Now.
Wait, no.
Now. For real.
Okay, my texts to Nolan are not the most eloquent. Not that his are any better.
Here, he wrote five minutes ago.
I mean, at the corner, he amended in the next text.
I’d just spent the last five minutes making sure Joe was really sleeping, and not just staring at the ceiling in the dark. Joe didn’t come home until after dinner, when I was crashing—a nap in preparation for tonight. When he knocked on my bedroom door—to apologize for being late, got caught up, etc, etc—I tried my best to look like I hadn’t just been sleeping.
I must’ve failed, because he frowned and asked if I was feeling okay.
I’ve been watching the clock since then. Joe didn’t go to bed until just after midnight, when the house was dark and quiet. I gave him twenty extra minutes.
When I opened his bedroom door to check on him, he didn’t move.
It was time.
Without my bike, the routine feels off. I’m more on-edge than usual, sneaking out in the middle of the night. Once I’m outside, I make a dash for the corner of the street, where Nolan said he’d be waiting.
The overhead light inside his car turns on as I pull open the passenger door, and he squints. “Hey,” he says.
“Geez, find the creepiest spot on the street, why don’t you.”
He rolls his eyes, and it looks like he just woke up. Like he’s only half focused, and it turns him softer at the edges. “Better than having someone call the cops on me because some beat-up car is parked under a streetlight outside their house.”
“Okay, okay,” I say as he drives off.
“Hey,” he says, nudging me in the shoulder with one hand while he drives. “Breathe, Kennedy.”
I smile at him, at the slow grin that forms as his eyes adjust to the dark again.
The street is quiet at night, winding through forest and farmland, no sidewalk on either edge. “I can’t believe you bike this in the dark,” Nolan mumbles.
The shoulder of the road is pretty narrow, dropping off to a grassy ditch, but from this angle it looks worse than it is. “Barely anyone ever drives this way at night.”
“That doesn’t make it any better,” he says, tightening his hold on the wheel.
This time, he slows down early enough to turn into my driveway on the first pass. “Turn off the headlights,” I tell him when he pulls off the road.
“What? No way. I’d really rather not end up wrapped around some tree.”
“Just go slow. I don’t want someone to call Joe and tell him someone’s here.”
“It’s almost one in the morning, and this is your property, right?” He looks my way and lets out a sigh. “When we’re closer to the house and I’m sure I can see, I will, okay?”
I hold my breath until we reach the roundabout in front of the house and he flicks the lights off. The house is a shadow in the night, with the moon hidden behind clouds. We exit the car as quietly as we can, which isn’t really quiet at all with the rocks and dirt kicking up in our wake.
I’ve got my flashlight with me, like usual, and keep it aimed low to the ground so no one will notice unless they’re already here. My bike is still hidden underneath the porch, and I mumble a thanks to whatever higher power was looking out for it while the prospective buyers were here.
Nolan is not nearly as good at stealth mode as he thinks, closing his car door too firmly, stepping too loudly, kicking at a pebble with every other step. “Shh,” I remind him.
“What?” he says.
I gesture to his feet, to the ground. The problem is sort of…all of him. He makes an impression. He leaves a mark. I give up and continue on, hoping for the best.
At the shed around back, the door squeaks when I push it open.
“I thought we were coming for your bike,” he whispers.
“While we’re here, I might as well check the new data,” I say, stepping inside.
Nolan flips the switch on the side of the wall, on impulse, but I flip it off again. “Trust me,” I whisper, thinking of Marco and Lydia and Sutton, who’ve been spending a lot of time out there.
Instead I turn on the computer screen, which illuminates us in the dark. Nolan’s face glows an eerie yellow, and his eyes keep darting around the room. “What is this place?” he whispers.
“A computer shed. That used to be a storage shed. That used to be a stable.”
“I see,” he says, like that makes perfect sense.
I download all the data we can get, storing it on my flash drive, then gesture to the box of Elliot’s things, left behind from when Lydia was in here. “Can we bring that with us, too?” I ask. I want to take advantage of the fact that we have a car. I want to spend some time looking through everything.
“Sure.” Nolan scoops it up, then pauses at the door, and I realize he’s waiting for me. Or he’s waiting for the flashlight.
“Just a sec.” I finish up, shut everything down, and follow him back outside, illuminating his path with my flashlight. I shine the light under the porch and wheel the bike out, walking it back to his car.
He pops the trunk, and I see a baseball bat wedged in the corner, along with his gear. He pushes it to the side, making room for Elliot’s things, then takes out a couple of bungee cords to secure my bike.
“Ready?” he asks as he closes the trunk.
But I stare up at the house, then back at Nolan’s car. “There are a few more things I want to grab. In the house.”
He pauses before nodding once.
“You don’t have to come in,” I add.
“I’ve already been in there,” he says, and I narrow my eyes at him over my shoulder. I knew he had been at my house, not in my house.
“I know, I’m sorry.” He puts his hands up, surrendering.
“Okay, well. I left handprints all over the back window of your car to freak you out,” I say, since we’re in the confessing spirit.
“I sort of figured,” he says, and even in the dark, I can tell he’s grinning.
He follows me around back, but he pauses at Elliot’s window, like he’s considering changing his mind. I’m expecting him to tell me he’ll wait for me out front, when he finally climbs in after me. He doesn’t move from Elliot’s room at first, once we’re inside. It’s different in the dark, I get that. Instead, he stands across the room from me, a shadow in the dark house.
“Come on,” I say.
“I can’t see.”
“Sorry. No lights, or someone will notice.”
“Are you trying to freak me out again?”
I cross the room and grab his hand, pulling him behind me, his dry palm pressed against mine, fingers locking, like it’s nothing. I’m thankful for the dark as we walk, tethered together. And I’m thankful for his hand, which at the moment is for me and not him. The scent of paint, the stairway before me—the shadow house is here.
My free hand grips the banister, and I hear nothing—no breathing behind me. Nolan knows what happened here, too. He must. His steps follow mine, in grave silence.
At the top of the stairs, I finally turn on the flashlight, shining it back and forth. To the right is the loft area. To the left, the room for storage, with the boxes of Elliot’s things. My eyes meet Nolan’s. “Do you think this will all fit in your car?”
The backseat is full of Elliot’s boxes—if Elliot won’t talk to me, maybe I can still decipher his intentions, his thoughts. Maybe there will be a note about the program on December fourth. Maybe I can figure out how he knew the kid on Nolan’s wall. There must be answers in here somewhere.
I know this isn’t everything, that the police took things from his room, as evidence. But this had all been left behind, or stored in the shed behind the house, until the cleaning company was called in, followed by the stager and the Realtor.
We leave Nolan’s car at the corner where he picked me up earlier and slowly transport my bike and the boxes, one by one, to the base of my window. I decide I’ll move them later, once Joe is up and in the shower and won’t hear me banging around in the next room. Except when we’re depositing the last boxes, the outside light turns on. The back door swings open and Joe is there, staring at us both. He’s in gym shorts and a T-shirt, and his eyes look bloodshot, and I can’t tell if I’ve just woken him or if he’s been awake for a while now.
He stares from me to Nolan. Nolan puts the last box down. “I should go,” he says, taking a step back.
“Yes, you should go,” Joe says, in a voice I’ve never heard before.
Nolan looks at me and cringes, mouthing Sorry. I’m still watching him stride toward his car on the corner when Joe’s booming voice cuts through the night. “What the hell is all this?”
“Elliot’s things,” I say, even though surely he can see this for himself. The boxes are labeled in black marker, with his name.
“Where did you get all this?”
When I don’t answer, he throws his hands in the air and spins around, retreating into the house once more.
“Joe,” I say, following him inside.
He stops walking down the hall but puts his hand up, cutting me off.
“You sneak out, sneak out with a boy, and what, take a joyride to your old house?”
“He’s not some boy, Joe. It’s not like that.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it’s not like that, Kennedy. What’s it like, then? Go ahead. Tell me. Is he the reason you’ve been skipping school?”
I stare at him, frozen.
He nods, every movement tight. “Yeah, the school called. They called, and I thought you were sick, thought that’s why you looked tired when I got home. I told them you weren’t feeling well. Thought it was my fault, that there was something I missed, but you were just planning to meet up with your boyfriend—”
“Nolan,” I say. Joe looks at me, confused. “I was planning to meet with Nolan, Joe. Because something’s happening. At the house, something isn’t what we thought.”
“Kennedy, stop.” He puts his head in his hands. “I don’t know how to help you.”
“Well, you can start by not selling my house, Joe!”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You’re grounded. For the week. School and back, that’s it.”
I shake my head. “You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can. I can also take your phone, if you want to push it.”
I clamp my mouth shut. These were his rules: no skipping school, no boys.
As if this is the source of the change in me.
Not the signal, not the photo, not Elliot at the jail. But a boy in the night.
“Joe, please.”
“Kennedy. Go to bed. Now.”
I listen, but only because this is not the right time. And before that time comes, I need my phone.