“Still nothing?”
Grace answered with a glum shake of her head. Candace spread her fingers on the steering wheel, brow furrowed in confusion.
“Every last one of their cells is going to voice mail,” Grace said.
“Guess this explains why no one bothered to text us what they wanted from the store,” Candace said, yawning.
It did, Grace thought.
She had sent a group text to the housemates: Getting supplies for the 4th. Any requests?
But, nothing.
Now this: total radio silence. It couldn’t be good.
A sense of misgiving had been building slowly inside her, ever since she and Candace had left the house. The argument earlier that evening had been of epic proportions. When Candace had suggested they escape the pressure cooker atmosphere, Grace had been only too happy to follow. She’d assumed that everyone else would, too, but the others had hung back. Glancing over her shoulder as she and Candace hurried toward the boardwalk, Grace had eventually spied John-Michael and Maya leaving the house.
The household had fragmented. The way it had happened tugged at Grace’s heart. They shouldn’t be splitting off into little cliques, but they had. She with her stepsister. Paolo with Lucy—the girl he’d once had a thing for. John-Michael with Maya—as though they were the natural “outsiders.”
Grace had kept her eyes on Paolo throughout much of the explosive drama of Maya’s revelation. Normally, she tried to hide her feelings, but in that situation, the focus wasn’t on her. While they’d all been distracted, Grace had allowed her eyes to be drawn to Paolo’s anxiety and disquiet, to the way he’d scratched the raw skin of his tattoo, to the way he’d grimaced at his own touch. He’d been uncharacteristically introspective.
Ever since Candace’s reaction to the news about Grace’s father, Grace had felt a burden of guilt. Candace was right. She should have told her about her father sooner. Maybe things would have been different if she had? When Candace had suggested that they go for ice cream together, she’d decided it was time to come clean. Grace had told her all the details of her relationship with her father, from the time when she first realized she’d have to keep his fate a secret.
Secrets had almost torn their Venice Beach household apart. But now that everything was out in the open, maybe all six friends could start over.
So they’d gone straight from the ice-cream parlor at Santa Monica Pier to Candace’s Prius, which had been parked a few streets along, and from there to Trader Joe’s.
The house was empty when they got home, but not dark. Dimmed lights had been left on in the living room and in the second-floor bathroom. It was as though everyone had stepped out a few moments ago. Grace tried calling John-Michael again. When she heard his familiar Death Note ringtone coming from the red sofa, she felt even more confused.
“Their phones are here,” she called out to Candace, who was in the kitchen, putting away the groceries. After a moment she’d confirmed it: all four cell phones had been left in the living room.
“Where the hell is the rug?” Candace said, walking over from the kitchen, hands on hips as she surveyed the room.
Blankly, Grace stared at the empty wooden floor in front of the red sofa. “Oh yes,” she intoned, feeling stupid. “There’s also that.”
Candace stooped, peering down. “Dear God, is that blood?”
Where one corner of the rug would have been close to the base of the red sofa, a few drops of a dark fluid had collected. One of them had smeared, leaving a trail like a bleeding comet, where something had been dragged through one of the larger drops.
“There must have been an accident,” Candace concluded.
“Or a fight.”
“Maybe they took the rug out to clean it?” Candace suggested.
“Without their phones?”
“Why would they need their phones? Maybe they went to the beach.”
Grace looked at her, baffled. “You think they took the rug to the beach?”
“How the heck do I know?” Candace was getting annoyed now. “It’s not here, so clearly they didn’t leave it.”
Grace sat back on the futon and folded her arms across her lap, staring up at her stepsister. “You think they’ve gone to the beach for—what—a midnight picnic?” She shook her head, bewildered. “You really like to look on the bright side, don’t you?”
“What’s your solution?” Candace said, resentful. “You think they called Olivia Pope from Scandal over to help them dispose of a body, or something crazy like that? And by the way, d’you think maybe we could discuss it while we put the groceries away? I’m not doing it by myself.”
Grace followed Candace to the kitchen, where five large brown paper bags awaited them on the dining table. “What about the blood on the floor?” she said, stacking cobs of sweet corn in the refrigerator.
Candace said, “Maybe they went to the emergency room. And not the beach.”
Grace shrugged. “And they all forgot to take their cell phones? I mean, if they left in such a hurry, at least one person would still have a cell phone in their pocket.”
“You’d think,” Candace admitted.
“Let’s see if Paolo’s car is still here.”
“It won’t be.”
Candace was right. And the absence of Paolo’s car wasn’t going to do anything but intensify their fears.
“Kind of odd, though, all their cell phones being on the sofa like that.” Candace spoke slowly, and Grace thought she caught a tremor in her voice at the end. “Almost like they took them out of their pockets and left them behind on purpose.” Candace looked up. “Why would they do that?”
Grace packed four pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream into the freezer and turned back to look at Candace. “I can only think of bad reasons.”
“Try to think of a good reason, will ya?” said Candace, her voice rising to a high-pitched whine. “Look, I know you’re freaked out and all about your dad, but you have to trust that it’s going to be okay. Lucy’s gonna talk to the cops on Monday and then you’ll see.”
“I’ll see what?”
Candace shrugged and tried to sound bright as she said, “That the wheels of justice will turn in your favor.”
But even Candace’s forced optimism couldn’t distract Grace from the sensation of dread that had crept inside. “I think . . .” Grace clenched her right hand into a fist. “I think maybe we ought to call the cops.”
“What about John-Michael? He won’t like that.”
She nodded slightly, by now barely aware of Candace. Grace’s thoughts had gone to him, too. The cops and John-Michael were never a good mix. More than anyone else in the house, Grace understood that.
Anxiety pulled at her now, a heavy sensation dragging her where she’d rather not go. The air inside the house seemed itself to have shifted. There was a strangeness to the house, as if all life had been sucked from it. She sensed a pulsating, insistent knock at her consciousness: a warning.
“Something bad has happened,” Candace said, suddenly giving voice to Grace’s own fear. Grace could only tremble faintly and nod. “But I don’t think we can call the cops,” Candace continued. Her words were slow, considered, each one falling onto prepared ground. “At least, not yet.”
Grace clasped her hands together so that they wouldn’t shake. Where could they hide, where would they wait, in fear of what might be coming?