Malcolm knits his brow. “Nothing. It wasn’t.” I blink at him, confused, and he adds, “It wasn’t wrecked, I mean. It’s fine. Maybe there’s some kind of mistake. Unless … wait.” He turns back to Mia, who’s still staring at the receipt. “When was the car fixed?”
“Um …” Mia’s eyes flick to the top of the paper. “It was brought in August thirty-first, and ‘Amy’ picked it up on September second. Oh, right.” She looks at Malcolm. “You and your mom were on vacation then, weren’t you? When did you get back?”
“September fourth,” Malcolm says. “The day of Lacey’s fund-raiser.”
“So you wouldn’t have known the car was gone,” Mia says. “But wouldn’t Mr. Nilsson have said something?”
“Maybe not. Katrin spent days at a time at Brooke’s house over the summer.” Malcolm taps an unconscious beat on his knee with one fist, his expression thoughtful. “So maybe that’s why Brooke got involved. She was Katrin’s cover while the car was getting fixed. Peter’s always telling her she needs to drive more carefully. She was probably afraid he’d take it away if he knew.”
“Okay,” Ezra says. “That all makes sense, I guess. The fake name is kind of dumb—I mean, all anybody would have to do is look up the license plate number to know who the car really belongs to. But they probably figured it wouldn’t come to that.” He pauses, frowning. “The only thing I don’t understand is, if that’s what happened, why was Brooke so desperate to get the receipt back? Assuming this is what she was looking for, but”—he gestures at the pile of invoices we’ve already discarded—“nothing else seems relevant. If you’ve gone through the trouble of having an undercover car repair and disposing of the evidence, wouldn’t you just leave it to be shredded? Mission accomplished, right?”
I think back to Brooke’s words in the Fright Farm office. That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What happened? Wouldn’t you like to know? My heart rate starts rising. “Mia,” I say, turning toward her. “What date was the car brought in, again?”
“August thirty-first,” she says.
“August thirty-first.” I repeat. My skin prickles, every nerve twitching.
Ezra tilts his head. “Why do you look like you just swallowed a grenade?”
“Because we came in from LA the night before that. August thirtieth, remember? The hailstorm. The night Mr. Bowman was killed in a hit-and-run.” Nobody says anything for a second, and I tap the paper Mia is holding. “Front of vehicle damage due to unknown impact?”
Mia’s entire body goes rigid. Ezra says “Holy shit,” at the same time Malcolm says, “No.” He turns toward me, his eyes pained. “Mr. Bowman? Katrin wouldn’t …” He trails off when Mia drops the repair receipt in his lap.
“I hate to say it,” she says with surprising gentleness. “But it’s starting to look an awful lot like she did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Malcolm
Saturday, October 5
“You look absolutely beautiful, Katrin.”
I turn from the refrigerator at the sound of my mother’s voice, grasping a too-warm seltzer and stepping closer to the foyer so I have a clear view of the staircase. Katrin’s descending it like royalty in a red dress, her hair pulled back in some kind of complicated twist. She looks better than she has all week, but she still doesn’t have her usual sparkle. There’s something brittle about her face.
The neckline on her dress dips low, displaying a lot more cleavage than Katrin usually shows. It should be distracting, but even that doesn’t derail the train of thought that’s been running through my brain since yesterday afternoon.
What do you know? What did you do?
“Whoa.” Katrin’s boyfriend, Theo, doesn’t have the same problem. His eyes zero in on her chest until he remembers that her dad’s in the room. “You look amazing.”
I can’t see Peter, but his voice is full of forced heartiness. “Let’s get some pictures of the four of you.”
That’s my cue to leave. Katrin and Theo are doubling to homecoming with two of my least favorite people at Echo Ridge High: Kyle McNulty and Viv Cantrell. It’s not a date, Katrin explained to my mother. Just two people who are worried about Brooke, coming together while the town tries to hang on to some kind of normal. From the glimpse I saw of Kyle when they arrived, he looks as though he got talked into it and already regrets saying yes.
All the money raised from selling homecoming tickets is going toward a reward fund for information leading to Brooke’s safe return. Most of the businesses in town are giving matching donations, and Peter’s law firm is doubling theirs.
I retreat into the study while everyone poses. Mia’s still going with Ezra, and she was texting me until an hour ago trying to convince me to ask Ellery. Under different circumstances I probably would have. But I couldn’t get Katrin’s words out of my head: I’d better not see you there. She’s backed off on treating me like a criminal, but I know that’s what everyone at school is thinking. I don’t care enough about a pointless dance to deal with three hours of getting whispered about and judged.
Besides, I’m not sure I can act normal around my stepsister right now.
I haven’t told anyone what we found yesterday. Despite the wild theories, all it really amounts to is a receipt with questionable contact information. Still, it’s been eating at me all day, making it almost impossible to look at Katrin without the words bursting out of me: What do you know? What did you do?
The murmur of voices in the foyer grows louder as Katrin and her friends get ready to leave for the dance. Pretty soon, only Peter and Mom will be home. Suddenly, the last thing in the world I want to do is spend a Saturday night alone with my thoughts. Before I second-guess myself too much, I fire off a text to Ellery. Do you want to hang out tonight? Watch a movie or something?
I don’t know if she’ll be up for it, or if her grandmother will even let her. But Ellery replies within a few minutes, and the vise gripping my chest loosens a little when I read her response.
Yeah, sure.
Turns out, if you invite a girl over on homecoming night, your mother will read into it.
Mom flutters around Ellery with zero chill after her grandmother drops her off at our house. “Do you two want popcorn? I can make some. Are you going to be in the den, or the living room? The den is more comfortable, probably, but I don’t think that television has Netflix. Maybe we could set it up real quick, Peter?”
Peter puts a hand on her shoulder, like that’ll stop her from spinning out. “I’m sure Malcolm will let us know if he has any pressing technological requirements.” He gives Ellery the full Peter Nilsson smile experience as she unwinds a scarf from around her neck and stuffs it into her bag. “Very nice to meet you, Ellery. Your mother was one of my favorite people in town while she was here.” He gives a self-deprecating laugh. “I even took her to the movies a couple of times, although I think I bored her to tears. I hope she’s doing well, and that you’re enjoying your time in Echo Ridge, even though …” A shadow passes over his face. “We’re not at our best right now.”