My mother is fluttering around the kitchen, trying to fill cups of coffee that people haven’t emptied yet. Officer McNulty lets her top his off, then asks, “So you didn’t see Brooke at all last night? She didn’t call you or text you at any point in the evening?”
“She texted to see if I was coming to the party. But I wasn’t.”
“And what time was that?”
Katrin scrunches her face up, thinking. “Around … ten, maybe?”
“Could I see your phone, please.”
The official tone of the request makes my skin prickle. I’ve heard it before. “Is something going on with Brooke?” I ask.
Peter rubs a hand over his unshaven jaw. “Apparently she wasn’t in her room this morning, and it looks as though her bed wasn’t slept in. Her parents haven’t seen her since she left for work last night, and she’s not answering her phone.”
My throat closes and my palms start to sweat. “She’s not?”
Officer McNulty hands Katrin’s phone back to her just as it buzzes. She looks down, reads the message that’s popped up on her screen, and pales. “It’s from Viv,” she says, her voice suddenly shaky. “She says she lost track of Brooke at the party and hasn’t talked to her since.” Katrin bites her lower lip and shoves the phone at Officer McNulty, like maybe he can make the text say something different. “I really thought they’d be together. Brooke stays over after work sometimes because Viv’s house is closer.”
Dread starts inching up my spine. No. This can’t be happening.
Mom sets down the coffeepot and turns toward me. “Malcolm, you didn’t happen to see Brooke when you picked the twins up, did you?”
Officer McNulty looks up. “You were at Fright Farm last night, Malcolm?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Just to give the Corcoran twins a ride home,” Mom says quickly. But not as though she’s really worried that I’m going to get into trouble.
My stomach twists. She has no idea.
Officer McNulty rests his forearms on the kitchen island’s shiny, swirling black marble. “Did you happen to see Brooke while you were there?” His tone is interested, but not intense like it was when he interrogated Declan.
Not yet.
Five years ago we were in a different kitchen: our tiny ranch, two miles from here. My dad glowered in a corner and my mother twisted her hands together while Declan sat at the table across from Officer McNulty and repeated the same things over and over again. I haven’t seen Lacey in two days. I don’t know what she was doing that night. I was out driving.
Driving where?
Just driving. I do that sometimes.
Was anybody with you?
No.
Did you call anybody? Text anybody?
No.
So you just drove by yourself for—what? Two, three hours?
Yeah.
Lacey was dead by then. Not just missing. Workers found her body in the park before her parents even knew she hadn’t come home. I sat in the living room while Officer McNulty fired questions at Declan, my eyes glued to a television program I wasn’t watching. I never went into the kitchen. Never said a word. Because none of it involved me, not really, except for the part where it became this slowly burning fuse that eventually blew my family apart.
“I …” I’m taking too long to answer. I scan the faces around me like they’ll give me some clue how to respond, but all I can see are the same expressions they always wear whenever I start to talk: Mom looks attentive, Katrin exasperated, and Peter is all patient forbearance marred only by a slight nostril flare. Officer McNulty scratches a note on the pad in front of him, then flicks his eyes toward me in a cursory, almost lazy way. Until he sees something in my face that makes him tense, like he’s a cat batting at a toy that suddenly came to life. He leans forward, his blue-gray eyes locked on mine.
“Do you have something to tell us, Malcolm?” he asks.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ellery
Sunday, September 29
This time, unlike after the hit-and-run with Mr. Bowman, I’m a good witness. I remember everything.
I remember taking the paper clip from Brooke’s hand, and picking up a second one from the floor. “Paper clips?” Officer Rodriguez asks. He went directly into questioning mode as soon as Ezra told him we’d left Fright Farm with Brooke. We moved into the kitchen, and Nana made cocoa for everyone. I grasp the still-warm mug gratefully as I explain what happened before Ezra joined Malcolm and me.
“Yeah. They were pulled apart, you know, so they were almost straight. People do that kind of thing sometimes, like a nervous habit?” I do, anyway. I’ve never met a paper clip I didn’t immediately twist out of its preexisting shape.
I remember Brooke being sort of goofy and funny and rambling at first. “She made a that’s what she said joke,” I tell Officer Rodriguez.
His face is a total blank. “That’s what she said?”
“Yeah, you know, from The Office? The TV show?” I cock my head at him, waiting for it to click, but his brow stays knit in confusion. How can anyone in his twenties not get that reference? “It’s something the lead character used to say as, like, a punch line after a double entendre. Like when someone says something is hard, they could be referring to a difficult situation or, you know. To a penis.”
Ezra spits out his cocoa as Office Rodriguez turns bright red. “For heaven’s sake, Ellery,” Nana snaps. “That’s hardly pertinent to the conversation at hand.”
“I thought it was,” I say, shrugging. It’s never not interesting observing Officer Rodriguez’s reactions to things he doesn’t expect.
He clears his throat and avoids my eyes. “And what happened after the … joke?”
“She drank some water. I asked her what she was doing in the basement. Then she started seeming more upset.” I remember Brooke’s words like she’d just spoken them five minutes ago: I shouldn’t have. I have to show them. It’s not right, it’s not okay. What happened? Wouldn’t you like to know?
My stomach squeezes. Those are the sort of things that seem like nonsense when a drunk girl is babbling at a party, but ominous when she’s missing. Brooke is missing. I don’t think that’s really sunk in yet. I keep thinking Officer Rodriguez is going to get a call any second telling him she met up with friends after she got home. “She got a little teary when she said all that,” I say. “I asked her if it was about the pep rally, but she said no.”
“Did you press her?” Officer Rodriguez asks.