Dana said nothing.
“Stabbed isn’t what happens in a car accident,” said Ethan. “Stabbed is murdered.”
“I was hallucinating.”
“Uh-huh. From what I heard, you described Maisie exactly, even to the clothes she was wearing when she died. How did you hallucinate that?”
Dana felt her heart flutter, and this time it wasn’t because a cute boy was paying attention to her. Those words jolted her like electric shocks. “I guess … I mean, I must have heard something.”
“Like what? What was Maisie to you?”
“I didn’t know her. What was she to you?” Dana countered.
He looked genuinely surprised. “Maisie? Nothing. Except that she was in our school. She was one of us, and now she’s dead. She was like us, but someone killed her.”
“How can you even make a statement like that? She died in a car accident. Maybe I didn’t read about it before, but I read the paper yesterday. The cops saying that it was an accident. That it was her doing something stupid and getting herself killed. No … killing herself, even if by accident. No one did it to her. If there was even a hint of that, the sheriff’s department would have said so.”
“Not everything the cops do makes it into the papers, Dana,” said Ethan. “They keep a lot of details out of the press when there’s an ongoing investigation. It’s how they can tell the difference between someone who claims to know details of a murder and someone who really does.”
“Oh, and you know this how? Watching cop shows on TV?”
“No,” he said. “I know this because my uncle’s a cop. So’s pretty much half my family going back to the thirties.”
“And are they all saying this was murder?”
Ethan paused. “Not … all of them.”
“Meaning?”
“Okay, my uncle Frank thinks there’s something hinky.”
“‘Hinky’?”
“Something wrong. He doesn’t believe that there could be this many teenagers dying in exactly the same way if it was only about doing drugs and driving. Five, Dana? The police collect statistics, and that would be high even in Baltimore or Philly or New York. Uncle Frank convinced his captain to set up a confidential tip line so people can call in if they know something.”
“Has anyone called?”
“Yeah, about a thousand nut jobs who have claimed it’s everything from a secret suicide cult to aliens to some kind of secret shadow-government, conspiracy theory junk.”
“Great,” she said dismally.
“It’s okay,” said Ethan. “There may even be something useful in all those calls. It just takes time to sort through them and analyze the data.”
Dana ate a few small bites while she thought that over. “Are you planning on being a cop, too?”
“Me? Not really. I want to be a forensic scientist.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s someone who works for the sheriff’s department collecting and analyzing evidence. Blood spatter, fingerprints, all sorts of stuff. There’s this saying that ‘contact always leaves a trace,’ and that’s what forensic experts look for. You know in TV shows where the cop says he’s sending something to the lab? That’s the forensics department. That’s where the real police work goes on.”
His enthusiasm and passion were evident, and Dana was impressed.
“And your uncle Frank thinks this is murder?” she asked.
Ethan paused before answering. “I think that’s what he thinks.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Okay,” said Ethan. “He hasn’t come right out and said that they were murdered, but the statistics bother him. He lives with my dad and me, and he made copies of each accident case file and keeps going over them. He definitely thinks they’re connected. Sometimes he’s up all night going over the medical examiner’s report and the crime scene photos.”
“Photos?” Dana almost gagged.
“Yeah.”
“Have you seen them?”
“No…,” said Ethan in a way that made Dana believe he had. “He keeps them in his desk. He said they’d give me nightmares, but that’s not true. I mean, I’m not five years old, right? Besides, I’ve seen autopsy photos in books. I have a strong stomach. You need to have a strong stomach if you’re going to be a forensic scientist.” He cut her a look. “You’re pretty tough, too. You didn’t even flinch when we cut open the frog.”
“I guess. That stuff doesn’t bother me.”
“What does?” asked Ethan.
“Everything about this conversation.”
The bell rang.
“I have gym,” said Ethan. “Look, can we talk more later? After school?”
“I have yoga after school.”
“You do yoga?”
“Yeah, and jujutsu, but that’s tomorrow night.”
He stared at her. “Wow. You are so freaking cool.”
“Shut up.”