“Remember last time when we snuck out and got ice cream?” I said. “Want to do that again?”
“It’s raining too hard. I’m not mad at you, Petey, I just don’t want to be here, okay?”
“I know.” I bit my lip. “What about poker?”
“You’ll beat me at that, too.”
“I’ll let you win.”
She laughed, and my stomach hurt less because Rachel’s laugh makes me smile. She jumped up and tickled me. “You’re lying, munchkin.”
I giggled. “Blackjack? Yahtzee? I’ll give you a head start on Mario Kart, a whole lap if you want.”
Rachel sighed and rolled over to her back. The rain fell so fast I couldn’t separate individual raindrops. “Petey? Would you really want to live with Grams?”
“Live? Like forever?”
“When we visit next month, I’m going to tell Grams everything. She’ll let us stay. Maybe she’ll never come back to Newark, either. She only visits because of us.”
The pain in my stomach hurt more than ever. “Don’t do that. It’ll make Grams sad.”
She put her chin on her hand and looked at me. “I’m much older than you. I’ll be twelve next week; I know what’s best. Look at it this way: Either Grams tells Mom and Dad to stop with the stupid parties and we stay here without all this weird stuff, or we get to live in Florida. Right? And Grams’ friend Larry will take you fishing. Remember last year? We had a lot of fun on his boat.”
True. But Dad took me fishing, too. Sometimes. I bit my lip when I remembered I hadn’t gone fishing with Dad since before Grandpa died, because Grandpa always went with us.
“Mom and Dad would be sad.” I sounded like I was going to cry, and I didn’t want to be a baby, but I didn’t want anything to change that much. I just wanted a normal family.
“If they’re sad, they can cut out this shit.”
My eyes widened. “You said shit.”
“So did you.”
“Only because you said it first.”
Rachel smiled at me, but it was a sad face. I wished she didn’t think I was a little kid. I was nine, in third grade, and I was smart, too. All my teachers said so. They had wanted me to skip third grade, but my parents said no because I’m shorter than all the other third graders.
“Think about it, Pete, okay? I won’t say anything if you’re not okay with it.”
I didn’t believe her. Rachel was lying to me. I knew it deep down and didn’t know how I knew. Maybe because she wasn’t looking at me? Like when she said she wasn’t sneaking out to visit Jessie last month, but she did, anyway.
Maybe she was right and we should talk to Grams.
I didn’t want to leave.
“I’m going to my room to call Jessie. Set up Mario Kart, we’ll play when I get back, I promise.”
I did what she said and played a couple games alone while I waited for her. But she didn’t come back. I don’t know when I fell to sleep, but I woke up to thunder.
The clock on the VCR flashed 12:00. The power must have gone off and on. But it felt later than midnight. I went downstairs, feeling my way down the narrow staircase to the second-floor landing. The house was very quiet. It smelled like it always did after a party, of stale smoke over stinky food and drink. Rachel’s light was off. I opened her door. Her night-light shined on her bed. It was empty. She must have snuck out without me. Went to Jessie’s without telling me. I started crying. I didn’t want to be alone.
I crawled into my sister’s messy bed, missing her and mad at her for leaving me.
It wasn’t until six days later that the police found Rachel. She was dead. But in my heart, I think I’d known from the beginning.
CHAPTER THREE
FBI Academy, Quantico
“Kincaid!”
Lucy entered the gym with two minutes to spare. Her conversation with her criminal psychology instructor, Supervisory Special Agent Tony Presidio, had taken longer than she’d thought, but she made it on time.
“Yes, sir,” Lucy said, pulling up at the end of the row of new agents from Class 12-14.
“Five pull-ups.”
“I’m not late, sir.” Lucy spoke automatically but immediately realized she should have kept her mouth shut.
Tom Harden stared at her, his expression unreadable. He wasn’t an agent but had been an Army Ranger with extensive experience in physical training. He looked every bit a recently retired drill sergeant, with close-cropped hair