“They’ll blame us. If we tell, they’ll blame us. They’ll send us to one of those places where they lock you up. If we don’t tell, they won’t know. We can’t do anything now because they’re dead. Dead means you never wake up. Let’s go to the park and pretend we were there all afternoon,” Amy said.

“Where’s Boomer? He was monkeying around with the zip line. I bet he loosened it. He’s thirteen. He could do that,” Andy said.

“I saw him running away,” Amy said. “He doesn’t want to get blamed either. C’mon, c’mon, we have to get out of here. If her dad finds out we made her do the zip, he’ll make us burn in hell. He’s a preacher, he can do that!”

“Are we going to promise not to tell?” Pete Danson asked. The twins nodded. “Then, run,” Pete said as he sprinted off, the paper sack still in his hands, the twins right on his heels.

The moment the three were out of sight, Boomer Ward crept out of the undergrowth and crossed the pond. He knew Jeff King was dead because he could see his brains. He wasn’t sure about Cady Jordan. He pulled and tugged until she was completely out of the water. He put his hand on her chest to see if her heart was beating. He’d seen actors do that on television. He almost fainted with relief when he felt her heart beating. “I’m going for help, Cady. I didn’t do anything to the cable. I was just trying to make sure it was tight enough to hold you both. I’ll get someone to help you. Don’t cry, Cady.”

Boomer ran up the embankment. He looked back at the Judas tree and felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t stop to think. In a flash, he undid the zip line from the smaller oak, yanked the other end from the larger oak, and tossed it down to the pond. He backtracked, shouting to Cady to hold on. Then he climbed on his bike and rode home. He was so dizzy with anxiety he almost fainted when he realized his mother wasn’t home. Finding the telephone number of the police station on the list of emergency numbers taped to the refrigerator, he dialed it. He spoke deep in his throat, trying to disguise his voice.

Then he ran out to the toolshed, where he crouched down and hid behind the lawn mower. He prayed, saying all the prayers he’d learned since starting catechism classes.

1

Brentwood, California
Twenty Years Later

Cady Jordan felt sick to her stomach and wasn’t sure why. She looked down at the pizza she was eating as if it were the culprit. She’d already consumed four slices. Two would have been enough. She couldn’t ever remember eating four slices, much less five. She dropped the wedge in her hand into the box. It wasn’t just a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach she was experiencing. She was jittery, too, her right eye twitching, something that only happened when she was under a great deal of stress. She sighed as she swigged from a can of Coca-Cola. Just what she needed, caffeine for her already jangled nerves.