to us. When I felt calmer, I told him what we’d done. “We took the card to Starbucks, and Stubby wrote out a message. He broke his arm last Sunday, so it disguised his writing pretty good. Anyway, we pretended to be Payton’s secret admirer, and we told her that we were someone who sometimes had visions of things before they happened. We said that we’d had a vision of her getting hurt in an accident, and we wanted her to be really careful when she drove her new car—we overheard Payton at the football game telling the other cheerleaders that she was getting a new car for her birthday.”
Donny nodded, but his expression was grave. “Okay, so is that all you said in the card?”
“No. We also said that she needed to be careful on her birthday because the stars suggested it wasn’t a safe day for her.”
Donny closed his eyes as if that was the worst thing we could’ve written. Finally he said, “Okay…is that it?”
“Yeah, mostly. Stubby mailed the card, but we both were careful to handle it using our sleeves. I don’t think either one of us ever touched it with our fingers.”
“The card went out on what day?”
“Monday. We mailed it from the Jupiter post office so it’d get there by Tuesday.”
“What return address did you use?”
“We didn’t. We kept it blank.”
Donny sighed and shook his head. “Kiddo…” he said, and I knew he thought it was bad.
“I’m sorry, Donny!” I told him. “We only wanted to try and save her. We didn’t think it’d turn out like it did with Tevon.”
Donny reached out again and squeezed my hand. “Well, kiddo,” he said, “the feds haven’t come around your house holding the card in an evidence bag, so I guess that’s a good thing. They would’ve gone through everything in Payton’s room by now, so if it was there and could be traced back to you, they’d have done that by now. Maybe she got it Tuesday, thought it was a joke, and threw it out.”
I nodded. I sincerely hoped that’s exactly what’d happened.
“So until this becomes an issue, you don’t tell anyone about this card, capisce?”
“Okay.”
“If the feds haul us in and ask us about it, though, you’ll have to tell them the truth.”
I looked down at the table, dreading that thought. “I know.”
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that. In the meantime, do me another favor,” he said.
“What?”
“The next time you see the deathdate of anybody who’s about to die, you call me first before you send them a card or a gift basket or anything else you can think of to get around my direct order.”
It was clear that Donny was trying to make light in order to cheer me up, so I attempted a smile and held up three fingers. “Yes, sir. Scout’s honor.”
But Donny looked taken aback.