LAYNA LED HER FRIENDS to the library once again, though there was no need to huddle around the still empty foyer. Alice was not there.

Layna avoided the subject so as to not begin another round of verbal blows with Max. The ice they were on was already thin enough because of Sydney’s dreadful act, the tension between Dillon and Max, and now Alice.

“The Disappearance of Alice. It sounds like the title of an awesome YA novel,” Crosby said, as they made their way to the building’s research room.

Nancy walked beside him. “If there’s a Lifetime movie based on her, I hope they make her a dancer so I can call dibs on playing her.”

Layna shook her head. She didn’t understand their playful attitudes, and she didn’t want to hear them. She looked around, but everything seemed to be in its place. Everything seemed to be just fine. Except Alice isn’t here, she thought. Everything is not fine.

“Guys, wait a sec,” Nancy said. “Come over here.” She stood in front of a stack, her face inches from the books.

Layna rushed to her and realized there were small gashes in the spines of the books, probably not noticeable unless you were looking for something out of the ordinary. If even one of the books had been missing, or placed upside down, the thin line of jagged tearing might have gone unseen, or dismissed as kids being careless with the library’s property.

But this was nothing like that. Not at all.

“A knife did that,” Layna said. She frowned and looked at Max, then reached for his hand and was glad when he took it.

Nancy ran her fingers over the scratches, then pulled them back and rubbed them together to get rid of any lingering dust. She stepped back from the stacks and looked at the others. “Deputy Danny either didn’t see this—”

“Or he’s lying,” Layna offered. She looked to Max. She now knew his story made sense, at least some of it.

“I’ll tell you, I’m on board the I officially do not like this train,” Crosby muttered. “Something’s wrong.”

He took the silver coin out of his pocket and ran it around his fingers. Layna knew it would keep his mind from wandering to the terrible things that she also hoped not to think about.

Blood.

Alice.

Death.

“I told you!” Max startled everyone, especially Layna. She and the others ran over to him. He knelt next to the computer desk where Alice had worked. He held something in his hand.

“What’s that?” Nancy asked, beating Layna to it.

Max swallowed hard and took a breath. He pointed to the outlet. It was a wreck. Small black marks trailed off the white plug cover where electricity had arced from the force of the cord being torn out. He held up the plug. It was intact, but its prongs were twisted oddly.

Layna knelt next to Max and placed a hand on his knee for support. Max’s free hand went to hers, and Layna felt lighter when the weight of worry about the things unsaid between her and her boyfriend lifted, at least temporarily.

Nancy and Crosby stayed back. They were done being cavalier, but Layna could see they had questions.

Nancy spoke first. “Listen, I see it. I get it. Weird? Check. But we’re not any closer to finding out what actually happened to Alice.”

Max stood up. “At least you now know something happened.”

Layna was worried that there might be another argument when Nancy retorted, “Yeah, something happened. Or she went somewhere in a hurry. Look, I don’t know.”

“You do know,” Max said, defiant. “You just can’t deal.”

“I didn’t see what you said you saw,” Nancy spat back. “There, I said it.”

Layna stared at the printer. She looked on top of it, and around it. She crouched down and wriggled her arm behind the heavy desk as best she could. Her face scrunched up as she strained. Something was back there. Her eyes squinted as she pushed her arm as far as it would go, which was not much more than below her elbow. But then her eyes widened. She got it.

“Don’t act like I don’t care about her, because I do,” Nancy said.

“When you stop acting like you don’t, I’ll be good,” Max snapped back.

“Guys,” Crosby pleaded. “Please.”

“Oh my God,” Layna said, reading the piece of paper she had found, her head shaking.

“Well?” Crosby demanded.

Layna’s arm dropped to her side. She said nothing. She could say nothing. The words wouldn’t come.

Max grabbed the paper from Layna’s hand and scanned it. She watched as his eyes darted back and forth.

“Jesus, tell us!” Nancy said.

Layna didn’t expect Max’s response.

“Who are you?” he asked, looking right into Layna’s eyes.

She looked back at him, empty inside. The words stuck in the back of her throat, thick as mucus. She went numb, the tingling starting at the bottom of her feet and traveling up the length of her body. She had to shake her head to keep from succumbing to the black and white dots sizzling in her vision.

“My mother—” Layna uttered, the rest of the sentence clinging to the inside of her mouth, as if not saying it would keep it untrue. “My mother went to school here.”

Max stared at her, looking confused.

Nancy’s mouth hung open.

The coin in Crosby’s hand stopped moving and dropped to the floor with a soft thunk.

“You told us you didn’t know your mother,” Crosby said, with more than a tinge of accusation.

Layna was stung as she looked at them. She could feel them wondering what other secrets she was hiding, though she wasn’t hiding anything at all. She wanted to say something, anything, to defend herself. But the words did not come.

Instead, Nancy spoke. “Try working on your whole inside voice staying inside thing, Cros.”

Crosby ignored her and picked up his coin. He shoved it in his pocket.

Layna regained composure. “I didn’t know her.” She looked right at Max. “I don’t. But this reference sheet says she went here. And she wrote a play.” Layna thought silently for a moment, then walked away.

As she made her way outside the library, she dashed through the falling rain with purpose. Her face glistened every time she passed a lamppost.

Max and the others kept up with her quick pace.

Layna kept her eyes forward as she spoke to them, answering the unasked questions she knew must have swirled in their minds. “You’re not getting it.”

“Evidently not,” Nancy said.

Layna stopped. She took a deep breath. She saw in the distance the old, burned theater, its construction material covered in tarps that flapped in the wind. She centered herself and looked each of her companions in the eye. She had to make them see why this was a big deal.

“My grandparents told me my mother died in a car accident when I was a baby,” Layna said. “Why would they say that?”

“Maybe they didn’t know?” Crosby offered, half-hearted.

Nancy practically snorted. “Idiot, they’d know. They were lying. Besides, parents don’t forget writing checks to this place. I know. I never hear the end of it.”

“Yeah, but no one is writing checks for the scholarship girl. Maybe there’s a reason why?” Crosby said.

That hurt Layna.

Max took a step toward her, but she wriggled away from him.

“I need to find a phone,” she said. “Or Mrs. D. I want some damn answers.”

“I know you’re upset,” Max said, “but we should stick together, especially after—”

Nancy jumped in. “He’s right. Until we find Alice.”

Max clenched his jaw. “I saw her.”

“Max, please stop it,” Crosby said. “We’ve had enough stories about dead people.”

Max paid no mind. “I tried to help her,” he said. “I thought she might have even been breathing. She was killed.”

“Stop it,” Crosby said forcefully.

Nancy looked physically uncomfortable. But Max did not stop. Layna watched him with a look of pity.

“All the blood,” Max said. “They left her there and came back to get her.”

“I said shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Crosby exploded.

Layna felt the tension as a tangible thing, like sheets of mist that hung in the air after a rain. If it were colder, they would freeze, drop to the ground, and shatter.

“Okay, Max, we’re listening,” Nancy said calmly. “But it’s hard to picture. It must have been a joke. I mean, why in the world would anyone kill anyone here? And Alice? I mean, for God’s sake, it’s Alice!”

There was no easy answer for that. And Layna knew it. As she sucked in a breath to form the words in her mind, Crosby was already talking, the obviousness of a theory dawning on his face.

“She was helping you,” he said.

The statement did not shock Layna, nor did it offend. It was what she had been thinking but was afraid to say.

Crosby went on. “What Alice found, maybe nobody knew. I mean somebody knew, but I don’t think anybody was ever really supposed to know.”

“But if she found this, then she knew,” Max added. “And now she’s, well, she’s gone.”

Nancy shivered. “Creepy.”

Layna wasted no time in heading off a theory which had not occurred to her until her friends weaved bits and pieces of information into a cloth of which she wanted no part. “Wait. This is not my fault,” she said.

“Nobody said that,” Max offered, but the look on his face suggested that he might have thought otherwise. And in that instant, Layna hated him for it.

“Forget that,” Crosby stated. “We have to figure out what to do next.”

Layna had the answer. She looked at Nancy. “You look for Alice. She has to be here, somewhere. And Max, fine, go watch Dillon if you can.”

Crosby’s eyes were wide open. “What about me?”

Layna continued, grabbing his arm. “We’re going to the archives.”

“Wait, why?” Crosby asked.

“You’re the writer. You have keys to the building.”

“So,” Crosby countered.

Layna examined the faces of her friends as they stared at her. She wondered whether everything in life would come to arguments. To secrets and lies.

Death.

“So,” she said with certainty, “there’s a play I’m dying to read.”