Nick opened the glass door and walked inside the bank. “Ask him what’s going on.”

They spotted Victor almost immediately. He was one of only two tellers at adjacent open windows in the center of a long line on the right side of the room. He looked odd in his white shirt and tie, with his hair neatly combed, but as they reached his section of counter, Nick saw that it was not only his clothing and hairstyle that made him look odd.

There was something off about his eyes…

Aaron figured it out immediately. “Dude! What happened to your eyelashes?”

He was right. Their friend’s lashes were gone.

“I had to pull them out,” Victor said calmly.

Nick looked at his nametag. “And how come you’re calling yourself V.J.?”

A weird look came over their friend’s face. “I’ve always been V.J.”

Nick and Aaron looked at each other, mentally drawing straws. Nick understood instantly that he’d picked the short one, that if anyone was going to bring up what they were really here to talk about, it would have to be him. He gathered his courage. “Your parents are dead,” he blurted out. “My dad and I found them in your garage. We were looking for you.”

He expected some sort of reaction. But there was none. Victor—or V.J.—simply stared blankly from underneath his lashless lids.

“You’ve been absent for, like a week.”

“I work here now.”

“Your parents were murdered,” Nick said. “The cops think you did it.”

“Your mother was getting boned by the gardener. She’s such a fucking slut.”

Nick felt the anger rise within him. “Did you kill them?”

“I saw it online.” Victor grinned. “Your mom was lying on her stomach, grunting like a pig, while the gardener was shoving it all the way up her ass.”

Nick reached for him through the window opening, but Victor—

V.J.

—moved back and easily avoided contact. His face darkened. “That’s going to cost you,” he said. “Your account’s going to be deducted ten dollars.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“His mom really was being buttfucked by the gardener,” Victor tried to tell Aaron.

But Aaron wasn’t listening. His phone was out, and he was calling 911. Behind him, appearing as if from nowhere, was a tall man Nick recognized from the assembly as Mr. Worthington.

His heart started pounding. He shouldn’t have come here with just Aaron. He should have contacted his dad. How could he be so stupid? If Victor—V.J.—had killed his parents, Mr. Worthington knew all about it and was covering for him. Nick had no idea what the connection between the two might be, or why there would be any connection at all, but Mr. Worthington had hired Victor for a job and had tried to keep Nick away from the Clarks’ house.