He kneels again and looks into the cleft of the tree. Nothing else is there.

He stands and returns to the house, glancing back at his tree. Money. Jewelry.

What is the Sender trying to tell him?

19

Julia

From her bedroom window, Julia watches Peter Horvath leave. Something is up with Grant. Peter Horvath, the man of fewest words, helping a freshman with a comp sci project? She doesn’t believe it. Like she doesn’t believe Dad’s story of a tumble down the creekside beating up his face, either. Something awful, something poisonous, has seeped into the air of the Pollitt house since Julia found Danielle’s body. Like death itself, trying to find a new home.

She shakes off the morbid feeling as she watches Peter walk away.

Julia sits down at her computer with two objectives: find out who this Marland is that Ned is afraid of and take care of his business dealings while he’s coping with the death of his mother. It feels like a step forward that she can never take back. This is not who she is; she is the good girl who should go tell her parents everything she knows, including about this Marland guy in the greenbelt. But if she does that, Ned’s life is derailed and done, probably forever. Any mistake follows you forever. He was stupid, and he needs her to save him from his mistake.

She can do this. You’ll be smarter about this than he was, she thinks.

First she searches for Marland in the Travis County Appraisal District. She knows to do this because she’s heard her father mention doing it before, to see what homes in the neighborhood are worth, and it surprised her you could find out where someone lived so easily. There are several Marlands, but none own property in Winding Creek. Maybe his wife owns the property and doesn’t use his surname? Or he was lying about being a neighborhood dad. But he knew about the proposed patrols—how? The neighborhood Faceplace page was supposed to be strictly private. If he hadn’t heard there, then maybe Ned had told him, or he knew someone else in the neighborhood.

Ned was afraid of him. She searches Ned’s friends list on social media; no Marland there.

So she goes to the Critterscape website. She knows Ned’s log-in and password. From there she can see his game activity, and most important…his messages inside the game.

Deep breath. You can do this. Last week, when he had confessed to her what he’d done, she had first thought, You’re a complete idiot, and then thought, Well, this is sort of genius. He has always had a swagger, a confidence, derived from thinking that the world of his video games could edge into the real world, where you got endless retries in your life.