She couldn’t get the phrase “deep shit” out of her head, because that’s just what she was in.

Olive was trapped in Dicky’s old hotel.

She’d snuck into the hotel a little before six o’clock. She didn’t know what time the others were coming, but she wanted to make sure she was there in plenty of time. The front door was unlocked and she slipped inside, looking around the old lobby.

She had planned just what she’d say if Dicky caught her. She’d say she’d lost a bracelet, her very favorite one, one her mama who was gone now had given her, and the last time she remembered having it on was the day she visited Dicky. I’ve looked everywhere else and this is the only place it could be, she’d tell him. I’m so sorry for bothering you like this, but that bracelet is real important to me.

But, to her relief, she didn’t need to use her excuse. Not right away, anyway. There was no sign of life in or around the lobby. Just a single pillar candle burning in a holder on the front desk. It was a total fire hazard, surrounded by mountains of junk mail and papers.

She heard laughter coming from upstairs.

She knew this was just plain stupid. She shouldn’t be here. She should be home watching TV or putting up drywall. Daddy was out working on the water main break (it was the second day of working on it, and if they didn’t get it fixed, there would be no school tomorrow because that whole area of town had no water).

This is stupid, she told herself. I should turn around and go home before I get caught.

But still, she found herself climbing the stairs, as if the voices up there were a magnet pulling her. If there was any chance at all that she could learn anything about Mama, she needed to try. And Dicky and his friends obviously knew something. She crept slowly up the stairs, repeating the made-up story about the bracelet in her head, preparing herself just in case she was caught. When she was all the way up at the top, listening, trying to figure out where the voices she heard were coming from, the front door downstairs banged open and a man called up, “Dicky?”

Olive froze. There was silence for about ten seconds, and Olive scurried farther down the hall, which proved to be a good choice, because she could hear the new visitor start up the stairs.

“Where’re you at, Dicky?” the man called.

Olive looked at all the closed doors to the old guest rooms. No time to try each knob on the off chance one might be open. She went down the hall and into the lounge, where she’d been on her last visit. Familiar territory.