Less than an hour later, they gave up on pretending. The air was dewy and cold, and Ollie lent Makani his hoodie for warmth. It comforted her to remain embraced by his scent. When they shuffled into the kitchen, Chris was already in uniform and making coffee. Neither party was surprised to find the other awake. Chris looked as unrested and shell-shocked as Makani felt. Her eyes darted to the cabinets and drawers. They were closed.
How many times had David broken into her house? Her sluggish thoughts tried to recall each separate invasion. It usually happened when they were asleep. Had it ever happened when they were awake? Which was worse?
Squidward looked up from licking his bowl. His tags jangled as he moseyed up beside Ollie and followed them to the sunshine-yellow breakfast table. The seat cushions were upholstered in matching yellow vinyl. Thankfully, Chris hadn’t left behind any folders. Makani wasn’t ready to see the blood spatter inside her own house.
“So,” Chris said. “I got up in the middle of the night to pee.”
Makani and Ollie stiffened.
Chris thunked down an empty mug in front of Ollie. “You’re sleeping in my room tonight, bro.” More gently, he placed a second mug in front of Makani. It was a similar shade of bright yellow, and it contained SpongeBob’s goofy, bucktoothed face. “I refuse to ignite your grandma’s wrath when she gets out of the hospital.”
Their eyes affixed on the Formica tabletop. They nodded.
Chris opened his mouth to say something. He hesitated. “You guys are using protection of some kind, right?”
Ollie buried his fingers in his pink hair. “Jesusfuckingchrist.”
“Answer the question, and we’ll never speak of it again.” Chris paused. “Unless, you need me to buy—”
“Yes.”
Chris held up his hands. “Good. We’re done here.”
Makani’s cheeks burned. She was already thinking about the similar conversation that she’d be forced to have with her grandmother. Somehow, she doubted Grandma Young would keep it so brief.
The coffee finished brewing, and Chris filled their mugs. No one mentioned food, because no one had an appetite. They stared at the rising vapors.
“So,” Makani said. “He’s still out there.”
Because Chris would have told them, otherwise. The table only had two chairs, so he was slumped against the counter. “Last night, a K-9 unit tracked him to the fields surrounding the school, but they lost the trail when it hit the river. Maybe if we were a bigger town—if we hadn’t needed to call up the unit from Lincoln—we would have found him before he reached water.” His head hung as if it weighed heavily upon his shoulders. “The team’s still searching, though. They’re trying to pick up his trail again somewhere along the banks.”
Makani imagined the predator slinking through the fields in his cornstalk-colored camouflage. A lion in wait.
Chris’s voice firmed. “We’ll get him soon. He can’t hide for much longer.”
Outside the windows, the fields were hushed and still.
“I know you answered a million of our questions last night,” he said, “and I know you don’t really know the guy, but what did you think about him, before all this? What was your general impression?”
Makani was surprised when she couldn’t think of a reply.
“Anything,” Chris said. “It might be useful.”
“I guess . . . nothing. He was just a nothing guy, you know? Kind of a redneck. Scrawny. I’ve never really noticed any defining or distinguishing features.” Makani tried to picture David at school. She tried to picture the version of David that wasn’t inside her house. “It’s like . . . he’s all one color. Sandy-blond hair, tannish skin. They blend together. I don’t remember his eyes. Maybe he has a weak chin?”
“Okay. But appearance aside, what kind of person was he?”
“Quiet?” She shrugged and then glanced at Ollie with a laugh. “Not as quiet as him, though.”
Ollie gave her a small but knowing smile.
His brother also cracked a smile. “What else?”
“We sat near each other in a few classes. Alphabetical order. Ware, Young. I never took much notice of him, but he seemed smart enough.”
“Can you explain why he gave you that impression?”
It was another hard question. “I guess because he always had a quick response—to jokes or whatever. And he listened and watched. Paid attention. He had a large group of friends, and I figured Rodrigo was his best friend, but maybe that’s only because they sat near me in physics, so sometimes I overheard their conversations.”
“What’d they talk about?”
“Tech stuff. Boring. I didn’t understand most of it.” Her arms folded over her stomach. “I still can’t believe that he killed his own friend. You guys are sure he’s working alone?”
“An imprint of a boot was left behind at the Moraleses’ house,” Chris said, and she nodded as if Ollie hadn’t already told her. “It’s David’s size, and his parents confirmed that he wears the brand. They’re missing from his closet. Combined with everything else we know, it seems unlikely that he’s working with a partner.”
Ollie traced his finger along the handle of his mug. “How did Rodrigo’s parents react when they learned that it was David?”
“Bev gave them the news last night.” Chris shook his head. “Said they appeared to be genuinely shocked. They told her that David had always been polite and respectful—more so than some of Rodrigo’s other friends—and that he seemed like a normal teenage boy. Hell, they’ve known him since Montessori preschool.”
“What about David’s parents?” Makani asked.
“Chief questioned them all night, and the sheriff’s guys are helping us search their property just outside of town. But they seem decent. Hard working, churchgoing. Their families go way back in Sloane County on both sides, and all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins still live here. Dad had a disorderly conduct charge for public urination, but that was almost twenty years ago. And, apparently, he took David deer hunting every November, which explains a few things. But it’s not unusual.”
Not unusual for here, Makani thought.
“From what I heard,” he continued, “David’s parents were blindsided.”
Ollie’s brows knitted together in doubt. He was still fiddling with the mug.
“I’m sure it’s hard for you to believe,” Chris said, a familiar wryness to his voice, “but parents don’t always know what their kids are up to.”
“Then they should ask,” Ollie said.
“They should. But sometimes kids lie.”
Ollie’s index finger stopped.
“But . . . you’re right.” Chris looked away. It was an attempt to defuse the old tension of him being a stand-in parent. Makani had only heard hints about the fights that had occurred since Chris had moved back home, but she did know it had taken them a few years to adjust to their circumstances. “Sometimes, parents are just shitty.”
“If they’re hiding anything,” Ollie said, lifting his head to extend his own peace offering, “you’ll find it.”
Arduous days required scrupulous planning. Chris announced that he would escort them to Makani’s house so she could grab some clothes and toiletries. After that, he’d go to work, and Ollie would drive her to the hospital. In the afternoon, Ollie would go to work, and she’d remain behind with her grandmother. And then when Ollie’s shift ended, he’d pick her up, and they would all converge again at the Larsson house.
The brothers offered her the first shower. She’d rinsed off her skin in the sink last night, so she declined with a secret shudder. There was no way these white boys had the right hair products. She could wait another hour until she was home.
While Ollie showered, Makani faced the reality of her phone. In addition to a slew of new texts from Darby and Alex, unexpected messages had arrived from the student-council president and from Haley’s best friend. Being president had given Katie access to her number, and Brooke had go
tten it through Darby. Their texts were supportive and kind, but Makani couldn’t deal with trying to form any polite responses right now.
She listened to her voicemail instead. Her father said that he’d heard what had happened from her mother, and to give him a call sometime. There was no urgency to this request.
There was also no missed call from her mother.
Principal Stanton had left a voicemail, which was awkward, and there was another from Tamara Schuyler at the Omaha World-Herald, which was unsettling. Despite their claims, Makani knew the type of journalist who hounded a minor post-trauma wasn’t interested in that minor’s well-being.
They were only interested in the salacious story.
Chris flashed his lights—whoop whoop—so that their cars could maneuver through the crowd. Grandma Young’s yard had become a staging area for the media. The local truck, Omaha trucks, and cable news trucks were parked side by side with Dateline and 48 Hours. There’d been a mass shooting at a university in Florida with eleven dead and six injured. There’d been a suicide bomber at a shopping mall in Istanbul with thirteen dead and twenty-seven injured. Yesterday’s headlines were terrifying, but they were also so terrifyingly commonplace that the eyes of the country had turned to Osborne.
Tendons knotted inside Makani’s shoulders. It was bizarre to see all the lights on in the windows when neither she nor her grandmother were home. How many strangers had prowled through their house in the hours since the attack?
How many hours had he prowled through it?
Makani wondered if an element of sexual perversion coexisted with David’s breaking and entering. Did he watch her—through the slats of her closet door, from underneath her bed—while she changed? Did it get him off?
They parked in the congested driveway behind three other police vehicles. It felt as if a spotlight were following them as they exited and jostled through the shouting mob. Makani was still wearing Ollie’s hoodie, shrouded under its black hood. Thinking about the hood hurtled her mind back to David.
Where was he hiding now?
Makani stared at her house, and her legs suddenly grew rigid.
Ollie’s fingers clasped through hers. It was the first time that they’d held hands for anyone to see. Tethered to his grip, she felt safe. They ran together.
Inside, the situation was quiet and grim. Hideous bloodstains soiled the living room carpet. Smeary red handprints glazed the front window and door. It felt chillingly empty without the tick of the grandfather clock. The heart of the house was dead.
Makani listened in as Sergeant Beemer, a stout man with a bulbous nose, updated Chris with the latest. Splinters of painted wood from where David had been jimmying open the downstairs bathroom window had been discovered on the ground outside. The bathroom was located directly below Makani’s bedroom, and the overgrown viburnum, which blocked the window’s view, showed signs of having been trampled.
“The bush is right beside the water spigot. David’s foot probably got tangled in the garden hose during one of his exits.” The sergeant sniffed his ruddy nose. “It’d explain all the snapped branches.”
A shiver rattled down Makani’s spine. She knew exactly when David had snagged his foot. It happened the day after Haley’s murder, while she’d been waiting for Ollie to call. She’d thought it was the neighbor’s cat.
Makani imagined a hooded figure climbing into her grandmother’s bathroom. Hiding in her shower. Peering through her private things.
And it was impossible not to keep imagining him as she closed her bathroom door and stepped into her own shower. Behind the clear vinyl curtain, she became Janet Leigh in Psycho. The shampoo stung her eyes, because she was too afraid to close them. Even with her eyes wide-open, she still saw the silhouette of a young man with a knife.
Ollie is right there. Right outside the door.
But Ollie had also been nearby when David had attacked her.
There’s an entire squadron of cops downstairs.
But downstairs was so far away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Wouldn’t that time be better spent looking for him?” Grandma Young cut someone off. “I know. I know about the search parties. I just don’t understand why we can’t all focus on capturing him first.”
Makani and Ollie paused outside her door. It was a phone call—and not a pleasant one. Makani’s heart swelled to hear Grandma Young sounding like herself, but they decided to wait in the hallway until the call ended. They didn’t have to wait long.
“I can’t believe you would ask that of her. It hasn’t even been one day.”
They heard a handset fall against a hard plastic receiver and realized she’d been using the hospital’s telephone, which made sense. Her cell was still in their bag.
Makani knocked twice and peeked inside.
Grandma Young’s energy and skin tone had improved over the night, though her posture remained exhausted. But when she shifted her gaze and saw them, she perked up. “I thought you were another nurse. Come here! Let me see you.”
“How are you feeling? Who was that?” Makani kissed her cheek and then reached for the phone to place it correctly onto the receiver. It was hanging slightly off.
“Leave it. I did that on purpose. Already been too many calls this morning.”
“Reporters,” Makani said. They wouldn’t hesitate to harass someone who’d been hospitalized.
“Oh, no. Well. Yes.” She huffed. “But that was just someone from church.”
It wasn’t how those calls usually sounded. Makani frowned. “Who?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Grandma Young motioned for her to sit. “Show me your arm. Did I see it last night? I can hardly remember your visit.”
Makani snuggled in on the side without all the wires and tubes. She’d changed into a clean pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and her surfer-floral hoodie. Ollie had resumed custody of his black hoodie. She’d been disappointed to return it.
“I’m fine, see? It was only a scratch.” She lifted her sleeve to reveal the bottom of the bandage, expecting her grandmother to demand to see the rest. But the painkillers must have been pretty hardcore, because she accepted the partial reveal as the whole truth. The call seemed important, so Makani tried again. “What did they want?”
Grandma Young squirmed. Adjusted her position. “The town is planning some sort of memorial for the victims.”
Makani glanced at Ollie, who’d taken a seat in the recliner. He gave her a small shake of his head, equally in the dark.
“It’s happening this afternoon on Main Street,” Grandma Young said, withholding eye contact. “The idea is that people are tired of being afraid, and fear didn’t prevent the previous attacks, so we might as well go outside and support one another.”
“But that sounds like a good thing,” Makani said. “That sounds . . .”
“Brave,” Ollie said.
“Yeah. Like those Parisians who went back to the cafés after the terrorist attacks.”
Grandma Young’s gaze snapped up. “It is brave. But if everyone put this much effort into the search, he’d be handcuffed by sundown. And then we could celebrate.”
Handcuffed by sundown sounded very John Wayne, but Makani was more concerned by that last word. “Celebrate?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I just think the memorial can wait.” Grandma Young was talking faster, agitated. Something else about this was bothering her.
“I don’t know. I think it’d be nice to honor Haley and Matt and Rodrigo—”
“They want you to speak,” she said. “The town. They want you to stand up in front of all those people and cameras and be their mascot.”
Makani shriveled with revulsion. Now she understood.
“It’ll happen over my dead body,” Grandma Young said. “And I’m hard to kill.”
Ollie burst into unexpected laughter. He covered his mouth with a hand, but Makani and her grandmother finally broke into smiles. He gestured to a cloth tote bag. “Hey,”
he said. “We brought a few things to cheer you up.”
“Oh, yeah!” Makani slid off the bed, and they withdrew each item one-by-one like gifts. Purse, robe, pajamas, blanket, toiletries, phone, books, puzzle. All the comforts of Grandma Young’s home. None of the carnage.
Makani’s other home called around noon. Her mother’s first inquiry was, “Are you okay?” It was an encouraging start, but the follow-up was, “I just can’t believe it. There’s always something with you, isn’t there?”
Makani had always been a fleck of sand in the eyes of this person who was supposed to love her unconditionally. She was an irritation, a nuisance.
“Now, I’ll have to fly to the mainland to babysit you while your grandmother—”
“Where were you yesterday, Mom? The police and the hospital tried calling you for hours. I tried calling you.”
“Your father and I were in court. I called everyone back the moment I got home, which is more than he did, by the way.” She didn’t seem to be aware that everyone had not included her daughter. Nor was she interested in hearing her daughter’s version of events as she launched directly into her travel plans. She would be in Osborne next week, probably. She had an important presentation at work—or maybe it was something related to the divorce proceedings, Makani’s hearing had dimmed—that couldn’t be missed.
“And now, look. Look what you’re doing to me.”
“I’m sorry, Mom—”
“I can’t deal with you right now.”
Silence. Makani stared at the blinking number on her phone. Three minutes and fourteen seconds. She’d almost been killed, and her mother had given her three minutes and fourteen seconds. And she’d turned it into her problem.
Of course it was about her. It was always about her.
But Makani felt unexpectedly devastated. The phone trembled in her hand. She hadn’t realized that her mother could still hurt her like this.
Ollie stared at her, unable to hide the empathetic sorrow from his usually reserved expression. Something about that was painful, too.