eighteen

Grant stared at the computer screen for a long minute, scratching his head. “I think my eyes are going blurry. This thing is basically ancient.” He rubbed his face. “Whose idea was it to come do research in the library again?”

My lips hitched into a smile. “It’s your fault you don’t know the topography of Michigan.” I took a breath. “Or anything about wolves.”

When I’d called Grant about wanting to investigate the Alpena area more, he’d gotten strangely quiet. I mean, Grant was usually quiet, but in a thoughtful way. Not in a freaked out way. I didn’t know what it was about that map, or that town, but he froze up whenever I mentioned it. I realized that the only way I could get him to help me figure out what was there was to tell him the truth.

And so, I told him part of it. I asked him for a lift to the library, and on the car ride over I told him about the note Ella had pressed into my hand at the hospital, about the wolves and the warning. Grant didn’t say much in response, but he didn’t tell me I was crazy either. I guessed that was a start.

I pointed to the map on the computer screen. “Here. Up here, almost at the top of the state. This is where the packs originated.”

Grant leaned over me and squinted at the screen. He smelled like some kind of ocean breeze shampoo and peppermint. “Where does it say that?” he asked, wrinkling his forehead.

I glanced around the dank little library. In the corner, a girl with long dark hair and way too much eye makeup watched us. I dipped my head below the monitor and whispered, “Are you done with your million-and-one questions? A hundred different websites have confirmed it.” I tapped the screen just north of Alpena. “This is where the wolves came from.”

Grant nodded slowly, his eyes glazed over. “Yeah.”

I snapped my finger in front of his nose and he twitched back to life. “It says it right here,” I said, pointing. “‘In 2008, the DNR reintroduced wolves to the northern lower peninsula, where they successfully bred. All lower peninsula wolf packs originated from this region.’”

My eyes scanned the fuzzy map on the screen. Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the northern tip of Ohio were flecked with blue: wolf migration patterns. I reached for the mouse to click out of the website. But just before I tapped, a pinprick of blue flashed over the right side of the screen. I leaned in so close that the dust lining the edge of screen tickled my nose.

“Grant, look. Do you see this?” I whispered. “That’s totally blue there, right?”

Grant’s eyes darted to the screen, almost like he was afraid to look at it. But when he saw the fleck of blue positioned over New York City, his eyebrows drew together and he blinked at the screen. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, right there. Looks like one little speck of wolves found their way to New York. Probably just one pack.”

I smiled to myself. “I knew there had to be wolves there. And Dr. Barges told me there couldn’t be any.”

“Who?” Grant was staring at me, his face inches from mine.

I felt the start of a blush blooming on my cheeks. “Oh, um. No one.”

Grant swiveled his chair away from the computer. Something about the way his shoulders slumped and how he kept picking at his fingernails made me wonder if he secretly thought I was out of my mind, even though I knew he’d seen that blue fleck on New York City. But the way he wasn’t clearing his throat told me he didn’t really have anything to say to me.

“Hey Grant,” came a voice over top of the monitor. I peeked up and saw the girl with the long hair and the caked-on mascara that made her eyelashes look like fat caterpillars. She glanced at me and gave me a tight smile, the kind without teeth. “What are you doing here?”

Just then, it came flashing back to me, like a wad of algae or a lost flip flop or something pulled from the bottom of Lark Lake that made the sand pucker. Lacey Jordan. We’d gone to school together a hundred years ago.

Grant’s ears grew pink and his knuckles turned white around the mouse. “Just looking some things up,” he said.

Lacey nodded before he even finished talking and immediately snapped her eyes onto me. She pressed her lips into smile again and said, “Claire Graham, right? Do you remember me?”

I returned the courtesy smile and said, “Kind of. Well, we were just on our way out.” I stood, clicking out of the browser. The last thing I wanted to do today was pretend to have a nice talk with Lacey Jordan.

It seemed to offend Lacey that I wasn’t fawning all over her like all the guys in school did—mostly because they knew how she’d given it up to a senior in the cornfield one night—because her smile quickly disappeared. “So, I thought you weren’t ever supposed to come back to Amble, isn’t that right?”

I blinked at her for a minute and then turned to Grant, who was still fiddling with his stupid fingernail at the desk. “What do you mean, I’m not supposed to come back to Amble?” I asked. Unfortunately, it sounded more confident in my head.

Lacey shifted her massive, ugly purse and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Oh, just some silly rumor that you’re, like, not even allowed to set foot here because of what happened to your sister.” She cocked her head to the side. “So what are you doing here?”

I felt like I’d swallowed an ice cube and it was slowly, slowly sliding down my throat, coating everything inside me in cold. My mind churned like bath water sloshing out of the tub: the way Dad had pulled me out of Ella’s hospital room right when she was starting to recognize me again; the one-way ticket, wrapped in an orange holder, stuck quietly into my purse. How I was never invited back to Amble to visit.

“Lacey, stop.” Grant was standing now, but I didn’t re-member him standing up. He pressed his palm in between my shoulder blades, and the coldness inside me started to melt. “Come on. Do you think they would have let her leave if she was guilty?” His hand slid up my shoulder so that his fingertips brushed against my neck. “Those are just rumors.” But he didn’t sound so sure when he said it.

My head snapped up to look at him, and I tried to swallow down the panic rushing into my chest. “What do you mean—guilty?”

But Grant didn’t answer. Instead, his grip around my shoulder tightened and he shot Lacey a death-look.

Lacey stared at Grant’s hand on my shoulder for a long time before her eyes flicked back to my face. “Mmm. Rumors. Just like those rumors about how your dad screwed up the evidence when he was out looking for Sarah Dunnard and couldn’t wrap up the case. Some people even say he hid evidence on purpose, that he went all psycho out there. But those rumors turned out to be true, didn’t they? Runs in the family, I suppose.” She batted her fat eyelashes at me before turning to Grant. “I have to get to the salon before it closes, so I’d better run. Will I see you at my New Year’s Eve party tomorrow? My mom’s out of town.” She smiled again, and this time she actually looked pretty, younger. Even though I hated her.

Grant shrugged, but he didn’t move his hand from my shoulder. “We’ll see.”

Lacey pulled a pair of leather gloves from her purse. She looked me up and down and said, “Better watch it, Grant—you know how Amble doesn’t like crazy.” And then she sauntered through the library, waving back at us with a quick flick of her hand.

I watched her go, but the only thing I felt was the warmth of Grant’s hand on my neck, and the way it felt heavy and light at the same time as it slid down my arm. He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and squeezed.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

I pulled away from him, the corners of my eyes prickling with heat. “What’s going on, Grant?” Those were the only words I could choke out without completely losing it. I just had to hope he knew what I meant.

Grant tipped his head back and sighed. “Claire, I think we need to talk.”

I took a step back from him, hoping he couldn’t see my hands shaking. “We couldn’t have ‘talked’ when you drove me home from the diner? When we went to the police station? When I called you this afternoon?” I took another shaky step back. “You’ve had a lot of time to tell me what the hell is going on with—with my dad, with Ella, with me. And you didn’t.” The last words cracked on my lips on their way out, and I knew I couldn’t talk to him anymore.

I weaved through the stacks of books and ancient computer desks toward the front of the library, past the million pairs of eyes following after me.

What did they see when they looked at me?

Guilty.

Crazy.

I threw open the door and stepped out into a day the color of quiet, with thoughts that screamed violently in my head.