Possess

would be.”
    “Okay then.” Matt headed for the wardrobe while Bridget tackled the book piles. There were none of the professional volumes and medical journals that filled the bookcases in both of her dad’s offices; these were his favorite reads. Mysteries and thrillers, a biography of Willie Mays, some pictorial histories of San Francisco.
    “Seems to be mostly old stuff,” Matt said. He had a leather box balanced on his knee. “Yearbooks, old letters, photos.”
    “Keep looking.” Though for what, she wasn’t sure. Would her dad have kept the missing Undermeyer files hidden or just piled among the books?
    The books were a bust, so Bridget moved on to the coffee table. Old Sports Illustrated s and some half-finished crossword puzzles from the Sunday paper, both frozen in time to that horrible afternoon so long ago.
    No, not so long. With everything that was happening, her father’s death seemed close again, tangible like it was all happening anew. Only this time she didn’t feel as helpless as she had before. This time she could do something so her father’s death wouldn’t be in vain.
    “Oh my God,” Matt exclaimed.
    Bridget bolted to his side. “What? What did you find?”
    “Is this you?” he said, holding up an old snapshot.
    Bridget snatched the photo from his hands. It was a picture of a seven-year-old Bridget in a pink Sleeping Beauty princess gown, complete with tiara, plastic light-up princess shoes, and glitter wand, which she was dabbing on the head of her infant brother like she was granting him a wish. “Holy crap.”
    Matt was trying desperately to hold back his laughter. “I’ve never seen you in so much . . . pink.”
    “Shut it.”
    “Please tell me,” he said with a smirk, “that you still have the dress.”
    Bridget shoved the photo back into the wardrobe. “I hate you. A lot.”
    “I know.” Matt winked and he closed the wardrobe door. “There’s nothing else here, though.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Positive. I checked and double-checked. Nothing.”
    Bridget sat down on the floor. Come on, think! Where would he have hidden it?
    “Bridget?” Her mom’s voice drifted in through the open closet door. “Bridget, Sergeant Quinn is leaving, and I think Matt should probably go too.”
    “Dammit.” Bridget ducked back through her closet door, Matt close behind. “Okay, Mom,” she called out, trying to sound normal.
    Matt pulled the door closed behind him and stepped out of the closet. “I guess that means I need to go.”
    Bridget cast a glance at her closet door, trying not to look disappointed. “Yeah, I guess so.”
    He placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll call me? If you need anything?”
    Bridget nodded.
    “You’ll call me even if you don’t?”
    Bridget tried to keep the corners of her mouth from bending up into a goofy smile, but she couldn’t. What had happened to her? A few kisses and she was completely under Matt Quinn’s spell. Where was badass Bridget who didn’t need anyone?
    Matt took a step closer. “Will you?”
    Bridget melted. “Yes.”
    “Good.” Matt leaned down and kissed her lightly, then opened the bedroom door and, with one last flash of his smile, slipped into the hall.

Thirty
    T HEY SAT IN THE SAME seats—Bridget, Hector, and Brad—at the last cafeteria table on the left. Their trays held the same familiar lunches: Brad’s piled high with a precarious tower of sandwiches, Bridget’s grilled cheese and Diet 7Up, Hector’s weight-conscious bag lunch. It was the same, and yet everything was different because of the empty seat to Bridget’s left. Peter’s seat.
    “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Brad said at last, breaking the silence. His sandwiches lay untouched.
    Hector stared at the empty seat. “Yeah.”
    “I mean, I was just tutoring with him on Friday. I can’t believe it.”
    “Um . . .” Hector fidgeted with the zipper on his hoodie. “Brad, you know, if you still need help with algebra . . . I mean, I could totally, you know, help.”
    Bridget did a double take. Hector just volunteered to tutor his secret crush? That was the ballsiest thing he’d ever done.
    “Yeah, man,” Brad said with a smile. “That’d be awesome. Thanks.”
    “No problem.”
    Bridget was about to say something when she felt Hector’s shoe nudge her under the table. She let it drop. Now wasn’t the time to tease Hector about Brad.
    “I just don’t get what he was doing at school that night,” Brad said.
    “Duh,”