Exactly her voice. Hearing it come out of Peter’s mouth startled Wendy so much that she actually jumped. “How did you do that?” she demanded.

Peter looked at her as if that were a very strange question to ask. “What? I told you, I’m good at mimicking things. Like the crickets, remember?”

“Well yeah, but I didn’t realize you could do people’s voices that well, too!” She frowned at him. “That was dead-on! And kind of creepy,” she added.

“Want me to do you?” he asked, lips hooking into a grin.

“God, no.”

At the table, what was left of Wendy’s ice cream was a melted puddle, so she dumped it and the rest of their trash. Wendy squared her shoulders, summoning her nerve. She plucked at the hem of Peter’s shirt. “Come on,” she said, leading the way across the street to the road that wound back to her house. “We’ve got a shadow to find.”

CHAPTER 14

Into the Woods

Peter and Wendy stood side by side at the small white fence that separated her backyard from the woods. A breeze snaked its way through the trees, lightly brushing against her cheeks, her neck, her wrists. She took three slow, deep breaths, eyes stinging as they stared, unblinkingly, into the depths of the forest. Peter was watching her out of the corner of his eye. She could feel his apprehension, but she lifted her chin and blew out one last breath between pursed lips.

They needed to do this. She needed to do this. John and Michael were depending on her, and she wouldn’t fail them again.

Wendy pulled out her phone to check the time. The screen was filled with unread text messages and missed calls from Jordan. It felt wrong, but she closed them and cleared her throat.

“It’s three o’clock now,” she said to Peter, finally glancing over at him. “We just need to make sure we’re back before my parents get home, or else my father will kill me. It’s not much time, but it’s enough to get started.”

“Are you sure you want to go looking for this tree?” Peter asked. He kept massaging his right thumb into his left palm, shifting his weight between his feet like he couldn’t stand still. “For all we know, this could just be a wild goose chase or a trap.” But even Wendy could tell by the way his jaw clenched that he knew she wasn’t going to change her mind.