“But—” I try to protest as Millie rushes up the stairs, leaving me all alone.Great.
I let out an enormous sigh, suddenly so annoyed with everyone in this house. How can no one else want to find out what happened, especially now that the only suspect is walking free?
“Ridiculous,” I mutter to myself as I step outside, finding the air still hot and heavy, a thick humidity unbroken. There’s one person I could try to talk to about all this. He said he wasn’t interested, but that was back when Justin was for sure guilty. Maybe…
I dash to the back of the yard, where our property lines up with the Silvers’, and slip through the archway separating our homes. Alex is just where I thought he might be, sitting on a pool float in the middle of the deep end with a Rubik’s Cube in his hands.
“Al!” I take off running and cannonball right into the water, everything disappearing for a moment as I’m under the surface.
When I break through the surface, Alex has a panicked look on his face. “You scared me half to death, you freak!” he calls, and splashes water my way.
I swim over to him and rest my elbows on the float, treading water below the surface.
“Justin’sinnocent,” I say.
“I know.”
“So…” I say slowly. “Do you want to…”
Alex leans back against the float and looks up at the sun. “I told you, Frankie. I’m not interested in solving any crimes or whatever.”
“But—”
“Frankie!” His voice is loud and sharp, a sound I’ve never heard come out of his mouth, and I back away from the float like he’s pushed me. “Sorry,” he says. “But Itoldyou. Billy was a jerk, and this is all too much. Can you just drop it?”
I want to say no, but the pained look on his face is a warning. “Fine,” I say, and swim to the ladder on the side of the pool. “Have it your way.”
“It’s not my way,” Alex calls after me. “It’s thenormalway.”
“Whatever.” I climb out of the pool and grab a towel from one of the lounge chairs, wrapping it around myself.
“You can’t be mad at me!”
“Watch me,” I mumble, stalking across the grass. I half expect Alex to follow me, but he doesn’t, and it’s not until I’m back on our property that I can fully realize how furious I am, how much is buzzing around in my brain. It’s crazy-making that no one else in my life seems to care about what’s actually going on around here. Of course, there’s Billy, but then there’s alsoEricaand Trevor.
I thought sharing the secret with Millie would make me feel less alone, would make us aligned. But now it seems like I’m further away fromeveryone. I hold the towel close around my body, my bare feet rooted in the prickly grass.Breathe, I remind myself.Breathe.
The sound of the sliding door makes me open my eyes, and I peer at our house to see Erica walking inside. I freeze but she doesn’t notice me, only greets Lucy with a hug. I watch thembeyond the glass and try to detect whether Lucy knows, whether anything is out of sorts. But they look as they always do—in sync, relaxed, like friends.
Lucy starts up the stairs and Erica follows, but just as she’s about to disappear from view, she turns around, and I startle as her eyes meet mine, direct and unflinching. Inhaling a sip of air, I stay rooted in place until Erica spins around and hurries up the stairs.
All the air leaves my lungs, and I have to take a seat on the lounger to steady myself. She has no idea I know. It’s not possible. But that look was so unnerving, so strange. I lean back against the chair and hold the towel tight around my chest. The tips of my hair are still wet from the pool, and they tickle my neck as I close my eyes. Maybe all I need is rest. Maybe that will help me figure out what to do next.
Overhead, leaves rustle and birds caw, as if the sounds of summer are lulling me to sleep, and the next thing I know, I wake with a start, unaware of how much time has passed. It takes me a few seconds to realize I’m still outside, the corners of the towel still clenched in my fists. My hair is mostly dry now, and the sun has begun to set. Stretching my arms up above me, I swing myself up to sit and swing my feet to the ground, feel the stone warm against my bare feet.
Well. One of them. The other foot lands on a piece of paper, thin against my skin. I reach down and find a plain white envelope, the letterFwritten on the front in small block lettering.
I pick it up and flip it over, see no obvious marks, no address, no stamp. Glancing around, I realize I’m still alone. But someone else must have come here and left this for me while I was sleeping. The idea makes my stomach flip. A tingling sensation starts in my toes.
I slide my pointer finger under the flap of the envelope and open it carefully, finding a folded-up piece of paper inside. It’s white, the kind you’d find in any type of printer, and when I open it up, there’s only one sentence etched in pen.
Stop looking, Frankie, or someone will get hurt.
The edges of the note crinkle as I clutch it, read it a dozen times. I don’t recognize the handwriting, so neat it’s as if the letters had been traced, but I glance back to our house, look for movement in Lucy’s room. The curtains at her window flutter, the only sign of life, and the only thing I can think about is that Erica must have left this for me somehow. She must know.
And she had no choice but to leave me this: a threat.
Lucy
