Makani and Ollie had slipped away from Grandma Young before she’d even known that they were there. Chris drove them back to the Larsson house. This time, Makani sat beside Ollie in the backseat. Their fingers were icicles as they grasped each other with all four hands. Despite the ideal opportunity to escape, David had chosen to come home. He’d tried to kill her and failed. What if he was returning to finish the job?
“The truck driver was stopped just past Norfolk at twelve forty-five a.m.,” Chris said, filling in some of the blanks. “Must’ve been the only person in America who hadn’t heard about the manhunt. He claimed that he only listens to Christian talk radio, and they’ve been yammering about the new Supreme Court justice all week. He told the deputy that David was quiet and polite. He also said it looked like he was wearing a woman’s coat.”
Despite seeing it in the surveillance footage, this last detail startled Makani.
“My guess,” Chris said, “is that he’s still wearing the same bloodstained jeans and hoodie, and he needed something to cover them up. The coat probably belongs to Katie’s mom. The driver said he dropped him off in front of a farm near Troy.”
Troy was only one town over. Alex lived on a ranch just outside it.
“David told him it was his parents’ farm. We’ve already interviewed the farmers, but they were asleep. They didn’t see or hear anything unusual. The other neighbors are being interviewed now, and there’s a team searching the surrounding fields.”
Makani and Ollie tightened their icy grips.
There was nothing else they could do.
The cold autumn air crackled throughout the countryside, electric with anticipation.
Makani and Ollie were bundled inside sleeping bags on Chris’s hardwood floor. Heat whirred out from the registers. With the daylight, locked door, and armed police officer, Makani’s body finally succumbed to rest. Her dreams began heavy and empty, but, over the course of the afternoon, they struggled into existence. A sharp knife in one hand, a severed ponytail in the other. A hooded figure lurching out from behind a grandfather clock. She would fight these nightmares for the rest of her life.
While the trio slept, strangers streamed in from out of town. Even more media, but also armchair detectives—online sleuths, some well-meaning and some not, jumping into ambitious action—as well as morbid gawkers, deceitful psychics, and drunk college kids, who thought it’d be a hoot to visit the famous corn maze. The displaced Sweeney Todd cast and crew had turned it into a haunted corn maze, and the Martin family would donate the weekend’s profits to the victims’ families.
“Knowing he’s still out there just makes the maze a lot scarier,” a student wearing a scarlet ball cap with a cream N said, speaking to a field reporter. His fraternity brothers whooped behind him on camera. “Plus, you know. Charity.”
Even the National Guard rolled in. They were to stand watch over the football game so that the townspeople would feel brave enough to attend. There were no parking spaces left at the school. The tailgate party had started early. The playoffs didn’t stop for tornado sirens, and they weren’t about to stop for a serial killer.
And through it all, Makani, Ollie, and Chris slept.
Chris’s phone rang when the sun was low on the horizon. Makani scrambled up to a sitting position against his bed, her bulging eyes on the door. It was still closed.
“Yeah,” Chris said into the phone.
Ollie scootched out from his sleeping bag to hunker down with Makani. He was careful not to sit on the side of her injured arm.
“Shit.” Chris sighed. “Okay, yeah. See you soon.”
Makani burrowed into the shelter of Ollie’s body as the phone thumped onto the bed above them. Chris released another sigh. “What is it?” Ollie asked.
“Nothing. Nothing new,” Chris clarified. “Just . . . shouldn’t have slept so late.”
“You need to go in?”
“Yeah.” His feet swung over the edge of the bed beside Ollie. “So, I’ve gotta head toward Troy, which is in the opposite direction of where you need to go. We’ll take separate cars, but we’ll leave at the same time. You guys are to drive straight to the hospital, okay? And you’re to stay there until I tell you to leave.”
Makani and Ollie nodded.
“I’m gonna check the house, just to be safe.” Chris stood, picking up his gun from the nightstand. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.” In the doorway, he glanced back at them. “Do you have your phones?”
Their phones were already in their hands. They held them up.
Chris vanished down the hall. Ollie’s under-eye circles were so dark that it looked like he’d been punched. Makani wished that she could touch his skin and heal it.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No. Are you?”
“No.” But he smiled, which made her exhale a faint laugh.
Chris’s bedroom was as disheveled as Ollie’s. Bags from Sonic and the gas station were scattered everywhere, and heaps of clothing were piled in front of the closet. The clothes looked clean, though permanently unfolded. The only vestiges of his youth appeared to be the three dusty guitars hanging on the wall—one acoustic, two electric. Beneath them was an amp covered in coffee cups and mail.
The upstairs floorboards creaked as Chris moved from room to room. Makani’s gaze snapped back to the door. “This is so messed up.”
“The most messed up,” Ollie said.
She held her breath as the footsteps continued toward the bathroom.
“I mean,” he said, “I slept beside you all day and didn’t think about sex once.”
Her head remained locked, but her eyes swiveled toward him.
He grinned. “That was a lie.”
The wooden stairs groaned as Chris crept down them. Makani shook her head, but she was smiling slightly. Their ears strained.
They waited.
Suddenly, a yell rang out, followed by a loud crash. Makani gasped and shrank as Ollie clung to her in horror. There was the indistinct sound of things settling to the floor.
“Squidward!” Chris said. “Fuck! You scared me.”
Ollie pried his body off hers, embarrassed, though she sensed he’d been more scared for his brother than himself. She wondered if he was afraid every time Chris left for work. That must be tough.
A few seconds later, Chris returned. “Sorry about that.” He seemed embarrassed, too. “We’re good. We leave in fifteen minutes, okay?”
Fifteen. The number surprised Makani. Clearly, they weren’t used to having a girl around. She hurried to wash her face and change clothes, and realized—as the brothers were both ready in under ten—that the number had actually been inflated for her sake.
Ollie handed her a steaming Pop-Tart as she slid into his car. She practically swallowed it whole. When they hit the highway, they parted from Chris.
“What the—?” Ollie said under his breath.
Makani looked up from checking her texts. The opposite lane of traffic was at a standstill. Dirty cars and trucks and RVs were backed up as far as she could see as a lone, redheaded employee with a flag waved them into the parking lot for the corn maze.
“Is it always this busy on a Friday night?” she asked.