Page 37 of The Bright Lands

Soon they were on a gravel road that ran straight along an ugly patch of hard coast. The waves were loud. The few small houses were battened up with storm shutters.

A prickling heat spread between the hairs of Clark’s scalp. This shoreline looked abandoned. It was easy to imagine that a murder committed in one of these boarded-up houses would never be heard.

Her phone spoke. “Your destination is on the right.”

The house at the address Floyd Tillery had given them was sided with ragged wood shingles, a yellow VW Bug turning to rust in the sandy grass. Someone had formed large peace signs over the windows with masking tape. “In case the wind cracks them?” Clark wondered aloud.

“Keep your weapon handy, Deputy.”

They went around back—Mayfield leading, Clark keeping an eye on the road. They saw nothing behind the house but ocean, pebbly sand and a little pier, barely more than a stick of wood jutting into the water. A fishing putter was lashed to the pier’s side. Was that a hole in its rusted hull or a trick of the light?

The prickling heat spread down her neck.

Mayfield knocked at the back door, one hand over his holstered gun. He knocked again. “Mr. Tillery?” he called. His voice was swallowed by the waves.

Clark peered through a grimy window. She saw nothing but a rattan rug, dust.

“Sir,” she began, but Mayfield busted the window in with his elbow, reached in to unlatch the door. Wiped the knob with a handkerchief.

Clark didn’t ask questions.

They stepped into the dim house. The rug was stained with years of damp, as were the collapsed remains of a couch.

The prickling heat spread over Clark’s entire body. She’d never felt anything like it before—exhilaration, fear, a very bad vibe. She followed Mayfield down the dim hallway, briefly certain that they were about to push open a door and discover bloody walls, a knife abandoned in a grisly sink. Evidence.

And then she noticed that theirs were the first footsteps to disturb the dust on these floors in years.

A few minutes later and they were sure of it: the house was empty. Clark and Mayfield visited the five neighboring homes, all of which were shuttered for winter. No signs of forced entry anywhere, nor of any sort of entry at all. If Dylan and Jamal and KT had come to Galveston on Friday night, they hadn’t stayed in these houses.

No. Clark shook her head at the empty coast, realized what that tingling heat had been telling her all along. Those boys had never come to the coast at all.

KIMBRA

Kimbra could barely walk by the time she made it to the school’s bathroom, she was so shaky with exhaustion. She looked at her phone and wondered how her interview with the police could have lasted only thirty minutes. She’d never realized how much effort it took to prop up a lie under pressure.

Bethany Tanner was at the bathroom’s sink, touching up her face in the chipped mirror. Her eyes settled on Kimbra with a chill. Bethany dropped her lipstick into her bag and said, “You must be worried sick.”

Kimbra hesitated. Too late to turn back now. She approached the sink next to Bethany, cupped her hands under the water. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Kimbra had awoken this morning to the news that KT had failed to make it to practice. She had just spent the last half hour telling Lady Cop and spooky-eyed Investigator Mayfield that she had called and texted KT all day and gotten no response. She’d told the police she had no idea where KT had gone, which was the truth, impossible and bewildering as it was.

She hadn’t been entirely truthful about much else.

Bethany lined her brow with a pencil. “I thought my man was fine too.”

Kimbra’s stomach turned. She said nothing.

“Staler knows something,” Bethany continued. A toilet flushed in the stall behind them.

“If he does then he didn’t tell me.”

The stall behind them opened. Jasmine Lopez, Bethany’s bony sidekick, washed her hands without a word.

Kimbra knew that Bethany was fucking with her, that the girl had to torment someone because she was too superior to be humbled by grief, but still Kimbra didn’t let her guard down. “Doyouknow something I don’t?” she said.

“I’m not the one dating the meth addict.”

Kimbra took a long breath. That one hurt. “You know every boy on that team is a liar, right? It’s the only thing they’re good at.”