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“Not until she tells me where Patrick is,” Emily said. “She must know what happened to him. Why else would she be so upset?”

“Do you think the four of you are the center of our lives? She can’t be upset about anything but your friend? Leave us alone.”

“I need to know what happened to Patrick!” I cried.

“How would she know?” Linda put her hands under Jordan’s arms and coaxed her to a standing position.

Jordan pulled away from her mother, still whimpering softly. “I had to bury them.”

My heart began thudding so fast, I pressed my hands to my chest, as if I could calm it. This couldn’t be happening. I refused to believe it. Seeing Todd dead was horrible enough. But I didn’t love Todd. Patrick was… “Them?” My voice was so soft—a hoarse whisper—I wasn’t sure if she heard me.

“The rabbits.”

I wanted to laugh. Laugh and cry at the same time. She couldn’t be serious.

“The coyotes got them,” she said.

“Rabbits?” I asked.

“We want to know about Patrick,” Emily said.

“They looked so sad, so pathetic. It broke my heart. But I had to bury them. The sticks I found to dig with kept breaking, so I used my hands to dig two little graves.”

“Oh.” At least this gave me hope that Patrick might be okay. She hadn’t been burying my husband with her bare hands.

“It was the worst thing ever. Those sweet, sweet bunnies.” She put her hands over her face.

I’d never seen anyone so devastated over the deaths of a few small animals. It was absolutely sad, and if I’d seen them, I would have felt terrible. But I wouldn’t have sobbed uncontrollably or lost my will to speak. I wouldn’t have collapsed on the ground. And I couldn’t imagine digging graves with my bare hands. Once again, I found myself wondering if she was seriously unstable. She said she felt unsafe in our house, but I was starting to feel decidedly unsafe around her.

“Did you see Patrick when you were… out there?”

She nodded. “He helped me bury the rabbits.”

Emily flashed a relieved smile at me.

“You saw him?” I asked. “He’s been missing since⁠—”

“We know,” Jordan said.

“Where did he go?” Emily asked.

Jordan shrugged, then began crying again.

And now, I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth after all. Would she really be this distraught over a few rabbits? The story seemed a little off. Did I believe that Patrick ran into her crying over two animals, offered to help her bury them, and disappeared again? Maybe she’d said that because it was meant to delay us looking for him. Maybe all that grief was guilt.

THIRTY-SEVEN

SAMANTHA

Linda turned away from us. She put her arm around her daughter and began guiding her back toward their house. Jordan was resistant, pulling away from her, trying to shrug Linda’s arm off her shoulders, refusing to move her feet more than a few inches at a time.

“Wait,” I said. “Where did Patrick go after he helped you?”

“I dunno,” Jordan mumbled.

Sensing someone watching us I glanced at the front porch of our house. Keith stood in front of the open front door. When he saw me glance at him, he closed the door and walked down the steps. Emily had moved closer to Jordan, trying to block Linda’s way so she couldn’t drag Jordan away from us.

“What’s going on?” Keith asked.