“Well, lucky for you, while you were busy getting wrecked, I did find something.”
“What? You were there?”
Max smiled and pulled up a picture on his phone. “You think I was going to leave you alone with those creeps? I figured if I was at least there, I could hear if you screamed, maybe. Or if you called, I’d be close by.”
Was that a blush creeping up his cheeks?
“I snuck around the back of the property after the party and took these. Guess those guys we questioned in the hall were right. Phi Kat is into some weird shit, Cella. I don’t think you should go back there alone.”
The picture was of the empty field a little way from the back of the house. The picture also showed the faded white boards of the house. On the ground were bits of ash and wood—and the charred remains of what looked like bones.
“Please tell me those are not human.”
“They look to be cattle. Rib, maybe. Too big to be human.”
“What are they doing burning cattle bones?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“There was a bonfire at the party …”, I said slowly, then my stomach twisted. “You don’t think they were burning it then?”
Max grimaced. “We should tell the council.”
“Tell them what, exactly? That we found some burned cattle bones at an old cattle ranch? They’ll laugh in our faces. We can’t even prove this is from the party. It could’ve been out there for ages.”
“It’s still suspicious.”
“Definitely,” I agreed, “but it’s not enough.”
Max nodded, rubbing his palms together. A conspiratorial glint came into his eye. “Okay. We lie low; we don’t confront them just yet. We gather information, we watch them. If they’re up to something, they’ll slip. Basile might have his ship shut up tight, but the rest of them are bound to trip up sooner or later. And we’ll be there when they do.”
“And in the meantime?” I said.
“We wait, and you sleep off what I expect is bound to be one nasty hangover. And potentially some rare incurable disease or staph infection from what I suspect is a truly gnarly bathroom—”
I threw a pillow at him.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DANICA STEWART
MARCH 30TH[TWO DAYS BEFORE THE MURDER]
—the pages hold the truth—
—and the truth will set you* free—
*your soul
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
My truck parked, I sat in the driveway, counting the seconds. I looked in the mirror, reapplied chapstick for the fiftieth time, looked out over the dash.Home. How long could I sit here before they noticed the car in the driveway?
The house was just the same. The grass was dying in a few spots. A blue Buick, roof faded from the sun, sagged in its spot in front of the house where it hadn’t been moved in years. Dad hadn’t worked on it in ages. They’d both be home. It had been months since Mom had shown up to her job at the real estate firm.
Just like at school, here were so many reminders of things I didn’t want to remember. After Aaron died, my mother slapped me hard across the face for talking back in that very same Buick. Days later, she flew off the handle over something I didn’t even remember. When I told her what a fucked-up childhood I’d had, she told me every family had its problems.
But there was love here, too. It had just … faded over the years, like the tips of the grasses, like the sunny yellow paint on the door, now a dull cream.
I got out of the truck and walked past the house, out into the yard. Our five acres were overgrown, like most of the properties out here. Sure, it might be worth something if people actually wanted to live in Marble County, but they didn’t. Our horse, Willow, had liked it enough. My parents had sold her not long after Aaron died.
