“There are those hidden lights in the front grille, though. That’s a cop.”
Everett’s foot slid out on gravel, and he had to catch himself as he spun back to look again.
“Don’t look, dummy!”
“Why the hell would a cop be here?”
“Can’t be for us. They would’ve grabbed us when we came out. Haven’t you ever watched Hawaii Five-0?”
Everett shook his head.
“Really? Because Daniel Dae Kim is my guy. So cute.”
Everett didn’t say anything as they walked along the dirt trail toward the distant trees. The police were back. Maybe the same cop who’d been calling his mom. Sweat prickled along his neck.
“Aren’t police records public?” Josephine asked.
“Um. I guess. Why?”
“Maybe we could find out more about those cases. Just send a request or something.”
“Maybe.”
The trail dipped into a small gully, then back up. Josephine opened her phone map, and their little blue dot was moving closer to the address she’d marked. “Keep your eyes open,” she said. “There could be bodies right here.”
“I doubt it. I’ve ridden all over this lot.” Still, she brought his attention back to the task at hand, and he began scanning the matted grasses for evidence. They walked only a few minutes more before they came to a barbed wire fence dotted with NO TRESPASSING signs.
“Shit,” Everett cursed.
“You brought the binoculars?”
He dropped his backpack and dug out the used binoculars his mom had bought at a pawnshop back when he was in Boy Scouts. He peered through the sights, focused the lenses, then handed them to Josephine.
“I don’t see the house.”
“I couldn’t find it either.” He looked around. “Let’s walk over to the trees. There’s a rise there. I bet we can see better.”
They followed the line of fencing along uneven ground, stepping around ruts and occasional piles of rocks that had been tossed out of the field. One of the fields had been tilled already, but not yet planted, though he remembered the way the wheat looked swaying green in the summer wind.
The cottonwoods were just starting to leaf, and they looked like they were misted with green fog that caught the sun every once in a while. When they stood beneath the closest tree, they could just make out a couple of roofs past the horizon.
“Want to climb?” Everett asked. Josephine tucked her foot into a V before he’d even finished. Ten feet up, they both reached a solid spot with a perfectly placed branch just in front of their chests and balanced there while Everett passed her the binoculars.
“I think that’s it,” she whispered, as if Alex Bennick might hear her. “The green roof. It had a green roof on satellite view.”
Everett took his turn and nodded. “That seems right. It’s just past that brown farmhouse.”
“Do you see anyone there?”
Everett watched for a long time but saw no movement, though there was a gray SUV in the driveway. They took turns watching for fifteen minutes, but no one ever appeared.
“If he’s dead we would have found that online, right?” he asked.
“I think so.” She turned back to stare at the house. “Do you think we’d feel it? If someone evil were right there?”
“I have no idea.”
She slapped her arm. “A spider! No way, I did not sign up for spiders, Everett Brown.” She reached for the tree trunk. “I don’t think anyone is there, anyway. Do you?”
“It’s pretty quiet.”
“I brought my Switch. Want to go back and play Mario Kart for a while?”
A little defeated now that the fear and excitement had settled down, Everett hesitated. “Tomorrow afternoon is teacher meetings. Can you come over again after our half day?”
“I have a dentist appointment at one, but I can bike over later. Do you think the teachers really have meetings, or do they just take a long weekend?” Josephine was already starting down.
Everett let her begin the climb by herself. She moved carefully, and while she was concentrating on the slow reach for each branch, Everett swung the binoculars around toward the storage center.
His strange and sprawling home sprang into view, closer than Bennick’s house. He stared at the crisp details for a long while, expecting his mom to sneak out of the office and slink her way toward some hidden secret as he watched.
He shifted his view to the road and the parked vehicle that Josephine had said was a cop car. Maybe it was only a security guard. Shadows swallowed all the driver’s features whole.
“You coming?” Josephine called up.
“Yeah.” But as he watched, the cop car suddenly blazed to life, blue and red lights strobing. Everett startled, one foot skimming off the bark he stood on, his elbow cracking hard into a taller branch. He dropped the binoculars to windmill his other hand out in desperation, and his fingers miraculously found a grip. The strap around his neck jerked as it caught the binoculars, scraping his skin. His elbow burned, and so did his pounding heart.
“You okay?” Josephine’s voice was a squeak of alarm.
Everett rolled his eyes up toward the road, and for one moment he was utterly confused at the distance. Through the binoculars, it had felt as if the cop were looking right at him, had turned on the lights just so he could hit the gas and rocket through the meadow toward their tree. But of course, the car was far away, and in the moment of Everett’s slip, it had made a U-turn and was now just a speck racing away from them toward the highway.
“I’m okay,” he croaked, but his knees shook so hard he had to rest for a long minute before climbing down just as slowly as Josephine had.
For one soul-freezing moment Everett had thought the cop was coming for him. Because Everett was a thief and a burglar just like his dad.
He ducked his head as they walked so she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes.
CHAPTER 11
Everett’s scream echoed through the dark apartment and snapped Lily from restless sleep into immediate, rigid terror. “Ev,” she rasped, her body jerking upright in a tangle of sweaty sheets. She pulled in a wheezing gasp, praying his cry had been only a part of her vague nightmare. It wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real.
But then it came again. “Mommy!”
Lily leapt up, stumbling on the bedding as she pushed off into a run toward her open door. He hadn’t called her Mommy in years, and hadn’t had one of his nightmares since at least fourth grade.
What if it wasn’t a nightmare at all? What if it was Jones, come to claim his son?
“Ev!” she yelled as she flew through the hallway and launched herself into his door, banging it open. “Everett?”
A cold swipe of air whipped past her as she snapped on the light. Everett sat up, back pressed to the white rails of his headboard, blanket clutched high against his face. Only his eyes were visible, locked tight on his window.
“I saw someone,” he croaked.
She rushed toward the window, registering that it was open to the night, the blinds rocking in the breeze as her joints went stiff with terror. “Someone opened the window. Get in the hallway. I’ll call 911.”
“I opened it.”
“What?”
“I left it open.”
She reached up and pulled the window down until it closed with a crack. After she locked it, she spun and switched off his light again so she could peer outside.
Moonlight shone weakly in, though the glow burned brighter the longer she stared and let her eyes adjust. “What did you see?”
“A man, standing there.”
Her heart felt split in two at that. “A man? Inside?”
“No. Outside.”
The light suddenly shifted, shadows writhing across the floor. Lily jumped with a yelp that made Everett whimper in response, but she shook her head and moved closer to the glass. “It’s just clouds,” she explained, angling her face to catch a glimpse of the moon. “Are you sure it was a man? What did he look like?”
“I woke up and something was blocking the light and then moved away.”