Beside me, Yusef grabs hold of my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Take it easy,” someone says. “She’s just an old lady.” And yet, she was so much more than that.
An officer approaches Mom and Alec on the porch. “We’re going to take her to the hospital, have her checked over and try to get her to talk. Hopefully, she’ll tell us where your daughter is.”
Ms. Suga doesn’t take her eyes off the house, even as the ambulance doors close.
I look up at the house next door, at the ivy vines rustling in the breeze.
“How did they survive the fire?”
Yusef glances at me, his eyebrow arching. “Huh?”
“You said the house was set on fire with them inside. So how did they get out and no one noticed?”
He gazes up at the house, roping an arm around my waist. I lean into his intoxicating warmth and safety.
“Friends, I know you’re all scared. I’m scared too.” Mr. Sterling addresses the crowd from the porch as if it is his pulpit. “But we have to be rational here. This man is very dangerous. He’s kidnapped a child, a little white girl named Piper. So we have to let the authorities handle this.”
The crowd stirs, enraptured. They hadn’t heard about Piper yet and the words he uses seem purposefully inciting: Kidnapped. Scared. Dangerous. Little white girl.
Someone shouts, “We got a maniac in the streets!”
“Remember when he was touching those kids?”
“That was a rumor, y’all, remember?” Mr. Brown says from his truck, trying to ease tempers.
“Have the police found him yet?” a woman asks, a shrill of hysteria in her voice.
Mr. Sterling stuffs his hands in his pockets, looking mournful. “I’m afraid not. And I won’t lie, I’m not sure they are going to. This man has eluded us for decades.”
The crowd gasps, now talking in fast whispers. “What? Why? How?”
“They need to get him before he gets us!”
“What are we gonna do?” someone yells.
Tensions simmer, the air charged. I shift closer to Yusef, his arms tensing.
“Well, the police can only do so much,” Mr. Sterling says. “That’s where you come in. After all, who can keep their streets safe better than the people who live in them.”
“What the hell is he doing?” Yusef mumbles.
I glance back at Mom and Alec, watching Mr. Sterling with the same confused scowls.
“And, oh. I don’t know,” Mr. Sterling ponders, playing coy with a shrug. “Maybe, to help find him, we should do what we did back in the old days.” He pauses. “Smoke him out.”
The crowd is stunned by the suggestion, but they slowly nod in agreement.
“Shit,” Yusef mumbles.
“Yeah,” Mr. Stampley shouts. “Let’s light him up!”
The crowd cheers in unison.
“What the hell are you doing?” Alec shouts, grabbing Mr. Sterling’s arm. “My daughter is out there and you’re egging on a mob!”
Mr. Sterling smiles, patting Alec on the shoulder.
“Now, now, Alec, I wouldn’t be so worried about that. I’m sure she’ll be just fine. The good people of Maplewood will be careful. They won’t let anything happen to your daughter. But we can’t have some maniac running around the streets. Just think of the children.”
“I am! I’m thinking of my kid!”
Mr. Sterling says nothing, only glancing from face to face on the porch, then smiles.
“Well. Doesn’t seem like there’s much left for me to do here. Guess I’ll . . . head on home.”
Alec lunges for his neck and Mom struggles to restrain him.
Mr. Sterling grins at me and strolls back to his car.
He played us.
Meanwhile, the crowd intensifies.
“Well, what y’all standing around here for,” Mr. Stampley shouts. “Let’s find the son of a bitch!”
“I got some gas at my house,” someone offers.
“No. Oh no,” Yusef mumbles, racing into the crowd, and I follow.
“We got some fireworks!”
“He can’t be out on the streets like this, no way.”
“The girls, they won’t be safe,” a woman warns at a feverish pitch. “Y’all have to do something! Y’all gotta take care of this!”
“Y’all wait!” Yusef says, climbing up on his truck bed. “Don’t do this! You’ve seen what them fires can do. They can wipe out the whole neighborhood!”
“What you doing, man?” Mr. Brown shouts at Mr. Stampley, grabbing him up by his collar. “What if them fires spread! Folks around here barely making it by as it is. We can’t go burning everything down, we’ll having nothing left!”
“You know he can’t live,” Mr. Stampley says in a low voice, wiping his hands off him. “You know he can’t. Unless you want your father up at Big Ville.”
Mr. Brown’s eyes widen. Something passes between them. He backs away, just as the crowd disperses. The hunt for Jon Jon is on.
As Yusef continues to plead with everyone, I spot Mr. Watson in the crowd, staring at Ms. Suga’s ambulance driving away. I run over, blocking his line of sight.
“You knew,” I hiss.
Mr. Watson opens his mouth, then palms the hat in his hands. “I . . . I wasn’t sure.”
“How! There was a whole family living in our basement and you didn’t know?”
“The Foundation . . . they told us to never go in the basement. Made us all sign these papers, said they had it wired and if we went down there, they’d sue us for everything we got. But . . . something about it just didn’t sit right with me.”
“Is that why you were parked on our block at night?”
He eyes the ground in shame. “Yes. Was wondering if y’all saw or smelled some of the crazy things I did. Couldn’t sleep at night thinking about it. If it was really a ghost, I thought you’d leave by now.”
Suddenly, the police officers that once swarmed into the house are now running out the same way the construction workers would at the end of their shift.
“Hey!” Mom shouts. “Where are you going?”
An officer stops to face them on the lawn. “We’ve been told to fall back and evacuate the area.”
“What? Why would you leave? There’s clearly something about to go down around here!”
The officer shrugs. “Following orders. If I was you, I’d leave too. This place is about to be up in smoke. The way these people riot . . . they’re like animals.”
“These people?” Alec shouts, joining Mom. “They’re the citizens you’re supposed to serve and protect! You can’t just go!”
He shrugs again. “Like I said, I suggest you get out of here while you still can.”
Alec shakes his head, furious. “Not without my daughter!”
“Suit yourself. There are talks of roadblocks. No one in or out of Maplewood for the night.”
On the street, only a pocket of people remain. Yusef rushes over to me.
“We’re gonna go get the fire department! They won’t come unless we stay on their asses.”
“But what about Piper? We have to find her!”