“They’re all gone. Except Ingrid. But she’s not…she’s not like us anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes I think I can feel her. Or hear her. But she’s not like Finn and Aisha and me. She’s like…”Sloane goes sheet white. Hershoulders are tight and her hands tremble ever so slightly.“Not like a ghost. Like a poltergeist from those old horror movies. All wrong.”
“But—”
“Look, Finn and Aisha don’t like to talk about Ingrid. Especially Finn. He knew her, before she…changed or whatever.”
“I don’t—”
“I would leave it alone, Jo. Nothing good’s going to come out of it.”
“Is she dangerous?”
“I don’t know what she is,” Sloane says.“What’s more dangerous than that?”
“But if she—”
But Sloane is gone, vanished, leaving me alone with the overgrown yard and all of my unanswered questions.
The most pressing sits at the forefront of my mind, six letters banging against the walls of my skull.
Ingrid.
I head for the back door and into the kitchen. I’m not sure what I’m looking for until I’m standing at the counter, sifting through a pile of junk mail. Halfway through are a few of the flyers that those parents handed out after the parade. Like the flyers up at the Stacks.
Ingrid Halstead. Missing four years. Last seen during a cross-country practice, somewhere on the path near the creek.
It all comes back to the woods, the creek. Whatever happened to her, it happened here.
My gaze drifts out the kitchen window, through the woods. If there are answers, maybe they’re out there. Hiding in the rushing creek. Finn, Sloane, and Aisha may not be willing to give them. So I’ll find them myself.
Seventeen
I don’t make it fartherthan the tree line before Finn materializes in front of me. I stumble, narrowly avoiding a nasty fall.
“For the love of—” I say. I steady myself and shoot him a glare. “Don’t do that.”
“What are you doing?” Finn asks, looking around us like the answer to his question lives in the thick bark and gnarled branches.
I turn up my chin. To be fair, I don’t even know what I’m doing. Like if I keep walking, keep exploring, the answers to the decades-old mystery will fall at my feet.
“Walking,” I say.
He narrows his eyes. Folds his arms over his chest.
“Bullshit.”
“I’m going to the creek.” I try to keep walking, but he jumps back in front of me. I let out an exasperated sigh. “Sloane told me that her and Aisha’s last memories are near the creek, too. I wanted to look. See if there’s anything out there.”
“If there was, wouldn’t the dozens of cops or search parties have found it?”
“Maybe.” Definitely. “Maybe not.”
“So?”
“So,” I say, and step around him. This time, when he jumps in my way, I walk through him, ignoring his curse.
