He nods, takes his hat off, runs a hand through his hair. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Why’s there a gun in your glove compartment?” I blurt out before I can think about it. “I wasn’t snooping, I just—bumped into it and it fell open and I saw it.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows go up. “It was my dad’s.”
“Oh.” My mind is racing. “It’s just—I’ve never seen it before.”
“My mom had it locked up. She said I could have it when I turn eighteen. Gave it to me on my birthday. But I haven’t done anything with it except target practice, at that range over in Merriman.”
“Oh.” But—“Why’s it in the car?”
His cheeks go a little pink. “I guess I got spooked, coming to the city, to their office, and Gen’s convinced they’re all behind this, so I thought I should, I don’t know, have protection or something.”
I nod.
It makes sense.
Just the fact that there is a gun here does not mean Jeremy was the one shooting at us in the woods.
Why am I letting Seth and his out-there theories get to me?
“Sorry it freaked you out.” Jeremy glances at the glove compartment, then looks back at me. “Is anything else wrong?”
“No,” I say, too quickly. “I just need to get home.”
Gen returns then, and we head out. Conversation on the way back is surprisingly normal. We hit a little traffic but are driving into Bier’s End by four.
Jeremy drops me off first. I look at him, at Gen, as they pull up to my house. “Thank you. For driving and for…everything.”
He nods. “You’re welcome,” Gen says, looking at me. She raises an eyebrow and—for the first time in almost two years—smiles at me.
I smile back, all the while trying to push the image of that gun, glinting silver, the weight of it in my hand, out of my mind.
“Keep us in the loop,” Gen says before I get out of the car. I promise them that I will.
When I step into my house, no one’s home.
Dad’s still at work, and I don’t know where Davy is, as usual. Sadie’s whining to be let out, so I grab her leash and head right back out the door.
I take a path through the woods, a longer one than I usually go on. Try and put everything out of my mind, if only for an hour.
When I get back to my house, from far off I can see a note stuck to my door. Not the main door of the house, but the outside door to the extension of our house, the one that goes straight into my bedroom.
When we were little, Jeremy, Gen, and I used to leave notes for the others to find, on our doors, in the woods, but that all stopped when we got phones. I feel a ping of warmth, thinking maybe it was them, maybe this is the sign that our friendship really is back on track.
And then I get close enough to see what it says, and my blood goes cold.
It’s a white piece of paper with two words scrawled in big black letters.
STOP DIGGING
I walk up to it, hardly believing my eyes.
Seth’s car, the gunshots—they weren’t accidents. And they weren’t meant to kill us.
They were a warning, telling us to stop.
With a shaking hand, I grab the note, and something falls out behind it.
I stoop to pick it up—and lose my breath.
It’s a photo of Davy, asleep somewhere. His gold hair is mussed on the pillow, and it’s dark in the room, but not so dark I can’t tell it’s him.
What the fuck is this?
I pull out my phone, fumble with it, drop it on the ground. Finally, I manage with shaking hands to press my brother’s name.
“Hello?”
“Davy!” I nearly collapse with relief. “Where are you?”
“Um. Home?”
“What? Where—”
I run around to the front of the house and bound in the front door, Sadie fast on my heels—
To find Davy, sitting at the kitchen counter, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and looking mildly bewildered.
