The park had already been searched by another pair by now, I knew, and I was only about halfway through my grid here. Kip was antsy, however. He couldn’t focus. Which made sense, when I thought about it. If he focused and succeeded in finding his sister in this tangle of blackberry vines, yard waste, and trash, he might never recover from what he found.

I probably wouldn’t, either, but I was going to finish my grid.

“You go,” I said. “Get the flashlights, and I’ll finish here and meet you by the swing sets at the park.”

“Thanks, man,” he said, his voice rough. I wondered what he was thanking me for until I caught a shimmer of a tear on his face as he turned away. I knew then that Kip was relieved to be getting the flashlights on his own because he was beginning to fall apart and didn’t want me to see.

I pretended I hadn’t.

“All right, bud,” I said. “See you in a few.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

LEE

I could hear twigs snap, but I couldn’t scream. Someone was near. Was it my attacker, back to fulfill a promise interrupted by someone who’d seen his car? His words played over and over like Kip’s favorite CD.

“Don’t say a word and don’t move a muscle. I’ll know if you do. I’ll be back when it’s dark, and then I’ll take you home.”

The movement of someone coming. Was it someone sent to find me? Lying there in the dark, under a shield of tree branches that the man in the blue-and-red flannel shirt had used to conceal me, I could hear someone call my name.

“Lee!” the voice came.

My attacker had told me to stay quiet. To wait for his return. To say a word, to call for help, would mean he’d find me again. Kill me. Kill my family.

I believed him.

So stupid, I know now.

Though I was frozen there, I wanted to live.

I heard my name a second time. I tried calling out, but nothing could move past the tape that sealed my lips.

“Lee!” came the voice once more.

It was familiar.

It was Adam Warner.

When I think about the moment when he leaned into the dark of the branches covering me, I cannot help but find tears in my eyes. It’s like the moment in a movie when the lovers meet on the top of the Empire State Building or when they find out it was the other who had been emailing them the whole time. Adam and I weren’t lovers, of course. But it was that kind of emotion that burbles to the surface in a way that I could never fully comprehend.

I was shivering and rocking back and forth to move the branches that were meticulously placed over me.