Where was Victor? he wondered. Had Mr. Worthington helped him escape to another city, state or country, or was the banker hiding him somewhere? It had to be one of the two, and either way, Mr. Worthington had to be involved. Nick had no doubt about the man’s complicity, and the idea that an official from a bank, a bank located right next to his dad’s store, was involved in protecting a murderer made him feel nervous and anxious. Mr. Worthington knew who he and Aaron were and knew that they had called the law.

And he didn’t seem the type to forgive and forget.

“What are you losers doing?”

Nick looked up from his sandwich at the sound of the familiar voice and saw Victor—

V.J.

—standing in front of them. Where he had come from and why they hadn’t noticed his approach was a mystery. He looked terrible. His skin was pale and his eyes were puffy. There was an expression of tremendous rage on his face, and Nick’s first thought was that he had come to kill them. He glanced over at Aaron, who appeared to be just as shocked and just as frightened as he was.

“Where’s Stacey?” Victor asked, and his voice sounded tired. “I came to see Stacey.”

Nick had no idea where Stacey Wilder ate lunch. With the other cheerleaders, he assumed. Certainly not here by the band room. Besides, as much as Nick disliked the cheerleader, he would not tell Victor her whereabouts even if he did know. He looked into those angry eyes and attempted to convey a sense of normalcy, as though they were still two best friends just hanging out and talking. “How would I know where she is? You know she has nothing to do with us.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said.

Victor—no, V.J. He was definitely more V.J. than Victor now—looked from Nick to Aaron and back again. “You guys called the pigs on me.”

Nick found courage and some semblance of their old relationship within him. “And you deducted ten dollars from my college account. Call it even.”

Victor would have laughed at that, but V.J. just gave him a blank stare.

Nick looked away. The stare made him uneasy, and he wondered if Victor had had the same expression on his face when he’d dismembered his parents.

From the corner of his eye, Nick saw that Aaron was surreptitiously dialing his phone—911, no doubt—and he wanted to somehow let his friend know that he should not be doing that. They were dealing with a wild animal here, and they did not want to set it off. If Victor knew that Aaron was calling for help, the results might be disastrous. But he knew of no way to warn Aaron without drawing Victor’s attention to what he was doing.