CHRIS STOOD IN the doorway and swore. And then swore again. “Damn it, Ollie!”
Ollie scrambled to sit up, scrambled to make sure that Makani was covered even though they hadn’t gotten that far. “What are you doing here?”
His brother rubbed his forehead. “Nice to see you again so soon, Makani.”
Her skin burst into flames as she shielded herself behind Ollie, who tried again. “Why are you home?”
Chris dropped his hand and crossed his arms, drawing her eyes to the holster on his belt. “Chief sent me away to get some rest.” He glanced warily at the empty plate beside the bed. “When did you get here? Did you ditch again?”
Ollie didn’t reply.
“Shit, Ollie. You can’t . . . you can’t do that.”
Makani wished that she could run. She wished that she were anywhere but here.
“We missed zero schoolwork,” Ollie said. “Nothing was happening.”
“If nothing was happening,” Chris said, “then it shouldn’t have been so hard to keep seated until the bell.” When Ollie tightened his mouth, Chris groaned and collapsed into the desk chair. He followed it with a long sigh. “Listen. There’s a killer on the loose, and we don’t know who or where he is. Or if he’s even a he. That means your ass needs to be where it’s supposed to be at all times. I need to know where you are.”
“Why?” Ollie sounded remarkably incredulous for this reasonable request.
“Because it’s dangerous out there!”
“They murdered the star of the musical and the star of the football team. Tell me what I have in common with those victims.”
“You know that’s not the point. Shit,” Chris said again. He turned his attention to Makani. “You’ve gotta stop hanging out with this kid. He’s a bad influence.”
Makani felt a wave of gratitude that he didn’t view her as the bad influence. She ventured out from behind Ollie.
“Does your grandmother know you’re here?” Chris asked.
She wanted to lie, but he was a cop. “No.”
Chris shook his head. He picked up Ollie’s keys from the desk and held them out, staring at the hardwood floor. “Ollie, drive her home.”
“Chris—”
“Ollie.”
Ollie stomped over, snatched the keys in a way that made Chris wince, and then stalked out of his bedroom.
Makani followed, but she glanced back to lift a hand in goodbye.
Chris raised a weary hand in return. “Sorry. But I have to.”
It was a strange thing for a parental figure to say, and it reminded her of the unnatural relationship that he’d been forced to play in his brother’s life. In that moment, she felt sorry for Chris. Ollie hadn’t made it easy for him. Then again, nothing about Ollie’s life seemed to have been easy, either.
• • •
That night—when Haley and the drama club were supposed to be in the middle of their first dress rehearsal, when Matt and the football team were supposed to be winning their final game of the season—Darby sent a text to Makani:
She’d just finished loading the dirty dinner dishes into the dishwasher. Grandma Young was watching a Marvel movie in the living room. She didn’t know that Makani had been to Ollie’s house, and Makani planned to keep it that way.
“Will Chris tell her?” she’d asked on the somber drive home.
Ollie tried to assure her, despite the crease in his brow. “I doubt it. His weakness is that he still wants to be my cool older brother.”
To be safe, they made Saturday plans in full view of Grandma Young. He was going to come over before his shift at Greeley’s.
I mean, phone-talk?
Makani frowned at the second message. It was always ominous when someone asked to talk instead of text. She told her grandmother that she’d join her in a minute and waited until she was safely enclosed in her bedroom before hitting the call button.
Darby picked up after the second ring. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
An awkward silence followed. Another bad sign.
“Darby?”
“I—I just want you to know that as your friend, I love you, and that’s why I’m telling you this.”
Makani felt her body temperature drop. “Tell me what?”
“And you know I would never say this if it weren’t important. If Alex and I weren’t genuinely concerned.”
“What, Darby?”
He mumbled something rapidly that contained the name Ollie.
A surge of hot anger replaced Makani’s chill, but she tamped it down and asked him to repeat that last sentence.
The accusation spewed forth in a torrent. “Discounting rumors, it’s still a fact that Matt and his friends have been bullying Ollie for years, and his alibi isn’t strong for either murder, and we think he might be taking advantage of you, and Alex said I had to be the one to call, because you’d just tell her to screw herself, or you’d think she was joking, but I swear we’re not.” He took a breath. “Not that we think he’s guilty! But that was creepy how he got your phone number. You have to admit it.”
Makani didn’t have to admit anything. It was misguided and insulting. “So, what? You and Alex just sat there at the Feed ’N’ Seed all afternoon, selling cattle supplements and talking shit about me?”
“No!” Darby sounded miserable. “I’m sorry. We’re worried about you.”
“Yeah. You mentioned something along those lines yesterday, remember?”
His voice dropped into a meek whisper. “It didn’t seem like you were listening.”
Fury overtook her like an explosion from a pressure cooker. “And what about Haley, huh? What did Haley ever do to Ollie? Why would he kill her?”
“In eighth grade, he asked her out, and she said no. She was a seventh grader. He was humiliated. It wasn’t long after his parents had died, and it was the last time I heard of him asking out someone from school until . . . this weird thing with you.”
It shocked her into speechlessness. She hadn’t expected Darby to have a real answer. But it was still a colossal leap.
“Makani? Hello? Are you there?”
“That was four years ago.” She forced her voice into a normal volume, despite the outrage swelling inside her again. “That’s a long time to wait for a petty grudge.”
“Just consider this: Ollie snubbed you for months. You guys hadn’t talked since the end of summer. It’s possible . . . he might want revenge on you, too.”
She sucked in her breath.
“Regaining your trust could be a part of his master plan—”
“Master plan?”
“I only meant—”
“I was mad at him, too! It was mutual. A stupid misunderstanding.”
“You’re right, it’s probably nothing.” Darby backed down to plead with her. “But you have to understand that I could never live with myself if he turned out to be the bad guy, and I’d kept my mouth shut.”
Makani’s indignation dissipated. Flared back into raging life. And finally re-extinguished. Darby was trying to be a good friend. He was just getting it wrong. On paper, fine, Ollie looked suspicious. But he wasn’t a murderer.
She couldn’t prove it. She just knew it.
Ollie was shy and helpful, and he looked happy whenever she was happy. Darby’s confrontation hurt, because he was supposed to be the thoughtful friend. Alex was the impulsive one. And it confirmed her fears; they really did talk about her behind her back.
Darby sounded distant through her buzzing eardrums. “Makani?”
“I appreciate your concern.” It was a lie and not a lie. “But you’re wrong.”
And then she hung up.
• • •
All night long, Makani tossed and turned. The house creaked like it was alive.
Ollie, Haley.
Ollie, Matt.
Ollie, Me.
All morning long, she ignored the apology texts from Darby and the jokey texts that acted as apologies from Alex.
Ollie, Haley.
Ollie, Matt.
Ollie, Me.
At noon, she was surprised to discover yesterday’s shoes still at the bottom of the stairs. She grabbed them before Grandma Young could scold her.
Ollie, Haley.
Ollie, Matt.
Ollie—
NO.
Makani threw the sneakers, hard, onto her bedroom floor. Yesterday’s socks were already lying beside the closet door, but the strangeness of this did not register to her.
She had to believe that the mistakes of Ollie’s past didn’t guarantee that he would make even worse mistakes in his future. She had to believe that every mistake was still a choice. She had to believe that Ollie was a good person, because she had to believe it about herself.
• • •
He arrived in the early afternoon. After the cycle of beverage options, they settled into the living room, because—as Makani learned—it was against house rules to have a boy in her bedroom. As her friend, Darby was the only exception. Back in Hawaii, she’d spent plenty of time in her bedroom with her ex-boyfriend. Her parents either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care.
The television was tuned to the closest physical station, which was broadcasting a basketball game. Neither Makani nor her grandmother followed the NBA, but Grandma Young was anxious to see the local news bumpers. Makani slouched beside her on the sofa while Ollie resumed his position in the easy chair.
Ollie hadn’t been kidding. He really did like jigsaw puzzles. A countryside harvest festival was spread across the coffee table, and its repeating autumnal patterns held him and Grandma Young in a matching trance. Perched on their seat edges, they bonded over etiquette and strategy: start with the border. Then any sections that contain printed words. If someone is searching for one specific piece, but the other person finds it, it must be handed over, because it means more to the first person. And always save the sky—the hardest part of any puzzle—for last.
Makani tried to join in, but the tediousness made her hungry, so she brought out snacks and ate snacks and brought out more snacks. She wondered if her ex would have entertained her grandmother without complaint. Before the incident, she would have said yes. Jason was wild, but she had been wilder. And he was a decent guy.
He was also a coward who’d never bothered to ask for her side of the story. A coward who’d ignored her instead of dumping her outright. A coward who’d treated her like the highly contagious carrier of a deadly plague. Though, in a way, she was. Makani was a social plague. She hated Jason for his cowardice, but she understood it.
“You know, we’ve just been praying for their families, day and night.”
They looked up at the sound of the young, country voice. A square-faced boy with a cross necklace and LION PRIDE sweatshirt—the de facto spokesperson for the various local youth groups—was on television. The text at the bottom of the screen read: CALEB GREELEY, FRIEND OF THE VICTIMS.
The bumper cut to a blandly handsome man in a navy-blue suit. “Osborne reacts to the slayings and to a killer still at large. Details at six.” Creston Howard enunciated with the practiced air of a professional, managing to sound both solemn and upbeat.
The basketball game resumed. Grandma Young turned to Ollie. “That was Pastor Greeley’s boy, wasn’t it?”
Ollie nodded. “He works with me at the grocery store.”
It was a familiar conversation, Ollie and her grandmother swapping information about mutual acquaintances. Makani hadn’t recognized many of the names until now. “Oh. Greeley,” she said. “Caleb is related to the owner?”
“Caleb is the grandson of the original Mr. Greeley,” Ollie explained. “His uncle runs Greeley’s Foods now.”
“And what does Caleb do there?” Grandma Young asked.
“Weekend supervisor.”
Makani couldn’t hear it in his tone, but she wondered if Ollie was bitter that Caleb was a supervisor when Ollie was the one who worked more hours. If it were her, she’d be bitter. “Caleb wasn’t actually a friend of the victims, was he?”
Ollie smirked. “As friendly as I was.”
Makani nudged her grandmother. “See? You have to turn off the news. It’s not even telling you the truth.”
“You grieve in your way,” Grandma Young said, “and I’ll grieve in mine.”
Despite the outside world, their living room was at ease. Makani wondered why discussing a tragedy—consuming every single story about it—was often comforting. Was it because tragedies manifested a sense of community? Here we are, all going through this terrible thing together. Or were tragedies addictive, and the small pleasures that came from them the signal of a deeper problem?
Ollie handed over a puzzle piece to Grandma Young. She exclaimed with delight and snapped it into place. They high-fived.
No, Makani decided. It was impossible that this boy who was so kind to her grandmother could ever be a murderer.