Gideon’s hand moves to my back and he pulls me in. His breath is warm against my neck, and, for a while, we don’t talk or move.
Finally, he whispers into my hair, “I’m glad you told me.”
“And now you’re dying to say, ‘They’re coming to get you, Cass’ in a spooky voice.”
“No.” His chin brushes my ear. “At least, I wasn’t going to reference that exact movie.”
I growl.
“I just can’t believe Brandon would do all that.” It stings. He pulls back, looking straight into my eyes. “I didn’t mean—I believe you. But I wish I’d known all of that about Melody. You should’ve confided in me instead of Brandon.”
“I see that now.” But again, Gideon’s wrong. He was the only person who never looked at me like I was Fire Girl. Now that I’ve told him the truth, I don’t know what he sees. “So…you’re still going to help me?”
“Of course.” His hand closes around my wrist. “Let’s find that necklace. But Cass, we’re going to have to show the detectives the threats. The only thing we can do is get ahead of this creep.”
“No, no, no, no. It’ll look like a premeditated thing. And I was there, at the murder scene. They’ll never believe me.”
“It’s the only move we’ve got. I’ll admit the whole notebook situation doesn’t look good. But we’ve cooperated with the detectives so far. They may be able to trace the texts to the killer. We might be able to get this guy. Trust me, please. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
I want to believe him. I look in his calming eyes, my body warming and melting beneath them like chocolate under a blazing sun. His face lowers. It’s so close to mine. His lips begin to purse, and for a split second, I wish for something harder than I’ve wished for anything.
But Gideon’s lips part, and he says, “I’d give anything to go back in time one week.”
My cheeks catch fire. It was a stupid wish. “Me too.”
“She’s really gone, Cass. And it’s our fault.”
“We didn’t kill Melody. But Brandon wants to make it look like we did. That’s why we can only trust each other from here on out.”
Gideon’s eyes fall. “Unless there’s more you’re hiding.”
My hands clench. “This is why I didn’t tell you.” I tear myself away and bend over to retrieve my shovel. “Are you going to help me look for the box, or not?”
He exhales and leads the way. A chill in the air whips through me, and I miss the warmth of his chest even more.
Gideon’s walk is determined, but he pauses to hold the larger branches aside for me as we travel deeper into the forest. The pine scent, the bickering, the shovels—everything seems just as it was when we were kids.
But now Melody’s ghost is hovering in the air between us.
“I feel like we should’ve been there by now,” I say. The shovel bounces off my shoulder repeatedly, bruising it. I want to snatch the map from him. Is he even going the right way?
“We’re close. Let me take that,” he says, reaching for my shovel. He heaves it over his shoulder, and it clanks against the one resting there. After several yards, he stops to survey the area. “It should be right around here.” He checks the map again. “Does this look familiar?”
“Yeah. That’s the thorny shrub of death over there,” I say, flicking my chin at it. “So up ahead. That’s the spot Brandon didn’t want me to search.” Sure enough, there’s the large white rock tucked within a cluster of trees. “Somewhere around here.” I point to a large patch of bare dirt and Gideon hands me a shovel. “This area’s a lot bigger up close. I hope we can dig it up before the funeral ends.”
“We don’t have to dig it all up.” He hefts his shovel higher onto his shoulder. “First we have to check for signs of disturbance. It’s rained some, which won’t help things. But we should be able to tell if he buried something here in the last couple of days.”
“Okay.” I examine the area, tiptoeing over the rocks and weeds.
Gideon sighs and points. “This part looks like it’s been touched.”
I push my shovel into the soil, and it sinks. “Yeah, this could be it.”
An hour later, the forest floor is strewn with mountains of earth. Craters are woven amid the peaks, making the area look like a foreign planet. My nostrils and lungs are coated in a fine layer of dirt. But there is no box.
Gideon taps me on the shoulder. “Cass, we have to get back. Your family thinks you’re in bed. They’ll worry, especially after what happened…”
“To Melody.” I scan the piles one last time before nodding. “You know what, you go. I’ll handle my family.”
“No, I’m walking you back. It’ll be dark soon, and you couldn’t even find your way out here in broad daylight.”
I slap a dirt-coated palm against my thigh. “Fine.” We grab our shovels and speed-walk out the way we came. “I guess I was wrong.” My head hangs as I walk. Gideon puts his free hand on my back, but my muscles tense.
“It’s okay, Cass. We can check Seth’s place.”
I wiggle out from under his hand. “I don’t mean wrong about Brandon! I mean I was wrong about where he hid the box.” We breach the edge of the forest and follow the back fence around to the side of my house. “We probably have a few minutes until they get back. Let’s sneak over to his house and try to get into his room. With both of us looking—”
But I don’t finish my sentence. Something snags our eyes as we round the corner of my house: my family’s gray sedan is parked in the driveway.
Reclining against hood of the car is Asher, and he doesn’t look pleased.
16
“What are you two doing?” Asher hisses, moving toward us. The freshly dry-cleaned scent of his black suit mingles with the breeze.
“I asked her to come with me,” Gideon says. “She was helping me bury my neighbor’s dog. She was old, the dog. And my neighbor. That’s why she needed help.”
My heart thunders in my chest. Still, my lips threaten to curl. Gideon loves to spin stories, but they’re usually grounded in truth. Listening to this outright lie is bizarrely comical coming from him. Especially since he’s trying it on Asher. I pick at my dirty fingernails.
“Right.” Asher’s tone is dubious. “But I thought Cass was sick.”