For a second the girl looks weirdly surprised. Her pale eyebrows go up. She smiles. Her face gets even softer. She looks like I’ve just given her some grand personal compliment, not a simple thank-you.

“You’re welcome,” she says.

I start to walk away again, but this time I stop myself. “Hey.” I turn to face her again. “What’s your name, anyway?”

I can see her suck in a breath. “It’s Thea,” she says.

“Thea,” I repeat. “I’m Anders.”

Now her smile shows her teeth. She looks like she might laugh. “I know.”

“Okay. Well.” I jut my chin at Goblin, who’s bumping his head against my chest. “I’d better go feed this guy.”

I head toward the house. Dead leaves shuffle under my feet. I hold Goblin tight against my body with one hand, rubbing his ears with the other. I don’t see or hear the girl leave. But when I get to the front door and glance back at the woods, she’s gone.

Goblin laps up an entire dish of fresh water while I find a can of special wet cat food at the back of a high cabinet. He devours it and then eats a whole serving of his usual crunchy cat food, and then he finally passes out next to me on the living room couch.

I keep one hand on his side.

We’re both still sitting there, me staring at a movie on the TV screen, Goblin snoring, when I hear the garage door open.

My heart jolts upward. I check the TV clock. 3:18. I might have gotten home from school by now if I’d left just a little bit early.

Dad walks heavily—but fast—across the kitchen and into the living room. He halts when he sees me. He’s still got his Day-Glo work vest on. His phone and keys are in his hand. His face is tight. I can’t quite read it.

“Found Goblin,” I tell him before he can do the math in his head and ask me anything about why I’m home so soon. “Somebody from school found him in the woods. He was stuck in an old basement, I guess.”

Dad nods. I don’t think he even heard me. He looks like he’s making a decision about something else. I see his jawline flex. He’s not looking at me. He clears his throat.

“Looks like they found that Lynde girl, too,” he says. “The cranes are in the river.”

Thea

The day they pull her out of the river is sunny and clear. Police boats have been searching since last night, looking for the dark blue car in the dark blue water, and they’ve finally found something. Something hidden down there in the currents and the long-sunk trees and the shadows cast by the big blue bridge.

It’s nearly three o’clock when they drive the crane over the bank. The dive teams are working. White boats bob nearby. Traffic on the bridge slows.

Everyone watches. Everyone stares down into that deep, quick water.