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His words run through me. If they don’t believe me, why are they telling us to stay inside? Why are they acting like we might be in danger?
“Do you think he’s still around here?” I ask.
“I don’t know what to think, ma’am,” he says, taking a step toward the door. “But I’ll tell you this, we’re going to find out the truth about tonight.”
Somehow, his words feel more like a warning than a reassurance.
CHAPTERTEN
No one can sleep.
I guess there’s no surprise there. I half expected everyone to agree with the police, that I’d somehow imagined what I saw. That I was wrong or drunk or…God, high somehow from the second-hand smoke off of Austin’s joint.
I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t say each of those thoughts hasn’t run through my head as well. No matter what anyone says, I know what I saw. Iknowit.
I just have to figure out how to prove it.
The man must’ve taken her body somewhere. But where? I don’t know anything about them, but the woods seem like the most obvious place. Could he be hiding out there right now?
I glance toward the window as the rain sets in, a bolt of lightning illuminating the sky and giving the room an even more sinister vibe.
We’re all in the living room—the girls on the couch on either side of me, and Austin, Memphis, and Logan in the armchairs. We each have our books, but no one is even pretending to read.
It’s too terrifying.
The police have all left, aside from a single squad car that was parked along the side of the road last time we checked, which, if I had to guess, was about seven minutes ago.
I suppose it should make me feel safer that the police are hanging around in case the man returns, but I can’t forget the way the officers looked at me. I know they suspect I’m wrong, at best, or lying about something, at worst.
I’m worried I’m going to have made the man mad. That he’s going to try to hurt me when the police tell him I called them. Will they give him my name? Will he come after me? How far will he go to keep me quiet when I’ve already told the police everything?
And, more than anything else, I’m worried about the woman. I can’t get the look in her eyes when she fell to the floor, the blood coating her shirt and skin, out of my mind. These aren’t the sort of things you sleep after.
When my phone begins to ring from where it rests on the coffee table in front of me, everyone in the room turns to look at it. I lean down to see the caller ID, which readsDavis County Sheriff’s Office.
I lift my phone, preparing myself for the worst—that they’ve found the body or that they’re going to arrest me for filing a supposedly fake police report—and swipe my thumb across the screen. “Hello?”
“Lena Ortega?” I recognize Officer Montgomery’s voice at once.
“Yes.”
“This is Officer Montgomery. We spoke earlier.”
“Yes, I remember.” My body is ice cold.
“I’m calling to let you know we were able to reach the owners of the house next door.”
“You were?” He saidowners.Plural. I didn’t miss that.
“I’m happy to report they are both alive and well. They’re out of town and have been for quite some time.”
“That’s impossible,” I say softly, half convinced I’ve fallen asleep and this is a dream. A nightmare I can’t wake up from. “Did you speak to both of them? He could’ve been lying—”
“I spoke to Mrs. Hawthorne first, then her husband, yes. They assured me that they are fine and out of town. They also confirmed there’s been no one staying at their house. So, no one is quite sure what you think you saw, but I want to reassure you that it was nothing. Everything is fine.”
I shake my head. “It’s…no. I know what I saw. I couldn’t have imagined all of this. Seeing them two different times. And seeing…what I saw tonight. No. There were people staying in that house. A couple. A man and a woman. We saw them twice before tonight.”
Around me, everyone is leaning closer, trying to understand what I’m being told.
