Kincaid takes off, rolling across the bank parking lot without even glancing over at the sedan that nearly hits him, the driver stomping his brakes, mouthing unheard curses.

I could call Kincaid’s name; he’d probably hear me from here. But now I don’t want to.

I follow, my pace determined. He’s not going to lose me this time, like he did the night that Bree and I followed him after our assault on Perfect. I want to know what he does, where he goes, how he manages to spend almost every day doing whatever the hell he wants, no one asking uncomfortable questions. Except me, of course, but he dodges my attempts so easily, clouding the issue with tall tales, every trick he keeps up his sleeve. I should know these things. Because we are not just hooking up. Of that, I’m almost sure.

For a time, Kincaid seems aimless, just cruising the town, jumping a curb here and there. Business owners must be used to seeing him roam all hours of the day. Halloween decorations are everywhere, wraiths with plastic skulls and ragged shrouds hanging from the street signs on Main, cardboard cutouts in windows, pumpkins on doorsteps.

He heads up the street we took the day we walked back from D&M, pushing hard uphill. I stay as far back as I dare, rounding the corner as Kincaid passes the halfway point.

When I reach the crest of the hill, I’m not sure what direction he went in; there’s a four-way intersection of streets, the old cemetery visible with the blazing oak on the left. Then I hear it, plastic wheels grinding over concrete.

We take Summer, a bolt of excitement passing through me. He’s going home. I force myself to keep the same slow, measured pace, letting him have a big lead, careful not to tip him off to my presence. There’s got to be a reason why he didn’t want Bree and me to see where he lives. Just having a crappy house isn’t enough; we all have crappy houses.

He cuts through the hedges at the usual place, then continues through the next yard, doubling back down an offshoot called Lorimer, a dead-end sign standing at the foot.

I’m not sure where to hide myself as he goes to the last possible house, a little brown chalet-style cottage surrounded by dead hedges overwhelmed by bittersweet vine, woods closing in at the back. There’s a car in the driveway, a maroon compact that seems somehow too low to the ground, as if all four tires are losing air in tandem. A mailbox with the name Nevers on it.