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The man introduced himself first to Mary Albright. “Lieutenant Halloway.” He reached for his notepad on the passenger seat of the 4x4. “We have a missing person to report?”
Behind the lieutenant, three—no, four—people stepped out of the second vehicle. They slammed doors as they gathered supplies, thenslung packs over their shoulders and pulled headlamps over their heads, the bulbs clicking on one by one. The thin beams of artificial light bounced haphazardly over the drive as the people moved about, and twice, Meg had to squeeze her eyes shut as a rogue glare hit her straight in the face.
“The kids know more about it,” Mary answered, and the man’s attention fell directly on them. The temptation to lay it all out there, away from where it ate at her insides, appealed in a way that made Meg’s stomach ache.
“It’s our friend Jessica Howard,” Silas said.
The lieutenant readied his notepad, pen poised. “Age? Description?”
Danny jumped in. “She’s eighteen. Same as us.” He paused, and the lieutenant stared at him, wanting more. He looked sympathetic, but something else, too. Insistent. Danny cast a look, resentful and dark, at Meg and Silas, like,A little help here?When no assistance was forthcoming, he blurted, “She and Silas were sort of dating.”
This got the lieutenant’s attention, and he swiveled to Silas. “You were together?”
“No,” Meg interjected. Because that wasn’t right. The guy shouldn’t write that down.
“We weren’t dating,” Silas echoed, shooting a look at Danny. “I mean, we used to, last winter, but we weren’t anymore.”
“Something go wrong between you tonight?” the lieutenant asked.
No, no, no.This was unfolding exactly as Meg had feared. And imagine if she and Silas had already told Danny what had happened between them? He’d sold Silas out fast enough as it was, sending a stab of sorrow through her.
“We were friends,” Silas said firmly. “Nothing more.”
“Then, what happened? How’d she get separated from you all?”
Silas looked at Les, who nodded once in encouragement. “I scared her,” he admitted. He explained it all in one long rush of breath: howhe did this all the time, not that he should, how he’d meant to jump out at Danny, but had slipped from the branch.
“Just kids,” Uncle Les interjected, “goofing off, you see.” But he certainly didn’t sound pleased about it.
Halloway didn’t comment. He seemed too busy writing all this down. Meg couldn’t tell if he’d crossed outdating. The silence stretched, save for Halloway’s pen still scratching the paper, and Meg felt like she should contribute something, but her arms felt immovable, pressed at her sides. Her jaw clenched. She wanted to help, but she didn’t know how to unclench it.
“What was she wearing?” the lieutenant asked next.
At first, Meg’s mind went completely blank. “Shorts,” Silas supplied. “And a crop top. Pink, I think.”
“And her necklace,” Danny offered. “The one with the J.” His voice cracked oddly on the last syllable.
“Necklace?”
“A graduation present, I think,” Silas contributed.
Meg found her voice again. “She told me it was from a secret admirer or something.”
The lieutenant paused at this information, his pen hovering over his pad of paper. “Any idea who?”
Silas shook his head.
Halloway looked to Danny for confirmation, who looked pointedly at Meg before saying tightly, “I already have a girlfriend.”
Meg felt Silas’s eyes on her. Nothing, it would seem, could break the magnetic tug that was always justthere, drawing them both in. Tangling them up. Even sitting five feet from one another, Meg felt it. She needed to do a better job of fighting it.
And so she looked away again, listening as Danny and Silas recited the order of events from start to finish, just as they had for Les and Mary. Hiking ... prank ... running ... searching. No sign.
“She screamed,” Meg said suddenly. How had they forgotten that part? “Right when—right as we were looking for her, we heard her scream.”
Silas nodded cautiously, but Danny’s eyes flashed with something—surprise? Fear?—at this addition to the story. “What do you mean, screamed? I didn’t hear her scream.”
Which explained why he’d neglected to mention this detail with Les and Mary. “She definitely screamed,” Meg insisted. She had to set that record, at least, straight.
