“Love you, too.” She smiled and ended the call. “We have a couple hours, I’d like to talk to Glen Albright’s principal, if she’s still there. Check on Ash at the Albright house.”

“Becky Albright’s best friend was originally interviewed, we should talk to her as well.”

As Nate drove off, Lucy had the odd feeling that she was being watched. She looked at the Young house but didn’t see anyone standing at a window. She looked over her shoulder and didn’t see anyone on the street.

“What’s wrong?” Nate asked.

“Nothing.”

“It’s something. You have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“Concern.”

Lucy didn’t like talking about her odd sixth sense about being watched. It had started years ago, and while she controlled the panic that used to come with the sensation, it still made her feel off-center.

“Someone was watching us. I had a feeling as we left the house, and it just got stronger.”

“Maybe you’re psychic.”

“I’m not psychic,” she snapped.

“I was joking, Lucy. But I trust your gut, and if you say someone was watching us, someone was watching us.”

“A neighbor most likely.”

Lucy looked back several times, getting the sense that they were being followed, but no one followed them out of the Youngs’ neighborhood.

She wanted to believe that she was being paranoid … but that sixth sense, whatever she called it, had saved her butt more than once, so she wasn’t going to discount it.

Even if no one was around.

Chapter Four

THREE YEARS AGO

Ricky pedaled as fast as he could, but he was hot, tired, angry, and unbearably sad, all rolled into one.

He knew his parents were going to get a divorce. For months all they had done was argue. He didn’t know about what—he didn’t hear anything specific, other than that his mom had done something that made his dad really, really mad. And his dad never got mad. Even when Ricky and Joe, his best friend, broke the big picture window because they were playing baseball too close to the house. Even when Tori missed curfew for the hundredth time. So when his dad got mad, everyone would freeze because it was so … weird.

Ricky talked to his sister Becky, whom he thought of as his nice sister, when he heard their mom crying after their dad went on a walk. That was another thing—his dad didn’t just go for a walk. That meant he was thinking things through, like a complex problem or something. Becky said that it was normal to argue and they weren’t getting a divorce. They’d been married for almost twenty years. As proof she told him that she’d just the day before walked into the house after school and they were hugging in the kitchen.