“Sam, I’m worried about Blake. I’m worried he’s in over his head, and the police just showed up here and seem to suspect him of doing something. We have to find him.”

“I know.”

“Where are you?” I asked. “Are you out looking for him?”

“I’m at work.”

“You are? Why?”

“I just got here. I wanted things to be normal. I can leave, I guess. But then I’d have to tell my principal why I’m leaving. How do I do that?”

Kyle was still out of the room. And the back door was just ten feet away from me. Broken bottle be damned. I wanted to get out of that house. I needed to get out.

“I’m going to come see you, okay? We have to talk. I can come to the school. But right now I have to go.”

I ended the call and looked back one more time. Still no Kyle.

So I went for the door. And as I did, Kyle came running back into the room, as though the house had gone up in flames. I checked his hand. No bottle. But he charged right at me anyway, and I braced myself for a collision.

But he went past me, saying only one word.

“Cops!”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The uniformed cop who came around the side of the house just as I emerged from the back door held his hand above his gun. When I saw that placement of his hand, I froze, one foot outside of the house, the other still inside.

I’d never been confronted by a cop that way before, but something instinctive, something that everyone in the human race who had ever seen a cop show understood, kicked in, and my hands went up above my head like I was signaling a touchdown.

The cop approached me, speaking into his lapel radio. His body was crouched like a wrestler’s, although, thankfully, the gun remained holstered. I caught a glimpse of Kyle disappearing between the houses where I had first seen him.

“Officer,” I said, trying to direct his attention that way.

“Quiet.”

“Officer, that man—”

“I said, ‘Quiet.’”

He approached me where I stood in the doorway, and then waggled his fingers, indicating that I should step all the way out. I did, with my hands still in the air, and when I came out, he took me by the left arm and spun me around. Before I knew what was happening, my face was pressed against the siding that covered the back of the house, and my arm was getting twisted around behind me.

“Sir, for your own safety and for mine, I’m going to pat you down to see if you have any weapons. Do you have anything in your pockets that’s going to stick me?”

“My keys, maybe.”

“No knives? No needles?”

“Of course not.”