Paige’s kitchen was cool and empty. A bamboo ceiling fan whirred overhead, but otherwise the house was silent, as if it were not really a house but a dream castle constructed by Paige’s imagination. I wondered where Martha had gone, if perhaps she ceased to exist when Paige no longer needed her.

I made my way to the staircase, which was wide enough to accommodate a row of von Trapp children. The second floor opened into a living room with a big flat screen TV and a row of suede couches. At the far end was a long hallway, the walls covered in gilt-framed oil paintings of men and their hunting dogs, old wooden ships teetering on the crests of frothing waves. I inspected the faded, curled signatures—none were the work of Suponte.

The door to Tucker’s bedroom was not closed because there was no door—it had been removed, leaving a pair of naked hinges. Inside, Tucker was sitting cross-legged on a massive bed, surrounded by a moat of pillows. The rumors were true—he was gorgeous. At least gorgeous enough. On the Johnny Depp spectrum he was perhaps closer to Pirates of the Caribbean than What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, but still. He had wide shoulders and a massive, boulderlike head. Despite his size, he operated with the jerkiness of a child, as if unaware of his proportions. He was darker than Paige, who had fair skin and a splatter of freckles. Perhaps he used a tanning bed.

The bedroom was sparse—a bookshelf filled with books, a walk-in closet filled with shirts (it, too, had no door). Like in a preschool classroom, everything came in primary colors: red, blue, yellow. A single orange baseball cap hung outlandishly from the peg of a wooden coat tree. There was no laboratory with bubbling beakers, no workbench or telescope, not even a desk. Perhaps these were somewhere else—in the basement?

“Knock, knock,” I said.

He looked up, revealing a small white canvas in his lap. Beside him lay an open cigar box, inside of which sat a plastic tray of watercolors and a Ball jar of murky water. I couldn’t tell what he was painting—it was a blur of colors. Blue and brown. A streak of orange.

“Who are you?” he asked. A nervousness rose up in him so quickly that the canvas shook in his lap, the mason jar rattling against the cigar box.

“I’m one of Paige’s friends. My name’s Laney.”

This information seemed to calm him. “What are you doing up here?”

“I felt like being alone for a minute.”

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job, are you?” He smiled—he really was attractive. His good looks were, I now saw, afforded by his stature—all that weight and muscle, the bonus of his smile. He looked older than a high school guy—maybe early twenties. His jaw was the jaw of an adult.

“Come here,” he said, and patted the spot beside him on the bed. “Sit by me for a second.”