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Jesse shifts his weight again, avoiding eye contact.
“Who do you think it was?” Rhett presses.
“I don’t know—honestly, I don’t know.”
“Then tell us whatever it is you’re holding back.”
Jesse takes a deep breath and suddenly seems much younger than his twenty-eight years. The guy is totally lost, floating aimlessly in a life that he hates. I feel sorry for him.
“There’s this abandoned house…” he says with a touch of reluctance. “At the end of the cul-de-sac in my neighborhood, Deep Shadows. I’ve seen my dad go into it a few times.”
“Into the abandoned house?”
“Right. After dark, like, in the middle of the night.”
“Did you go with him?”
“No. I followed him. Saw him sneaking out one night and wondered what the hell he was doing. The next few nights I stayed awake, hoping to catch him again and I did. He went in through the back door of the house, came out an hour later, and went back to bed like it was no big deal. Anyway, the next morning I broke into the house. I wasn’t two steps inside when I heard someone shuffling around inside. I called out just as someone ran out the back door.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“No.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so. It was dark as shit. But they definitely heard my voice.”
Rhett looks at me.
What is the town doctor up to?
“Anyway,” Jesse continues, “it was the next night that somebody in a black mask was waiting for me outside the pool hall with the letters. Coincidence? I don’t know.”
“Could it have been your dad?”
“No way, dude, I would know him. I would recognize the shape of his body, the way he moved—no way.”
I step forward. “So you think whoever was in that abandoned house is the same person who approached you at Benji’s?”
“I don’t know—I’m just telling you it was a weird coincidence. I saw somebody in that abandoned house and the next night, I get a handful of letters to deliver to Sylvia Stone.”
Our attention turns to two squirrels racing up the treetop next to us, fighting viciously over a nut. Loud squeaks and screams like nails on a chalkboard.
Rhett pulls a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and hands it to Jesse.
Jesse’s eye round, as do mine.
“Stay safe,” Rhett says. “And don’t be stupid.”
Jesse takes the hundred-dollar bill, staring at Rhett in disbelief.
“… Thank you.”
18
Sylvia
We’re in a race against dusk as we speed to Deep Shadows, the neighborhood that is quickly becoming a hot spot of clues.
