“That’s okay. Everything helps.” His tone had softened, and she looked up. Having successfully nabbed her attention, he broke into a mischievous smile. “Where were you yesterday between the hours of six and seven p.m.?”
Her cheeks exploded with heat.
His grin widened.
“I was with your brother.” Makani cringed and crossed her arms. “He drove me home at six thirty, and then I made dinner with my grandma.”
“And where had Ollie driven you?”
She moaned somewhat dramatically.
“Might I remind you that I’m an officer of the law?”
He was flat-out teasing her, so Makani steeled herself with a wry, defeated smile. “I honestly don’t know. It was some random cornfield off 275, between here and Troy. We made out. He got a call from work, and then we left.”
Chris made another notation on his notepad.
Makani sat up a bit straighter. “Why? What did he say?”
“Same thing.” He looked pleased with himself. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
She actually laughed, which made him laugh, too. “Can I go now? Is this over?”
He waved for her to remain seated. “Almost.”
Makani rebraced in anticipation of the inevitably awkward next question—What are your intentions with my brother?—which she would not answer, so she was caught off guard when Chris asked, “How much hunting experience do you have?”
“None.” Her brow furrowed. “My dad used to take me fishing sometimes, but I was never really into it. Does that count?”
“Did you ever help him gut the fish?”
“No.”
“How much experience would you say that you have with a knife?”
The blood drained from Makani’s face. “W-why would you ask me that?”
Chris looked up from scribbling. He cocked his head. “Because the person we’re trying to find has a certain level of skill with a knife and knowledge of anatomy.”
“No.” Her voice trembled. “No.”
Thankfully, he must have jumped to the conclusion that she was upset by the reason for the question rather than the question itself. “You’re okay,” he assured her, tucking away his notepad. “That’s all we needed to know.”
Her heart was racing as he led her back into the hallway.
“I still have to interview the administrators, but at least you get to go home soon, huh?” Chris held out his hand. “Until we meet again.”
Makani shook it. She wanted to say that it was nice to meet him. Instead, she rushed into the restroom.
She was already crying as she burst into the first stall—not for a specific reason, but for all of them. She wished that she were in Hawaii having a normal senior year. She wished that she could have been the appropriate blend of charming and sad for Chris. She wished that there weren’t psychopaths who killed for pleasure and made the world feel unsafe. She wished that Ollie were her boyfriend, and that she could make out with him again, preferably as soon as possible. And she wished that she weren’t so selfish to wish for a boyfriend when two of her classmates were dead.
If she stayed here any longer, people might wonder. Makani swallowed her tears, dried her face with a scratchy paper towel, and exited the bathroom.
Ollie was leaning against the wall beside the drinking fountains. His eyes were dark with under-eye circles. “You got my brother.” It wasn’t a question.
“Officer Larsson requested me specifically.”
Ollie sighed.
“It was fine. He was nice.” Makani glanced around, but the hallway was empty. “Were you . . . waiting for me?” And then she noticed her backpack on the floor near his feet. “Why do you have that?”
“I asked Señora Washington if I could use the bathroom. She didn’t even notice when I grabbed our bags. I saw you go inside, so I waited.”
She’d been in there for over ten minutes. Panic floated to the surface, instantly accessible. “I was sitting. Just sitting. I didn’t want to go back to class.”
Ollie nodded.
“You should have knocked,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. They both knew that he would never have dared to knock on the door to the women’s restroom. Too many potential embarrassing outcomes.
“No, sorry.” Makani was exhausted and confused. None of this was making any sense. “But . . . why do you have my bag?”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“What?” She shook her head. It was like they were having two different conversations. “No, I’m not okay. Are you okay?”
Ollie smiled. “Not at all.”
Makani stared back at him until she erupted with helpless laughter. Tears returned to the corners of her eyes. “I have no idea what’s happening.”
“There are still twenty minutes until the final bell, but I’m leaving now.” Ollie picked up her backpack and held it out. “Want a ride?”
CHAPTER NINE
The only people who noticed their early departure were the reporters. They hovered like vultures between the campus and parking lot, waiting for the students to be let out for the weekend. Waiting for carrion. As Makani and Ollie neared, Makani’s spine stiffened. She lowered her head and walked faster. Ollie adjusted his speed to match.
The reporters erupted all at once: Did you know the victims? How would you describe the atmosphere inside the school today? Will this hurt your team’s chances in the playoffs? Microphones and cameras were jammed in their direction, and Makani angled her body away from the intrusion in the clearest possible signal, but a woman with a wall of hairsprayed bangs chased behind them anyway. “How does it feel to have lost two of your classmates in only three days?”
Makani focused on Ollie’s car at the far end of the lot.
“How does it feel to have lost two of your classmates in three days?”
Car, car, car, car, car, car, car—
A hand touched Makani’s shoulder, and she screamed. Her eyes looked manic with fright. The reporter stumbled backward into her cameraman, and Makani screamed again. The woman exclaimed something in confused anger, and suddenly Ollie stood between them shouting, “Get away from her! Get the fuck away from her!”
The cameraman placed a hand on the reporter’s arm, urging her back, but she wasn’t ready to yield. “You,” she said. “Pink hair. How does it feel—”
“How the fuck do you think it feels?”
The cameraman pleaded with the reporter. “They’re probably minors—”
Through the haze, Ollie reached for Makani. An arm slid around her back as he hustled her toward his car. Car, car, car, she thought. Car. He opened the passenger’s door, helped her inside, and ran to the driver’s side. All five of her senses were overloading. Instead of trying not to cry, Makani just tried not to sob.
She expected—maybe even wanted—him to tear out of the lot, but he exited cautiously and stuck to the speed limit. He turned left, away from the direction of her house, and drove until they reached the park near the elementary school.
The cruiser pulled over to a stop. Makani felt him trying to decide whether or not to lay a comforting hand on her arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her overreaction was blatant and humiliating. She had to lie. “I don’t know why . . .”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
She sniffled, rummaging through her backpack for tissues.
Ollie leaned over her to pop open the glove compartment. It was lined with crumpled napkins from an out-of-town KFC.
She accepted a wad and blew her nose. There was no attractive way to do it. She felt like a monster. “It’s been such a shitty day.”
“Such a shitty day.” He laughed once.
They sat in silence for a full minute. Makani stared out the window. The park was empty apart from a mom and toddler on the swings. “I don’t want to go home.” Her voice was weak and dispirited. “She’ll want me to rehash everything that happened at school today, but I don’t wanna talk about
it. I can’t think about it anymore.”
Ollie nodded. He understood that she was talking about her grandmother. “Where would you like to go?”
“Someplace quiet.”
So, Ollie took her to his house.
It was a twenty-minute drive, halfway between Osborne and East Bend on Highway 79, another lonely road of cornfields and cattle ranches. Every mile, they’d pass another highlighter-yellow billboard for the Martin Family Fun Corn Maze. A smiling family of cartoon redheads beamed at them from the top corner of each advertisement.
NEBRASKA’S LARGEST CORN MAZE! 5 MILES AHEAD!
PUMPKIN PATCH! 4 MILES AHEAD!
HAYRIDES! 3 MILES AHEAD!
PETTING ZOO! 2 MILES AHEAD!
CORN PIT! 1 MILE AHEAD!
“What’s a corn pit?” Makani already felt lighter, knowing that she had a few hours’ respite ahead of her. She’d texted Darby that Ollie was driving her home, and she’d texted Grandma Young that Darby was taking her to his house. Neither seemed pleased, but they’d each correctly assumed that she needed a distraction from the news.
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Ollie said. “A giant pit of corn kernels.”
“Okay. But what does one do with a corn pit?”
He glanced at her with a smile. “You know those ball pits at McDonald’s? It’s like that, but bigger. A lot bigger. It’s pretty fun,” he admitted. “Now, the petting zoo. That’s what I could do without. When the wind blows just right . . .”
Makani laughed as circus-like flags appeared through the fields. They passed the sprawling maze and a massive dirt parking lot, which was mostly vacant. “Does anyone actually come here?”
“It’s packed on the weekends. People drive in from Omaha and Lincoln. And it’s loud. You can hear it in my house. On Saturdays, they even have a polka band. When our windows are open, I’ll often find my feet tapping to the belch of their tuba.”
She laughed again. “I’m still imagining you swimming in the corn pit.”
Ollie kept his eyes ahead, but they twinkled. Or maybe gleamed.
He turned onto the next road. A gentle hill broke up the flatness of the surrounding earth. It was the hushed, eerie beauty of Willa Cather country, a century later. Sophomore year, she’d been assigned to read O Pioneers! in English class, and the familiar descriptions of the land had comforted her. They’d reminded her of visiting her favorite grandmother. Little did she know that, soon enough, she’d be living here.
The novel no longer held any appeal. It wasn’t fictional anymore.
A house in the distance grew bigger, and Makani realized that the road was Ollie’s driveway. His house was white, like hers, but peeling and weatherworn. It was a Victorian Gothic Revival—a style that was growing obsolete in these parts—with three dramatically arched windows under three steeply pitched roof points. Twin columns framed a modest covered porch. The expansive yard was unkempt and overgrown.
Makani was grateful that she didn’t believe in ghosts; she only believed in the ghostlike quality of painful memories. And she was sure this house had plenty.
Not everything about it was gloomy, however. As she stepped out of the car, a set of wind chimes jangled in the breeze and two large ferns swayed on chains from opposite ends of the porch. They were dead from the early frosts. But proof of recent habitation.
Ollie shot her a nervous glance. “Home sweet home.”
Had he ever brought home a girl before, or was this something new for him? Something potentially vulnerable? On the disintegrating coir welcome mat, a single word was barely visible: LARSSON.
The younger Larsson unlocked the front door, which opened into a large, dim, and dusty room. “I know.” He sighed. “It looks like a haunted house.”
Makani held up two innocent hands. “I didn’t say a word.”
He led her inside with a tight smile. The floors were old hardwood, and the boards groaned with each step. Makani waited in the threshold while Ollie threw open the curtains. Sparkling dust motes caught in the sudden light as the living room was revealed to be more homelike, more normal, than anticipated. She couldn’t help feeling relieved. The rugs, lamps, and hardware seemed to be a mixture of Victorian reproductions and actual Victorian antiques, but the sectional sofa was firmly from this century.
Though . . . there was something about the space. It possessed an unnatural amount of stillness. Everything appeared unruffled. Unused.
“Would you like something to drink?” Ollie asked. “We have water, orange juice, Coke—well, it’s not Coca-Cola, it’s the off-brand Coke—”
Makani laughed, because he’d remembered. “Water’s fine.”
“Tap water? Ice? No ice?”
She trailed behind him through the adjoining dining room, which was also murky and untouched. Ollie moved like a creature of habit. “Whichever’s more work for you,” she called out, even though the temperature inside wasn’t much warmer than it had been outside. She didn’t want ice.
At least the kitchen was brighter. Much brighter. Curtainless windows looked out upon the sweeping fields, and the maze’s flags waved merrily in the distance. Ollie’s kitchen, though not as clean as Grandma Young’s, was less dusty than the other rooms, and the dishes had been recently washed and were drying on a rack. And while the cabinetry and furniture didn’t look exactly modern, they didn’t look Victorian, either.
A shadow lurched out from the floorboards.
Makani shrieked as a small dog with a speckled, bluish-gray coat skittered and stumbled toward Ollie.
Laughing, he kneeled to greet the intruder. “Hey, Squidward.”
For the second time in an hour, she’d completely lost her shit. Makani felt embarrassed, all over again. “Sorry. I didn’t know you had a dog.”
“Blue heeler.” Ollie smiled as he rubbed its head. “Back when we adopted him, I was a big SpongeBob fan. Now he’s deaf and almost blind. He sleeps most of the day—that’s why he didn’t notice when we came in.” Squidward leaned against him, as if he were using Ollie to keep himself upright. “How are you, buddy?”
Makani squatted to pet him. “Is he friendly?”
“If you let him sniff your hand first, you’ll be fine.”
Squidward himself kind of smelled, but Makani didn’t mind. His fur was coarse, almost waxy. But it felt nice to be petting a dog and even nicer to be this close to Ollie.
“Do you have a dog? Back home?” Ollie looked aside as he added this second question, aware of how infrequently she spoke of her past.
But dogs were a safe subject. Makani shook her head as Squidward rolled onto his back. “My mom claims she’s allergic. Really, she just thinks they’re too messy.”
“We have a cat, too. She’s probably outside right now.”
“Sandy Cheeks?”
He grinned. “Raven.”
“Ah. A much cooler name.”
“Not necessarily. At the time, I had a massive crush on Raven-Symoné.”
Makani laughed.
Ollie rubbed Squidward’s belly. “I have no idea why my parents let me name our pets.”
“Because, clearly, your parents were awesome.” But she flinched as soon as it came out. Was it okay to mention them? Although, he was the one who brought them up.
And now he was nodding in agreement.
It occurred to her that perhaps Ollie appreciated the acknowledgment of his parents. Perhaps it was harder when people went out of their way to avoid talking about them—when they pretended like his parents had never existed in the first place.
Makani often pretended like hers didn’t exist. At her grandmother’s insistence, she called her mother once a week and her father every other week. They didn’t even know what was happening here, because, until this moment, she hadn’t thought to tell them. Her parents always spent the too-long calls complaining about each other.
Ollie washed the dog off his hands and grabbed two burritos from the freezer. He held them up for her. They were both bean and cheese. “O
ne or two?”
Makani longed for a piping hot bowl of saimin, a noodle dish so common back home that it was on the menu at McDonald’s. Osborne didn’t even have a non-saimin McDonald’s. But burritos were decent. Better than whatever she’d be making for dinner with her grandmother. “One, please,” she said. “Thanks.”
He slipped off their wrappers, hesitated, and then grabbed another burrito for himself. All three went into the microwave.
As she scratched behind Squidward’s ears, Makani stared at a faded photograph on the refrigerator. Ollie’s parents stood in front of Old Faithful. Their arms were around each other, and they were smiling as the geyser sprayed above their heads like a whale’s blowhole. His father’s smile was farmer-stiff, but his mother looked carefree.
Beside it was a photo of Ollie and his brother. Ollie looked old enough to be in high school, but he was still younger than she’d ever known him. His hair was an odd, streaky green, and he was wince-laughing as Chris pulled him into a forced hug. She wondered if their parents were already dead and who had taken the picture.
“I tried to dye it blue.” Like always, Ollie had been watching her. “One of the first lessons that you learn in school—yellow and blue make green—and I forgot.”
“You look like a mermaid. A sad, pubescent mermaid.”
Ollie froze. And then he covered his face, shaking his head in disbelief. “That might be the actual worst thing that anyone has ever said to me.”
“No!” As Makani burst into laughter, she smiled with all her teeth. “I mean, I stand by my assessment. But I swear I have pictures that are just as bad. Worse, even.”
“I demand proof.”
“Fair enough. The next time you’re at my house, take a peek under my bed.”
Ollie blinked. And then his eyebrows rose, perhaps at the mention of her bed.
“Seventh-grade swim team.” Makani shuddered as she recalled her flat chest, gawky posture, and unflattering suit. “Let’s leave it at that.”
The microwave let out an extensive series of beeps. As Ollie removed the steaming burritos, he glanced at her. “You’re a swimmer?”
Shit.
She couldn’t believe it had slipped out. Since the age of seven, she’d dived competitively, but her grandmother was the only person here who knew it. Osborne didn’t even have a swim team. And even if it did, those days had passed.