Inside the shed again, Lydia looks at the box in my hands, and her eyes go large. “Please tell me you know what we’re looking for,” she says.

“I was hoping it would make more sense to you,” I say, dropping the box between us.

She bites the side of her nail, lowers into a squat, doesn’t move to touch anything. She sees the letters written in ink on the cover of the first journal. Elliot Jones. “This was all his?”

“Yes,” I say, and I grab a handful of notebooks off the top, spreading them out before me, to break her trance. They’re just paper.

Lydia takes a few, opening and closing the covers. “These are physics. Wrong subject.” She keeps going until we’re halfway down the box, and she opens a journal and says, “Oh, hold on.” She hops back to the chair, pivots to the computer screen, starts moving her fingers in time to some music I don’t hear at all.

“What are you—”

She holds up a finger. Her gold nail polish sparkles in the light from the window. She slides a pen between her teeth and starts typing. “I’m just,” she says around the pen, “seeing how the script runs. Can’t see if anything’s wrong before I know what it’s supposed to do.”

The screen turns black, and commands scroll across it. I’m in over my head there.

I keep looking through the journals, in case he’s left specific notes, or labeled things. I picture him sitting at his desk, reading some textbook, his hand off to the side scribbling notes at the same time, like he was split in two. When he was working on something in his bedroom, I could walk right up to his shoulder and he wouldn’t even notice, especially when he had headphones on, which was often. I did it all the time, as a game. Seeing how close I could get before dropping a hand on his shoulder, or shouting Boo—how high I could make him jump. He’d drop his pen and yell, but once the shock passed, his laughter would echo mine.

The problem with Elliot’s notes is that, however organized he was in person, his mind was not. Or it was, but in a way that only he could decipher. Nothing is labeled. Nothing is summarized. Still, I try.

My phone abruptly rings, cutting through the air. I fumble for it, sucking in a deep breath, like I’ve fallen asleep in the bathtub and am fighting my way to the surface. Lydia stops typing, too, peering at me over her shoulder.

The call is from Joe, and I answer before he can start to worry, calling the neighbors, asking if anyone’s seen me. “Hello?”

“Where are you, Kennedy?” He sounds irritated. Impatient.

I frown. It’s still Sunday morning; he’s probably just getting up. I think of my options: risky to claim I’m at the Albertsons’, if he’s still home. Or anywhere farther than a quick bike ride would take me. “I’m with a friend,” I say.

There’s a pause before Joe repeats the question, lower this time. “Kennedy, where are you? We’re supposed to be on the road soon.”

“On the…”

“Road,” he says, clearly exasperated. “Come on, Kennedy. You know this.”

I press my lips together. “I forgot,” I say.

Lydia spins around, and I hate that she’s listening.

“You forgot?” Joe says, his voice rising. He repeats things I say a lot, I’ve noticed, as if he expects the phrase to suddenly bring extra meaning. Will used to do the same, sitting across from me at the dinner table, though in his case, I thought it was probably more to seem like he was interested in what I had to say, as his girlfriend’s child, than a real question.

“Sorry.”

He sighs. “You weren’t here when I woke up.” It sounds like he’s trying to accuse me of something, but he’s not sure what.

“I just forgot to tell you. I was meeting my friend.”

“You were meeting a friend,” he repeats. I mean, I don’t blame him, the way he’s questioning this. I haven’t met up with a friend on the weekend in, oh, all the time I’ve been staying with him.

“Yes, here, Lydia, say hi to my uncle.” I hold the phone up in her direction.

She looks at me like I’m out of my mind, but after a beat she calls, “Hi, Kennedy’s uncle.”

This must appease him, as he doesn’t seem to know what to say. Finally, he relents. “Okay, we’re leaving in an hour. Do you need me to pick you up?”

I cringe, imagining him driving by this house on the way to Lydia’s address. I don’t want to draw any attention to the fact that I bike over this way on a consistent basis. “No,” I say. “I’m not far. I’ll be back soon.”

When I hang up, Lydia returns to typing. She doesn’t ask any questions. “So…I have to go,” I say.

She stops, spinning the chair around, with that pen in her mouth again. She takes the pen from between her teeth, twirling it in her fingers, and seems to choose her next words carefully. “I can stay here, see what I can find. As long as you don’t mind.”

“Yes,” I say, so grateful that I can feel my face pulling into an almost-smile. “Thanks. Okay, call me if you find anything?”

She waves a hand, but she’s already turned away, focusing on the screen again.

As I walk my bike back around the side of the house to the driveway, I freeze. There’s a car in the drive. It’s old, and blue. It must be a Realtor checking out the house before a showing. I mentally kick myself, knowing I didn’t lock the front door on my way out. I imagine whoever’s in there fixing the paintings, making a phone call. The door was unlocked. It looks like someone’s been in here again.

Moving as silently as I can, I make my way to the car, whose back window is covered in a layer of dust. I think about dragging my finger through the dust, leaving a message. Maybe Boo or Help or SOS. No. Maybe Get out. Run.

I wrinkle my nose. It all feels too cheap. I worry I’m losing my edge.