Ethan wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and it somehow made him look older. Stronger. More solid, which mattered because the rest of the day seemed to have been made up of different levels of trippy transparencies. Nothing until now seemed quite real.
Dana sipped her chocolate milk, then set the glass down and held out her hand. After only a tiny hesitation, Ethan took her hand, held it. His fingers were warm and real.
She told him everything that had happened. It took a long time, and he never let go of her hand.
CHAPTER 54
Sycamore Street
8:59 P.M.
A lone figure stood, hands in pockets, in the utter blackness under the heavy boughs of a maple tree.
The street was empty except for a yellow dog that walked a crooked path from front lawn to front lawn, pausing every now and then to pee as if replying to messages left by friends. When the dog reached the maple tree, he froze, then backed away slowly, growling. The figure under the tree said nothing, did not move, merely waited for the dog to turn and run away.
Overhead, the clouds were rolling in, blotting out the stars, intensifying the darkness.
There were lights on inside each of the houses along Sycamore Street. From a few came the tinny sounds of muffled television. At one house, the one directly across from the big maple, a light burned in the window of a side room on the first floor. It was that window that the figure stood and watched with dark, intense eyes. He could see the silhouettes of two teenagers— a tall boy and a short girl.
When a cold wind blew down from the storm clouds, the figure shivered but did not move away. He barely moved at all, except for the slow clenching and unclenching of the folded knife in his pocket.
CHAPTER 55
Hale Residence
9:35 P.M.
Her curfew was up by the time Dana was finished with her story, and she and Ethan sat in silence for almost five minutes, each of them absorbed in the details. While he was still thinking, Dana went into the kitchen to phone home and apologize for being late, but it was Melissa who answered.
“Hey, nice of you to call to tell us you’re not dead.”
“Don’t joke. It’s been a very, very weird day. I’ll tell you about it when I get home.”
“Where are you now?” asked Melissa.
“Ethan’s, and—”
“Ooooooh. Nice.”
“It’s not like that, Missy, and you know it,” said Dana.
“Sadly, I do. It’s tough being the sister of Dana the Pure Light of Virtue.”
“Oh, shut up and cover for me, Missy. Tell Mom I’m still at the dojo or something.”
“This late?”
“Tell her it’s some kind of ancient samurai thing and I’ll be home by ten. No, ten thirty. Tell her Sensei will drop me off.”
Melissa snorted. “Oh, yeah, that sounds plausible.”
“Come on, I already covered for you.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” said Melissa.
“You’re the best.”
Melissa paused. “Be careful, Dana,” she said. “And I’m not talking about Ethan.”
“I know,” said Dana, and hung up.
When she went back, Ethan had Uncle Frank’s case files out, and Dana could see that the folder was thicker than it had been before. She watched as Ethan made his sketch of the rubber bands and then carefully removed each one. He brought the folder over to the couch.
“Todd’s stuff is in there?” she asked, sitting down next to him.
“Yes. It’s pretty nasty, too,” said Ethan.
“After today,” she said, “I can handle anything.”
It was a big honking lie and they both knew it, but they were each smart enough not to mention it.
Dana opened the folder and looked at what had been done to Todd Harris.
It was as bad as Dana imagined it would be. And it was strange. When his car supposedly crashed, he had been thrown through the windshield, but the collar of his heavy jacket had caught on a broken piece of the crumpled hood. In the crime scene photos, the smashed car was perched on a pair of rocks at the bottom of a steep hill, and Todd hung suspended, his toes inches above the ground. It was grotesque and looked like pictures Dana had seen of criminals hanging from a gallows.
She closed her eyes for a moment as the room took a spin. The dizziness from earlier was still with her, and seeing this kind of horror did not help.
“You okay?” asked Ethan.
“No,” she said.
“Me neither.”
There were a lot of photos in Todd’s file. Because the car had rolled down the hill, the crime scene investigators had needed to photograph every piece of debris. She flipped through more than eighty pictures, going fast through the ones that showed a fragment of a red taillight lens or a blown-out piece of tire. Then she stopped at one that showed the ground below Todd’s feet. The photoflash had caught the gleaming surfaces of a bunch of pocket change that lay scattered among the torn weeds. The photographer had taken three photos of the coins. Dana paused there, caught by the image without knowing why. An accompanying note gave an inventory of the coins. Fifteen nickels, eleven dimes, three quarters, and one silver dollar.