Cade sat on the other side of the couch and carefully placed his glass of milk on a coaster on Gram’s old coffee table. He handed me an Oreo. I stuffed it into my mouth whole. He laughed and passed me another. I stuffed that one in too. Stress-eating was kind of my thing. He grabbed a handful, then gave me the whole package with a grin.

Cade was the best big brother. We had a mutual love of anything sweet—there was many an occasion that we got put into timeout together for raiding the cookie jar, or for licking the frosting off birthday cupcakes, or stealing Mom’s secret supply of Snickers bars out of the freezer and eating them all in the backyard. But Cade also shared Holly’s love of running and all things athletic, which negated his sweet tooth. He was tall and muscular and handsome, with brown hair and blue eyes. He had been one grade ahead of Rose and me in school, and all our friends had had crushes on him when we were growing up.

“Tell me about the flashlight,” Dad said, snapping me out of my wandering thoughts.

“It was out back, in the trees. Should I be worried? I thought I must have imagined it. I was kind of spaced out.” I stole Cade’s glass of milk and took a huge gulp. He rolled his eyes and took a bite of cookie.

“No one was there,” Dad replied. “There are footprints, but gardeners were just here yesterday doing some clean-up. Has anything out of the ordinary happened?” He nodded at Cade, who tossed him an Oreo. Cade looked at me to give him some more.

I sighed and gave him another handful. “My whole life is out of the ordinary right now. But nothing scary or threatening. I had a wrong-number call earlier, that’s it,” I added after swallowing a mouthful of cookie goodness.

“Just be aware. Let me or Cade know if anything freaks you out. Even if you think it’s your imagination,” Dad told me, and Cade nodded his agreement.

“Okay, Dad,” I agreed, the power of the Oreos starting to wear off as I worried that I hadn’t imagined the light in the backyard.

5

Lily