Chris flashed his lights—whoop whoop—so that their cars could maneuver through the crowd. Grandma Young’s yard had become a staging area for the media. The local truck, Omaha trucks, and cable news trucks were parked side by side with Dateline and 48 Hours. There’d been a mass shooting at a university in Florida with eleven dead and six injured. There’d been a suicide bomber at a shopping mall in Istanbul with thirteen dead and twenty-seven injured. Yesterday’s headlines were terrifying, but they were also so terrifyingly commonplace that the eyes of the country had turned to Osborne.
Tendons knotted inside Makani’s shoulders. It was bizarre to see all the lights on in the windows when neither she nor her grandmother were home. How many strangers had prowled through their house in the hours since the attack?
How many hours had he prowled through it?
Makani wondered if an element of sexual perversion coexisted with David’s breaking and entering. Did he watch her—through the slats of her closet door, from underneath her bed—while she changed? Did it get him off?
They parked in the congested driveway behind three other police vehicles. It felt as if a spotlight were following them as they exited and jostled through the shouting mob. Makani was still wearing Ollie’s hoodie, shrouded under its black hood. Thinking about the hood hurtled her mind back to David.
Where was he hiding now?
Makani stared at her house, and her legs suddenly grew rigid.
Ollie’s fingers clasped through hers. It was the first time that they’d held hands for anyone to see. Tethered to his grip, she felt safe. They ran together.
Inside, the situation was quiet and grim. Hideous bloodstains soiled the living room carpet. Smeary red handprints glazed the front window and door. It felt chillingly empty without the tick of the grandfather clock. The heart of the house was dead.
Makani listened in as Sergeant Beemer, a stout man with a bulbous nose, updated Chris with the latest. Splinters of painted wood from where David had been jimmying open the downstairs bathroom window had been discovered on the ground outside. The bathroom was located directly below Makani’s bedroom, and the overgrown viburnum, which blocked the window’s view, showed signs of having been trampled.
“The bush is right beside the water spigot. David’s foot probably got tangled in the garden hose during one of his exits.” The sergeant sniffed his ruddy nose. “It’d explain all the snapped branches.”
A shiver rattled down Makani’s spine. She knew exactly when David had snagged his foot. It happened the day after Haley’s murder, while she’d been waiting for Ollie to call. She’d thought it was the neighbor’s cat.
Makani imagined a hooded figure climbing into her grandmother’s bathroom. Hiding in her shower. Peering through her private things.
And it was impossible not to keep imagining him as she closed her bathroom door and stepped into her own shower. Behind the clear vinyl curtain, she became Janet Leigh in Psycho. The shampoo stung her eyes, because she was too afraid to close them. Even with her eyes wide-open, she still saw the silhouette of a young man with a knife.
Ollie is right there. Right outside the door.
But Ollie had also been nearby when David had attacked her.
There’s an entire squadron of cops downstairs.
But downstairs was so far away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Wouldn’t that time be better spent looking for him?” Grandma Young cut someone off. “I know. I know about the search parties. I just don’t understand why we can’t all focus on capturing him first.”
Makani and Ollie paused outside her door. It was a phone call—and not a pleasant one. Makani’s heart swelled to hear Grandma Young sounding like herself, but they decided to wait in the hallway until the call ended. They didn’t have to wait long.
“I can’t believe you would ask that of her. It hasn’t even been one day.”
They heard a handset fall against a hard plastic receiver and realized she’d been using the hospital’s telephone, which made sense. Her cell was still in their bag.
Makani knocked twice and peeked inside.
Grandma Young’s energy and skin tone had improved over the night, though her posture remained exhausted. But when she shifted her gaze and saw them, she perked up. “I thought you were another nurse. Come here! Let me see you.”
“How are you feeling? Who was that?” Makani kissed her cheek and then reached for the phone to place it correctly onto the receiver. It was hanging slightly off.
“Leave it. I did that on purpose. Already been too many calls this morning.”
“Reporters,” Makani said. They wouldn’t hesitate to harass someone who’d been hospitalized.
“Oh, no. Well. Yes.” She huffed. “But that was just someone from church.”
It wasn’t how those calls usually sounded. Makani frowned. “Who?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Grandma Young motioned for her to sit. “Show me your arm. Did I see it last night? I can hardly remember your visit.”
Makani snuggled in on the side without all the wires and tubes. She’d changed into a clean pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and her surfer-floral hoodie. Ollie had resumed custody of his black hoodie. She’d been disappointed to return it.
“I’m fine, see? It was only a scratch.” She lifted her sleeve to reveal the bottom of the bandage, expecting her grandmother to demand to see the rest. But the painkillers must have been pretty hardcore, because she accepted the partial reveal as the whole truth. The call seemed important, so Makani tried again. “What did they want?”
Grandma Young squirmed. Adjusted her position. “The town is planning some sort of memorial for the victims.”
Makani glanced at Ollie, who’d taken a seat in the recliner. He gave her a small shake of his head, equally in the dark.
“It’s happening this afternoon on Main Street,” Grandma Young said, withholding eye contact. “The idea is that people are tired of being afraid, and fear didn’t prevent the previous attacks, so we might as well go outside and support one another.”
“But that sounds like a good thing,” Makani said. “That sounds . . .”
“Brave,” Ollie said.
“Yeah. Like those Parisians who went back to the cafés after the terrorist attacks.”
Grandma Young’s gaze snapped up. “It is brave. But if everyone put this much effort into the search, he’d be handcuffed by sundown. And then we could celebrate.”
Handcuffed by sundown sounded very John Wayne, but Makani was more concerned by that last word. “Celebrate?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I just think the memorial can wait.” Grandma Young was talking faster, agitated. Something else about this was bothering her.
“I don’t know. I think it’d be nice to honor Haley and Matt and Rodrigo—”
“They want you to speak,” she said. “The town. They want you to stand up in front of all those people and cameras and be their mascot.”