Page 17

Chapter 17

James

Still without my phone, the next step in my investigation became obvious: fieldwork. Principal Unger might’ve cut passing time between classes, but she hadn’t banished seniors’ off-campus lunch privileges yet. Ryan, Caleb, and I met up in the lobby with friends to make our usual Chipotle run. Unger watched us from the office’s windows; I swear she’d had me bugged. “See you in forty-five, Principal!” Ryan shouted, and saluted her as we exited through the school’s front doors.

Forty-five minutes.

I only had forty-five minutes to pull off this plan.

“Dang, I’m sorry,” I told everyone once we got close to the Subaru, pretending to look at my phone, “but I have to bail. My mom just asked if I’d pop in on Grace. Make her a cup of soup or something.”

“Oh good, she’s home from the hospital,” Caleb’s girlfriend said. “Tell her we hope she feels better soon!”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “Will do.” I dug Grace’s keys out of my pocket and hit the unlock button. The Subaru faithfully beeped. “Someone order a burrito for me, please.”

There was a chuckle from the group before they kept moving toward Ryan’s truck. In case Unger was watching from the windows—yes, I was a little paranoid—I slid stealthily into the driver’s seat. She’ll still know it’s you, I realized, though. This is Grace Barbour’s car, and you’re leaving Grace Barbour’s parking spot.

Well, screw it.

I zoomed out of the lot and past the athletic fields, driving home a respectable five miles over the speed limit. Our house was in a neighborhood of 1920s homes, a two-story yellow colonial with dark navy shutters and a driveway rounding the lawn. All our neighbors knew us, so I drove straight past it and parked a couple blocks away. I didn’t want to risk anyone texting my mom to ask if everything was all right. Grace and I never came home for lunch.

It wasn’t until I was walking up the front pathway that I noticed the special delivery we’d gotten today. Not the usual scattering of Amazon packages or a Chewy dog food box, but a sign.

A For Sale sign.

To put on our lawn.

“What the fuck?” I muttered as I reached THE BARBOURS welcome mat. There were three top-of-the-line signs leaning against the side of the porch. The first was painted black wood with gold lettering. FOR SALE, it read in fancy script, an illustration of a barn underneath. The Cheval Collective.

The Cheval Collective was the most sought-after realty firm in town. When its owner had done an initial walk-through of our house, Mom had been totally starstruck.

I rolled my eyes when I saw that a note had been left with the signs.

Barbours—

Looking forward to coffee next week! In the meantime, here are some options for signage.

—TCC

Okay, no, I thought, feeling heat on my face. Not happening.

I admit, I’m not super proud of what I did next. Not only was it immature but also ridiculous enough that any neighbor glancing out their window would stop and squint to see what I was doing: I grabbed all three signs and dragged them back down the street to the Subaru. Its trunk obediently opened, and despite all of Grace’s tennis gear, a mountain of reusable bags, my sand-filled beach backpack, and a pair of striped chairs (one might never know when a beach day might present itself), the signs perfectly fit. I’d dispose of them in the dumpster behind school. No one need ever know.

But then, I remembered whose house was right around the corner. And, well, I couldn’t help myself. Because while Marco álvarez was now in college, he and Isa had once been a thing. “Marco!” she’d shout into the phone when he’d flake on their plans. “Marco, you’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t believe you’re doing this again !”

He has the potential to be one of the most wonderful people in the world, I remembered her saying while I now used a mallet from the trunk to hammer the sign in place. But right now he’s the worst, and I don’t have time to wait for him to rise from the ashes.

Isa had dumped Marco after he’d blown her off one too many times. I liked to think his crush on a field hockey player also infuriated her. You didn’t two-time Isa Cruz.

I swung the mallet like Thor’s hammer. So long, álvarez family!

Back at the house, I sorted through the kitschy key chains on Grace’s key ring for her house key…only to find that it wasn’t there. What? My pulse pitched, but a second later, I groaned. Once again, my sister was a step ahead of me; she knew I had a habit of misplacing my own set of keys, so she’d taken hers on purpose to lock me out of the house.

Idiot! I was such an idiot !

The front door was firmly locked, so I jogged around to the garage, although I didn’t have much hope for that situation. Grace wouldn’t have changed the codes; she didn’t need to, not when the wiring in the keypad was constantly malfunctioning. You could open the garage doors from inside, no problem, but outside?

Big problem.

Honestly, how did my parents think the house would be ready for the market next month?

I tried our code three times before considering other options. Every downstairs door was locked, and so were the windows. I could possibly climb the rose trellis up to Grace’s always-unlocked window, but again: nosy neighbors. There’s someone scaling the side of your house, Kimberly, I imagined old Mrs.Claffey saying. He looks scrawny like your son, but I’m calling the police anyway…

So no, I would not be pulling a Romeo today. Grace was my sister, not my Juliet.

My stomach rumbled, and all of a sudden, it came to me. I bolted around the house to the backyard, Stan Smiths squelching in the soggy grass from yesterday’s rain. Muddy footprints marked my path across the flagstone patio around our pool, but I’d hose them off later.

Because here was the kitchen door.

Thank god my dad kept a spare key hidden under the gnome he’d christened Barnaby. It had been a gift from Mr. Adler; he’d just left it on our front porch one night. (Dad had retaliated by sending him a hideous plastic flamingo.) For years, Barnaby had welcomed guests to our home, until my mom moved the lawn ornament to the back stoop. In real estate, there was no time for fun and games and eyesores.

I tipped back Barnaby’s base to see the metal key waiting for me. “Score,” I whispered to myself, but before inserting it into the keyhole, I hesitated. Because I could hear heavy breathing, and it wasn’t mine. Quickly and quietly, I pressed my ear against the door.

Dammit, I thought. Rooney.

Rooney was our dog, a stubborn boxer-bloodhound mix that Grace had fallen in love with at the ASPCA and convinced our parents to adopt after her first summer volunteering there. The color of pumpkin pie, he barked the second I entered any room. “It’s because he’s suspicious,” my sister had told us after the paperwork had been signed, sealed, and delivered. “We believe he was abandoned, so that’s why he’s wary of you, James. He always is when meeting new people.” She cuddled the dog close. “But once he gets to know you, he’ll become really protective.”

Two years later, and I was still waiting for that protectiveness to include me. Could Grace actually be upstairs? I wondered, because it was very clear Rooney was on the other side of the door and had no intention of abandoning his guard post.

I don’t have time for this, I internally moaned. I definitely do not have time for this!

A stray tennis ball hid in the shrubs, so I scooped that up before I turned the key in the lock and twisted the knob. “Hey, Rooney…,” I said slowly after pushing open the door. “How was your morning?”

No joke, the dog’s glare gave me goose bumps. It reminded me of walking into Principal Unger’s office. He started barking.

I waved the neon yellow ball in front of him so he’d shut up. “You wanna play?”

Fetch? He couldn’t resist.

But instead of chasing the ball—I watched it fly toward our sycamore tree—he launched himself at me to steal the Subaru’s key fob that dangled from my fingers. My grip tightened too late; he’d tugged them out of my hand.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Rooney!” I whisper-shouted, not wanting any neighbors to overhear. “Rooney, come back here!”

My sister’s dog, shockingly, didn’t listen. He thought I needed to work for the car keys, teasing me until I gave in and started chasing him around the yard. I grabbed the tennis ball and tried distracting him with another toss, but to no avail. Heart pulsing, I ran in figure eights across the lawn. Exercise-wise, Rooney was pretty laidback (I had never been known for my athleticism either), but now he kicked it into high gear. We played a good three minutes of cat and mouse before I cornered him by our pool’s diving board. Rooney hated the water. “Drop them,” I said sharply. “Drop the keys, Rooney.”

The dog and I stared at each other. About three solid cups of drool dripped onto the pool deck, Grace’s keys locked in his jaw. I took a careful step forward, mentally preparing myself to pry them out. Rooney growled. “Shhh,” I whispered. “It’s gonna be all right….”

Five seconds passed. I waited for him to blink.

And then I lunged toward him, a textbook zig.

But Rooney was quick enough to zag, so I tumbled head over heels into the pool. Today’s bright sun had been warming the water, but the deeper I sank, the more I shivered. We hadn’t turned the heater on this week.

Not to mention, this was a less than ideal time for a swim.

Rooney had backed off by the time I broke the surface, sputtering and furious. The key fob and mess of key chains sat on the ledge, and I shoved them into my soaking-wet pocket before dribbling over to the house. Rooney bounded ahead of me. We squeezed through the kitchen door together, and he let out a low woof as I kicked off my waterlogged sneakers.

Then I risked a serious ankle injury by tearing through my house.

“Sorry, not sorry,” I told the dog once I hit the bottom of the back staircase.

Rooney, thankfully, was not allowed upstairs.

I took the stairs two at a time, tripping halfway up in only my socks, but I righted myself quickly. My adrenaline had gone through the roof. Grace’s room was at the end of the hall, but you could identify her “safeguards” from the landing. The tasteful Do Not Disturb sign Isa had given her as a gag gift one Christmas hung from her doorknob, and as I started down the hallway, I heard the calm white noise of her ceiling fan. Even an audiobook was on a loop. Probably the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series; Grace found it comforting to listen to, since we’d read them over and over as kids.

None of that stopped me from busting into her room. “I knew it!” I shouted once I spotted the empty bed. “I knew it!”

Isa had been here. That was obvious. Everything she touched turned to gold—Grace’s pristinely made bed included. It wasn’t like I frequented my sister’s room, but from what I could tell, she usually pushed back her covers, swiftly pulled them back up, and then threw her pillows on top. They’d never been this artfully arranged.

Izzy, no, I thought. She’s supposed to be on her deathbed, not a hotel bed!

It looked like someone had sprayed carpet cleaner over Grace’s bedside upchuck, but it hadn’t worked its wonders yet. I felt my lips twitch up in a sort of smile, doubting it even would. My mom would have to call in the professionals, and if they couldn’t make some magic happen, the carpet would have to be torn up and replaced.

What a shame.

I’m such a dick, I know. But believe me when I say I love and appreciate both my parents, and that I’m lucky as hell that I get to live here. And I want to continue to live here. Ship out to college at the end of the summer, sure, but dining hall food wouldn’t compare to my dad’s. I’d be raring for a home-cooked meal by fall break. Not, like, a future condo-cooked meal. Dad took up all the counter space when he made chicken Parmesan; it was a real production. A condo wouldn’t compare!

If that’s even where they were planning on moving.

I closed Grace’s MacBook to shut off the Percy Jackson audiobook. The narrator’s portrayal of Annabeth was pretty annoying, the voice too tinny. I also turned down her fan a bit (for future reference, Gracie: full-blast is overkill). The white noise softened enough for me to hear myself think, so I pulled on my invisible investigative FBI gloves and began fiddling with my sister’s things to see if she’d left any clues about where she, Isa, and Everett had gone.

Nightstand: nothing.

Under the bed: nothing. (I mean, a shit-ton of stuff, but not anything relevant.)

Desk: laptop, but I didn’t know her password and couldn’t waste time making educated guesses. I had to be back at school in twenty minutes.

Closet: an absolutely rank smell. I slid the door open to find a bucket of red-brown muck congealing on the floor.

I bent over and gagged, nearly adding to the pot.

But there we have it, folks: Grace Alexandra Barbour had taken a cue from yours truly and faked her own illness. Why else hide last night’s leftovers in your bedroom?

A blender? I studied the sludge. Did she use a blender to simulate—

My lab work went unfinished, cut off by a faint click.

And then a distinct bing that signaled a door opening. “Hello, Mr.Rooney!” I heard my mom coo from the foyer as the hair on the back of my neck rose. “Have you been taking good care of our Grace?”

The dog woofed affectionately.

Honestly, I was the only person Rooney didn’t like. Well, me and Everett. “Dogs are usually eager to please,” he’d commented once. “But it’s like we need to please him ….”

“Yes, don’t worry,” my mom said now. “I’ll go up and check on her.”

My body lurched.

Fuck.

Heart banging around in my chest, I started to close the closet door but then second-guessed myself and grabbed the bucket and staged it by my bedside. And when I say “my” bedside, I mean I shoved a loading dock’s worth of pillows off Grace’s bed and scrambled into it, yanking her comforter up and over my head—mostly. Tufts of light brown hair still saw daylight, fortunately the same color as my sister’s hair. Shout-out to genetics…

If only I weren’t wet from the pool.

And the door, I suddenly remembered. I didn’t shut the bedroom door!

But it was too late. My mother had reached the top of the stairs; I could hear her footsteps treading toward me. “Grace?” she called softly. “Sweetheart?”

My back to her, I pretended to be asleep—a subtle combination of restless shifting and dreamy gibberish. “Mmm-gmm-bmm?” I murmured, nestling into Grace’s mattress.

It was way more comfortable than mine.

My mom didn’t say anything…at least not to me. “Hi, honey, I just got home,” she said, now on the phone with my dad. “She’s asleep right now, and I don’t want to wake her, but it doesn’t seem like she’s feeling any better.” She paused, and my spine straightened—I could feel her leaning closer, smell her perfume. “The bucket next to her bed is almost halfway full. If she’s eaten anything today, she hasn’t been able to keep it down.”

Silence.

Leave, I prayed. Please leave.

“Really?” She backed away from the bed. “You think I should go back to work?”

Yes!

“Well, that’s true,” she said to my dad. “There are a few meetings this afternoon, and missing those certainly wouldn’t be ideal….”

Come on, Dad, I thought, easing into a content snore to help tip the scale in my favor. Use your attorney art of persuasion!

She laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. The best thing to do is let her sleep. She’ll call or text if she needs us.” She sighed. “She could use a day off, too. She works so hard.”

So do I! I thought, the back of my neck prickling. Honor roll wasn’t the only proof of being a hard worker. Learning two instruments from YouTube tutorials alone deserved some credit! Not to mention the compositions that helped me get into BU…

Well, to be fair, only Isa and my school guidance counselor knew about those.

I tried not to stiffen when my mom lightly kissed the top of my head, feeling her hover afterward—probably wondering why I’d decided to take a dip in the pool. But she didn’t linger, not with work waiting. “Sleep well, my sweet girl” was all she whispered before retreating down the hall. “By the way,” I heard her say to my dad, “I’m going to call Stanley Steemer. The carpet’s looking worse!”

I stayed buried under Grace’s covers until the front door binged and its lock clicked. Naturally, Rooney was shooting me daggers from the doorway when I flung them back. “Downstairs,” I pointlessly ordered him before glancing at Grace’s alarm clock. Class resumed in five minutes.

Do I race back and take a tardy? I wondered. Or do I stay here and wallow away the rest of the day?

Choices, choices.

In the end, I picked school. Not to rejoin the riveting world of academia, but to get my phone back. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to find my friends.

I just had to change into dry clothes first.