Officer McNulty’s eyes bore into mine. “If there was anything going on with you and Brooke, Malcolm, now is the time to mention it. Doesn’t mean you’re in trouble.” His jaw twitches, betraying the lie. “Just another piece of this puzzle we’re trying to figure out.”
“There wasn’t,” I say, meeting Katrin’s cool stare. She edges closer to Peter. He’s been silent all this time, arms folded, an expression of deep concern on his face. “The only time I ever see Brooke is when she’s with Katrin. Except …” A thought hits me, and I look at Officer McNulty again. He’s fully alert, leaning forward. “I did see her a few days ago. I was in the car with Mia,” I add hastily. “We saw Brooke downtown, talking with Vance Puckett.”
Officer McNulty blinks. Frowns. Whatever he was expecting me to say, that wasn’t it. “Vance Puckett?”
“Yeah. He was painting over the graffiti on Armstrong’s Auto Repair, and Brooke walked up to him. They were talking sort of … intensely. You asked about anything unusual, and that was, um, unusual.” Even as the words spill out of me, I know how they sound.
Like a guy with something to hide who’s trying to deflect attention.
“Interesting.” Officer McNulty nods. “Vance Puckett was in the drunk tank last night, and in fact”—he glances at his watch—“is most likely still there. Thank you for the information, though. We’ll be sure to follow up with him.” He sits back and crosses his arms. He’s wearing a dress shirt, and nicely pressed pants. I realize he was probably getting ready for church when all this happened. “Is there anything else you think would be good for us to know?”
My phone sits heavy in my pocket. It hasn’t been buzzing, which means Mia probably isn’t even awake yet. The last text I have was the one Declan sent me last night before I entered the House of Horrors.
In town for a few hours. Don’t freak out.
Why was he here? Why was my brother here, again, when a girl goes missing?
If I showed that text to Officer McNulty now, everything would change. Katrin would stop looking daggers at me. Officer McNulty wouldn’t keep asking the same question a dozen different ways. His suspicion would shift away from me, and go back to where it’s been ever since Lacey died. To Declan.
I swallow hard and keep my phone where it is. “No. There’s nothing.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ellery
Sunday, September 29
I can’t sit still.
I pace through Nana’s house all afternoon, picking things up and then putting them down. The bookshelves in her living room are full of those porcelain figures she likes—Hummels, Nana calls them. Little boys and girls with blond hair and apple cheeks, climbing trees and carrying baskets and hugging one another. Nana told me, when I picked one up a couple of days ago, that Sadie had broken it when she was ten.
“Knocked it on the ground so that one’s head split in two,” Nana said. “She glued the pieces back together. I didn’t notice for weeks.”
Once you know to look for it, though, it’s obvious. I held the porcelain girl in my hand and stared at the jagged white line running down one side of her face. “Were you mad?” I’d asked Nana.
“Furious,” she said. “Those are collector’s items. The girls weren’t supposed to touch them. But Sadie couldn’t keep her hands off them. I knew it was her, even when Sarah told me she’d done it.”
“Sarah did? Why?”
“She didn’t want her sister to get punished,” Nana said. For the first time when talking about Sarah, a spasm of grief crossed her face. “I was always a little harder on Sadie, I suppose. Because she was usually the one causing trouble.”
It didn’t occur to me, until just now, that some of that sadness might have been for my mother. For another cracked girl, broken and pieced clumsily back together. Still standing, but not the same.
There’s only one family photo in the living room: it’s of Nana and my grandfather, looking like they’re in their late thirties, and Sadie and Sarah around twelve years old. I pick it up and study their faces. All I can think is: they had no idea.
Just like Brooke’s family had no idea. Or maybe they did. Maybe they’ve been worried since Brooke’s locker was vandalized and the bloody meat was thrown on her car, wondering if there was something they should be doing. Maybe they’re sick about it now. Because it’s almost one o’clock, and nobody’s heard a word from Brooke.
My phone buzzes, and I put the photo down to pull it from my pocket. My pulse jumps when I see a text from Malcolm: Can we talk?
I hesitate. I’d thought about texting him after Officer Rodriguez left, but I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t. Gray dots appear, and I forget to breathe while I watch them.
I understand if you don’t want to.
The thing is, I do.
I text back, Okay. Where?
Wherever you want. I could come by?
That’s a good idea, because there’s no way Nana’s letting me out of the house today. I’m surprised she even went to the basement to do laundry. When? I ask.
Ten minutes?
Okay.
I go upstairs and knock on Ezra’s bedroom door. He doesn’t answer, probably because he’s blasting music with his headphones on. It’s his go-to escape whenever he’s worried. I twist the knob and push open the door and sure enough, he’s at his desk with a pair of Bose clamped firmly over his ears, staring at his laptop. He jumps when I tap his shoulder.
“Malcolm’s coming over,” I say once he’s pulled off the headphones.
“He is? Why?”
“Um. He didn’t say, exactly. But I assume … you know. He wants to talk about Brooke and maybe …” I think about his second message. I understand if you don’t want to. “Maybe explain what happened after he dropped us off.”
“We know what happened,” Ezra says. We already heard a version of it from Nana, who heard it from Melanie, who probably heard it from Peter Nilsson. Or one of those other people in Echo Ridge who seem to know everything as soon as it happens. “Malcolm dropped Brooke off and she went inside.” He frowns when I don’t answer. “What, do you not believe that? Ellery, come on. He’s our friend.”
“Who we’ve known a month,” I say.
I feel compelled to point that out, but my heart’s not really in it. I’ve never seen Malcolm be anything but kind, even when he was frustrated. Not to mention, he’s spent the past five years in the shadow of Declan Kelly—murder suspect. Even if he was the sort of person who wanted to hurt Brooke, he’s not an idiot. He wouldn’t put himself in a Declan-like situation before doing it.