Stranded

embracing him, comforting him, Noah saw her clutch his father’s arm as if needing his strength to remain upright.
    That’s when he realized that it wasn’t his odd gestures that had unnerved his mother. It was that he was actually saying the words in his head out loud, over and over again.
    Ethan shut up! Shut up, shut up! Stop screaming!
    And Noah shut up immediately.
    He stared at his parents and knew that he looked like he had been caught doing something unspeakable. If they only knew.
    “You said he’s still out there.” Detective Lopez was standing at his bedside now. “Where is your friend Ethan, Noah?” Then without waiting for a response, he said, “What did you do to him?”
    “Do to him?”
    Noah could hardly believe what the detective was asking. He looked to his parents again.
    “Go ahead and tell him what happened, Noah.” It was his father, but the tone was stern.
    They thought he was responsible? Why?
    “All that blood,” Detective Lopez said. “We know it wasn’t all yours.”
    But he
had
done something to Ethan. He left him with a madman. And it was worse than that. Much worse …
    “We found Ethan’s car.” Detective Lopez seemed to wait for Noah to look at him. “It was still parked at the rest area. Doors unlocked. Keys under the seat.”
    He paused, studying Noah.
    “We found the rest of your clothes. Folded up, neat and tidy. Right on the passenger seat. Shoes on top.”
    Noah just stared at him. How could he explain that his clothes were part of the bargain?
    “The boys are best friends,” he heard his mother explaining. “Since third grade.”
    “Who goes first?”
Noah heard the madman’s voice and searched the room, looking past his parents, looking past Detective Lopez, past the officer at the door. The killer wasn’t anywhere to be seen. But he was still in Noah’s head.
    “Your cell phone was there, too,” Detective Lopez was saying, without acknowledging Noah’s mother. Without acknowledging the voice in Noah’s head.
    “There were no phone calls to 911,” Detective Lopez said. “Notext messages to friends or family asking for help or talking about being stranded.”
    Again, Noah stared at the man. Why hadn’t he called for help? Why had he left his phone behind?
    Then he remembered. The man had borrowed Noah’s cell phone. He’d told them that his own had run down its battery. His car wouldn’t start. Could they help him out?
    Those eyes. That smile. They should never have rolled down the window.
    Ethan’s fault. I told you not to roll down the window
.
    “Noah.” It was his father.
    Had he said the words out loud again?
    His father was growing impatient.
    “Tell Officer Lopez what happened,” he said.
    Noah glanced at the detective to see if he noticed his dad had just demoted him. A silly thing for him to notice, but his father was good at that. He could disarm someone with his words before the person realized what had happened.
    Like father, like son
.
    But then his father snapped at him. “Just tell him for Christ’s sake.”
    None of it fazed Detective Lopez, and he continued, “Noah, if Ethan’s hurt badly we might be able to still help him. Just tell us where he is.”
    The room became silent. Machines hummed and beeped. And amazingly, Ethan’s screams had stopped for the moment.
    “I don’t know where Ethan is,” Noah finally admitted. Then he added in a whisper that sounded embarrassingly close to a whimper, “But I know he’s dead.”

CHAPTER 12

    Maggie had left Lily after writing her personal cell phone number on the back of her business card and handing it to the woman.
    “What the hell good is this?” Lily had wanted to know.
    “You can call me anytime.”
    Lily had laughed like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. She was still laughing when Maggie walked out the door. But she had taken the card.
    Now the sun began to sink behind the barn. Maggie had returned to the top of the heap alongside a CSU technician named Janet. The removal of the body in the garbage bag had become a slow and tedious chore. Because almost half the bag remained within the pile of dirt, they couldn’t just pull it out for fear of destroying evidence.
    It had been agreed that they needed to dig out the bag from the top, removing the soil, bucket by bucket. Tully had convinced Maggie and the young CSU tech that because they weighed the least of the recovery crew, they were less likely to start a landslide. So here she was