Page 63 of Within These County Lines

Xander watches me, his lips curving into the faintest smile.

“You want more?”

I crisscross my room, searching for anything else with Murray’s fingerprints on it. My corsage from senior prom sits on my nightstand, its once-white petals now dry and shriveled. I bring it to my nose before launching it into the can like a basketball.

Next, I slide open the top drawer of my dresser and remove a thick stack of birthday, Valentine’s, and Christmas cards. Murray’s sloppy handwriting is scrawled across each one. They land in the trash pile.

Then I make for the stuffed animals.

“Goodbye, Pink Teddy,” I say, grabbing the bear’s squishy bicep and tossing it into the closet. The impact rattles the hangers against the metal rod.

“So long, Rainbow Dolphin. Later, Pointless Pikachu. Bye, Simba. See ya, Mr. Caterpillar. I always thought you were creepy anyway.”

Xander giggles.

I clap my hands and slam the closet door closed. “Consider him gone.”

Xander exhales. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“I’m not upset at all.” I roll my shoulders back. “I feel great, actually. You were right.”

Xander kneels beside my bulletin board and runs his fingers along the empty cork. “You should bring this with you to Tennessee. Cover it with pictures of us.”

I raise an eyebrow. “We need pictures of us first.”

He grins. “We can change that too.”

The laptop dings as the photos from the archives finish uploading. We both turn toward the sound. The glow from the screen becomes the only light source in the room as a late afternoon storm darkens the sky outside.

“Should we look at these first?” I ask, nodding at the laptop. “And have our photo shoot another time?”

“Deal,” Xander says, twisting a curl between his fingers before pointing toward the window. “The electricity in the atmosphere is making my hair static anyway.”

I want to run my hand through his curls, to feel their charge, but instead, I climb onto my bed and keep my hands busy at the keyboard. Xander follows, just like last time. But he’s closer. This time, it’s not just our knees bumping, but our arms, hips, thighs, and calves. Even our toes nearly touch. He catches me glancing down at the small gap and, without a word, tilts his foot sideways until his baby toe brushes mine.

He doesn’t speak, just exhales softly, the warmth of his breath landing on the side of my neck.

Outside, the wind picks up, cracking my plastic blinds against the wooden sill.

I try to focus on the laptop screen, but my hands are shaky as I open the downloaded folder. Dozens of files appear. Xander’s long, tan finger moves across the screen as he counts them. He sighs. “We have enough documents to write an entire history book on Thaddy Daddy.”

“Hopefully chapter one has all the answers.”

I double-click the first image. It’s the same illustration of Thaddeus Gregor and his four adult children. They look like any other colonial family from a high school textbook. I press the arrow key to flip through the files at rapid speed.

“Wait,” Xander says, nudging me. “You’re going too fast. Go back. I read a lot, but I can’t read that fast.”

“I’m looking for a drawing without the other girl so we can see when she disappeared,” I explain, licking my lips as I continue clicking. “We need to figure out the order of events. Once we have the date we can—”

“But you already skipped something important.” Xander pushes my hand aside and smacks the left arrow key so hard my thighs vibrate from the force. “It’s not always about numbers, Stetson. Look past the obvious.”

I blink at the screen. It’s a rough black-and-white sketch of an old woman hunched under the weight of a pile of sticks, or hay, or firewood. Her shadow stretches across an open field.

“I don’t recognize her from the family pictures,” I say. I read the caption:

Abigail Mattson upon the Gregor Preserve after fleeing her home in Ridley Township, now Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

Xander’s fingers tighten around my arm just as rain starts to patter against the window.