“Tempting. But I’d rather take the late bus.”
“Suit yourself,” Chase says, then saunters down the hall, his boots echoing long after he’s disappeared from my sight.
The next afternoon, I walk into the kitchen and find Maggie at the stove, stirring a pot of marinara sauce. I feel her eyes on me as I pour myself a glass of water.
“Ryan,” she says, her tone careful. “Do I need to worry about anything?”
I almost drop my glass in the sink. “What do you mean? Why would you worry?”
“Jazzy. She’s been acting weird all day. Keeps babbling on about this girls’ night at Gillian’s.”
Of course. Jasmine and her total inability to play it cool. She’s the one determined to go to the lumberyard tonight. You’d think she’d be able to be more chill about it andnotraise Maggie’s suspicions.
I force my face to stay neutral. “Why is that weird?”
“Last time she went on and on about some event, it’s because she was covering up that she was going to meet some forty-year-old off the internet.”
“Oh, right. Connor told me about that.” I offer a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. As far as I know, she isnotmeeting some gross middle-aged man tonight, considering I’m going to Gillian’s with her.”
Maggie gives me a look that feels too perceptive for comfort. “So you’re both going?”
I nod.
She stares at me, her gaze softening, but her fingers drum against the counter in a way that makes it clear she isn’t convinced. “You’d tell me if she were up to anything dangerous, right?”
Despite the guilt nearly choking me, I somehow keep my voice steady. “Of course.”
twenty-five
Loser Takes the Basement
The dirt road to the lumberyard is bumpy and narrow, overgrown with weeds that brush against the SUV like claws as we inch forward in the dark. The headlights cut through the trees, illuminating glimpses of rusted metal and rotting wood, but the rest of the yard is swallowed up in shadows. It looks abandoned. Forsaken. Like a place that never sees light.
“This place is so creepy,” I mutter, gripping the steering wheel tighter as we approach the open gate.
Jasmine rolls her eyes. “People come here all the time for bonfires and stuff. It’s not that creepy.”
To me, it is. The buildings and broken-down machinery loom in the distance. The closer we get, the quieter it becomes. No crickets, no birds, just the faint hum of the car engine. I slow down as we reach the main area, the beams of the headlights falling on empty concrete slabs and scraggly weeds pushing through cracks in the pavement.
I park, my heart pounding. Jasmine’s out of the car in an instant, already scoping the area, bouncing with excitement.
“Come on,” she urges, glancing back at me as I finally open my door. “Aren’t you even a little curious?”
I shiver as the cool air wraps around me. “Curious about what, exactly? Finding pieces of people?”
My cousin shrugs, pushing past an overturned wheelbarrow. “The police barely searched this place. They missed things. There’s no way they didn’t. And we don’t have to find, like, full-onbody partsor anything. But even a scrap of fabric, something that belonged to someone—that counts as information for the reward, right? If it leads to the bodies?”
I look around warily. Why did I ever agree to do this? This is the last way I want to spend my Saturday night. Or any night, for that matter.
But I know my cousin well now. She would’ve found a way to do this with or without me. Someone needs to be here to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. Or worse, get hurt.
“This is messed up, Jaz,” I say, keeping my voice low. “These were human beings.”
“Exactly.Were.” She sounds unfazed, even hopeful. I watch her pick her way over the gravel and into the shadows. “They’re already dead, Ryan. It’s not like we’re hurting anyone by looking.”
I peer past her at the hulking silhouettes of the abandoned lumber shed and rusted-out machinery. The uncomfortable ache in my stomach deepens as I scan the woods beyond.
Before I can voice any more doubts, Jasmine nudges me, pointing toward a small bungalow off to the side.
