“I wonder who it could be.”

“Of course, they haven’t included all the gory details. Like bloodstains, or if any flesh was left on the bones or any hair left on her head.” “Jerram, please! The poor girl.”

“She doesn’t care anymore. The time to worry about her was before she was murdered.”

“I guess it was murder?”

“Looks pretty sure. Fractured skull, broken ribs.”

“She could be from miles away,” Rose said. “The body could have been buried there by killers from someplace else.”

“They’ll figure it out eventually,” Jerram said. “In the meantime, you’re not supposed to be reading about it. So hide the paper if Mom comes in.”

“No, I won’t. She keeps treating me like a baby. It’s okay for you to walk home alone, but I’ve got to be chauffeured around and protected from a newspaper!” She spread the paper ostentatiously across the bed. “And where were you this afternoon, anyway?” she snapped.

Jerram was surprised. “Working out at the health club, why?”

She peered up at him. Was that the truth? Or had he been over in Westley, or up at Mackey’s? “Never mind.”

He sat down on the end of the bed and touched her feet through the blankets. “Poor old monkey toes,” he said. “You can’t blame Mom. You girls like to think you’re equal and all that but it’s girls who’re getting murdered, not boys.”

“I don’t like the sound of ‘you girls.’ ”

“Anyway, you forgot how they wouldn’t let me go on that spelunking expedition two years ago. Of course, I went on my own at another time,” he added smugly.

“A troglodyte like you could never get lost in a cave.”

Jerram hunched his back and made a horrible face. He walked around the room making snuffling sounds and finally got her to laugh.

“I wish I had a cat,” she said suddenly, and Jerram stopped clowning around.

“Why?”

“Maybe I need something to cuddle,” she replied, realizing just how true that might be.

“I’d rather have a wolf,” Jerram said. “A white wolf who runs like the wind. I’d change myself into a wolf, too, at the full moon and race with him.”

“And they’d shoot you with a silver bullet. Seriously, I feel so alone.”

“You’ve got me, kid,” Jerram said.

“Do I? It’s not the same between us, and you know it. Especially since you started acting so weird.”

“I’ve always been weird.”

“I’m serious,” Rose said, determined to get it out now. “Okay, maybe secretive is the better word. You have secrets now. You never had them before.”

He gave her a long look. “You have secrets, too, Rose,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, like what?” she threw back at him. “I’ve told you everything, all about the dreams, Nancy. …”

“Secrets like Daniel.”

Rose was shocked. “He’s not a secret.”