NINETEEN

WALT’S BODY LOOKED atrocious —mutilated and horrible —but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. My arms reached and flailed, even though I wasn’t falling and there was nothing to cling to.

Walt’s chains and cords were coiled meticulously around his neck, encircling his shackle, but that wasn’t the bad part. What took my breath away was his midsection. It was gone —I’m talking completely caved in, like a grenade had detonated in his gut, disintegrating his suit and stomach. And it left a filthy hole, not lined with blood or body parts, but with what looked like dirt.

Thick, grungy, dark powder.

I scanned the room. Why hadn’t anyone warned me? Why was the casket even open?

“Son?” My mom reached up and gripped my arm, leading me through the sea of gawking, red-nosed faces toward the door.

“Mom, you should have told me that he . . . that he looks so . . .” I didn’t know what to call it.

“I know it’s hard.” She started weeping again. “Seeing him lying there, like he’s sleeping. So handsome.”

“Mom, he looks terrible!” I pulled my arm away. “What happened to him? Why does he have that huge hole?”

The lines on her forehead deepened. “What are you talking about?” She gave polite smiles to all the eavesdroppers, then glared at me.

“Mom, he had that disgusting —” Oh. I finally got it. One more thing only I could see.

“Forget it.” I shoved past the crowd and out the door, then wove through the masses until I made it to my mother’s SUV. I looked back to see if she was coming, and she was —and so was it. That Creeper had tracked me all the way from the building. It was a few steps behind my mom.

“Hurry!”

She used her remote to unlock the vehicle for me, and I was inside with the door shut in seconds.

“Come on!” She couldn’t hear me, but I yelled anyway. She got in just in time, and I locked the doors, then peered out the rear window. It was standing there, staring at me.

We pulled away, but not before I saw its name:

murder

A chill crept around my neck.

I went straight to my room and grabbed my laptop. I turned again and again and again to look behind me, officially suffering from OCD now. Once I pulled up my timeline, I made my strangest entry yet.

Monday, April 9 —Walt’s dead body has gross gaping hole. Chains and cords appear to have been removed and spiraled around his neck. Cuffs at the end of chains are gone.

I also documented how the Creeper had followed me. My guilt had probably led it to me, like bloody chum enticing a shark.

No way I was going to Marshall’s funeral tomorrow. I hoped it didn’t raise any red flags with the police, but I had to sit this one out. I couldn’t face that a second time.

I was slumped over the desk in my room texting Ray Anne when my mom barged in and dropped a bomb on me. “Coach called. They need one more pallbearer tomorrow, and they thought of you. I told them you’d do it.”

“By pallbearer, you mean one of the guys who carries the casket?”

“Yes. It’s the least you can do.” She turned to leave, dragging her chains along.

“No freaking way!”

She spun around, jaw dropped.

“Mom, you saw how I reacted today. It’s too much. I can’t do it!”

She crossed her arms, then proceeded to give a mouthful of clichéd advice. “Life isn’t always easy, Son. You can’t run from difficult situations.”

I jumped up. “You’re going to lecture me about not running? Not taking the easy way out? You, the woman who spends every day drowning her secret sorrows in alcohol and useless men?”

She jerked, like my words jabbed her. “I don’t know who you think you are!” Her bottom lip quivered.

“Well, I don’t have a clue who you are! You won’t tell me anything. Your past, my grandparents. How do I know they were really the monsters you’ve made them out to be?”

“Excuse me!” Her eyes pooled now —an explosive mix of anger and pain.

“And what about my father?” I’d really marched into forbidden territory now. “You won’t even talk to me about him.”

She gasped. “How dare you! I’ve told you everything you need to know, Owen.”

“Have you?”

Now I’d done it. She shouted so loudly and furiously that white foam gathered in the corners of her mouth. “How many times have I explained to you that I had a horrible upbringing and a terrible relationship with my parents? I never would have dreamed of introducing you to them. And I’ve told you over and over how your father walked out on us.”

Because of me. I understood that.

“What more do you want to know, Owen? Come on!”

“For starters, how are you able to pay cash for things? Your Infiniti. Our house in Boston. You work, like, two hours a day —maybe.”

I walked toward her, shoving my finger in her pouty face. “And why don’t you have a single picture of my dad?”

“Like I said the last ten times you asked me that, it was too painful to hold on to that stuff. I got rid of it and started a new life.” Her voice softened. “With you.”

She put her hand on my shoulder, but I stepped back.

“You’re hiding something, Mom. I know it.”

“Well, you would know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t think I’ve noticed the way you’re acting lately? That you’re hallucinating? Delusional? You’re on drugs, though we both know you’d never admit it.”

I felt my veins bulging in my neck. “So help me, if you accuse me of that one more time —”

“Quit denying it!” she shouted in my face, her arms stiff, fists tight.

I had to put some space between us, had to walk away from the urge to curse in her face. I leaned back against the wall. “I’m not gonna let you do this anymore, Mom.”

“Do what?”

“Turn the microscope on me in order to take the focus off you.”

“Just stop it! I’m leaving. I have plans with Frank.” She stormed out of my room —the woman who’d just told me we can’t run from difficult situations.

I heard the front door slam. Daisy was barking her head off. I looked out my window, and my mother was still crying. But she was no longer my concern.

Murder hovered at the end of my driveway. Peering up at me.