“Look, the kid doesn’t know shit, I have no reason to go after him. He went to some friend’s house after school. Probably a sleepover. When he turns up the police might think his family left without him, might not—doesn’t really matter because they’ll never find them. It would have been better if you could have convinced Denise to really run, but when she balked, you know this was the only way. And the Escalade is on its way to Mexico as we speak, and it wouldn’t be the first time a family abandoned a kid. I have it covered. Hot damn, this is it!” Silence, flipping of papers, then: “Shred everything else, destroy her hard drive—it’ll look like Denise did it before fleeing. I got what we need.”

The other guy was mumbling and Ricky couldn’t hear what he said.

“Get that damn sour look off your face. They didn’t suffer. It was quick and painless, okay? But we have to go—finish this, five minutes.”

The shredder cut, but there was no talking. Two men were walking upstairs.

Ricky didn’t know what to do. His family … was dead?

He blinked back hot tears.

Maybe they went to Mexico …

No, they didn’t. The men in his house killed them and Ricky would be dead, too, if he had come home after school. As soon as they left, he’d call the police …

That man is a policeman.

A short man with a dark mustache. Probably a hundred cops who looked just like him. Would he be able to tell him from a bunch of cops? And what if they were all cops here? Who could he trust if the police were bad guys?

He missed his mom and dad so much. He didn’t want to think about them being gone … and maybe he got it wrong. He could wait here, they might come back, right?

Or the bad guys could come back. And you don’t know who is good and who is bad.

He waited long after the men had left. Until silence echoed in the house. Then he waited longer. By the time he climbed out of the closet, it was dark, but he didn’t dare turn on a light. What if someone was watching? What if they were waiting for him?

He went upstairs and realized that the men had taken his duffel bag and some of his clothes. He dumped all his schoolbooks on his desk and filled his backpack with anything he might need, then went to his parents’ room.

That’s when the tears fell.

They were really gone.

He took the money out of his mom’s jewelry box, her “fun money,” she said. A couple hundred dollars. He would need to go to the police, but not here. He’d think about what to do, who to talk to.