I try the security footage first, but there’s nothing. The file is deleted, the computer wiped bare. I expected this. Whoever it is has caught on to us.
It could be Sam. Or Syd. Alex. Or Ella. Jack.
The first clue, the apple sticker, pointed to Syd. She was the one who ate them. But everyone else knew about them. Ella, Alex, and Sam had all been in the car when she stuck them on the glove compartment. Jack, too, come to think of it.
The baseball. On the surface, that seemed like Jack. He was the one who played. But Syd and Ella and I had hidden in the dugout, and Alex had been looking for us. And we’d told the story to Sam, how Ella had saved us from getting caught that night.
The berry bucket. That’s another tough one. Everyone who’s ever lived in Lithia has gone berry picking there. The Miller kids were more the exception than the rule, because they were new. And I know I’d told Sam about the farms.
Next, the Verity napkin. Sam worked there, but it was just as likely to be Alex. We went to Verity long before Sam even moved here. We were the ones eating our way through the menu.
The running shoes, at Sam’s dorm, had been next. And we had all been together, running, or right after, at some point. Except Jack. But would I really have wished for a family member, anyway?
Yes. I would have. Everyone is missing.
So.
What if.
What if it really is more than one person.
What if they’reallhere?
87.
once
It was raining the spring of our junior year, and Syd and I were standing outside of Wegmans with our takeout cartons, waiting for it to clear up before we ran to the car. A bunch of other people were doing the same thing with their groceries.
Some fiftysomething guy came up to us with an umbrella, and he told us to take it
even though it was clear it was his only one and that now
he
would be the one getting soaked
even if he were just walking to his car
and Syd and I were like thank you thank you
and an elderly woman behind us who already had an umbrella said how nice he was, how kind that was and
someone behind her agreed
and everyone standing under the store’s overhang was alight with the kindness of his gesture
and he smiled and said, “got to keep the pretty ones dry” and as he was standing there basking in the glow of his good deed he looked back at me and Syd and winked and said so the rest of the line couldn’t hear
“actually, it wouldn’t betoobad if you girls got wet”
he said that
they do that. They say things and look, sometimes when they mean to and sometimes when they don’t, men who think of themselves asred-bloodedandall-Americanandgood-guy.They go so fast fromI would nevertoSo what if I did?They do it and then they tell themselves that they didn’t, or that if they did, it’s fine. They’re fine. They’ve never been anything but fine.
anyway
he said that
