“I mean, that’s what Mike said. The police will release her body at some point, and then we’ll have a funeral, and I have to pick out her dress and her coffin and what songs they play. Even though she wasn’t much for church, we’ll have it at a church. I guess I have to pick the church, too. At Christmas, if we went, we went to the Episcopal one.” His voice is soft. “I can’t even think straight. I can’t.”

“What can I do to help you?”

He tilts his head slightly, studying her. “I keep thinking. The cops found a phone near her feet. And I saw her arguing on a phone last night, telling someone she wanted out. But it wasn’t her regular phone.”

“What could your mom have wanted out of?”

His voice lowers. “The relationship with Mike. Her business. An upcoming adoption? Or maybe she’d gotten involved with someone other than Mike.” He makes the last part a whisper. “I don’t think Peter can hear us, but he was in the kitchen. Mike’s upstairs.”

“Do you think she was cheating on Mike?”

“I don’t know. She seemed happy. But preoccupied. Whoever she was in touch with on that phone, that could be who killed her. They won’t show me the number.”

“Have you mentioned this to Mike or Peter?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet. I can’t…I can’t stay here thinking that Mike could have hurt her.”

“This is Mike. He never would hurt her.”

“People do terrible, unimaginable things sometimes,” Ned says in a low voice. “And then the neighbors are always surprised.”

She doesn’t know what to say, but she decides it is better not to say anything and make it worse. She watches him. She has known him since they were small and his mother found her brother for them. Most of her life, through childhood and the awkward middle school years, he’d been her constant friend, annoying at times, sweet at others. But everything feels changed between them ever since they stopped looking at each other as just friends but as something more. There are cuter boys at school, boys who aren’t too shy to flirt with her and let her know of their interest, but Ned is Ned and he is a little dangerous. She sees it in those dark eyes, with their stare that promises something more. The kid who always charms the teachers but skirts the rules, who smiles at the parents while the flask is hidden in his backpack, who manages to sweet-talk his way out of setbacks and troubles. That boy always lands on his feet, she’d heard Mike once say, and she thought Ned hadn’t considered a world where he might trip or stumble.

He murmurs something, so quiet she can't hear.

“What?” she asks, leaning close, whispering.