“Thanks.”

Stevie tried not to overload the word. It wasn’t Germaine’s fault that her article caused her parents to remove her from Ellingham. She didn’t mean for it to happen. Still, it was hard not to feel the connection between Germaine and being ripped from the mountain and thrown back to the earth below.

“Something wrong?” Germaine asked.

“No.”

“Seems like something’s wrong. By the way, you still owe me a favor. From that night.”

Stevie had forgotten about this. At the silent party, when Stevie was trying to figure out who had taken Hayes’s computer, she had asked Germaine to show her some photos on her phone. She had promised a favor in return, but she didn’t really think that she would be hit up for it.

“You figured it out because of my picture,” Germaine reminded her.

“I know. So what do you want?”

“Nothing yet,” Germaine said. “When it’s time, I’ll ask.”

Stevie found she was clenching her jaw. She consciously released it, but it snapped right back into position.

“So,” Germaine said, half closing her computer, “what do you think happened?”

“With?”

“Ellie,” Germaine said, as if this was obvious.

“I think she got out through a passageway,” Stevie said.

“Yeah . . .” Germaine rolled her eyes. “But where did she go?”

Stevie didn’t like being treated like she was stupid, but since she had just had this conversation with David, she decided to take the indignity to find out why Germaine was also asking this question.

“Burlington?” Stevie said innocently.

“How did she get there?” Germaine said. “You can’t walk there. She didn’t call anyone—they have her cell phone records.”

“She could have used another phone.”

“Whose?” Germaine asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe a friend’s?”

As if on cue, the door to the yurt flapped open, and David entered. David had a way of walking—a way that suggested that he belonged anywhere he went. In this, he had his father’s manner, which was gross and horrific. But there was something else, something of the rake in a casino movie, who has come in to knock the place over, or an entertainer who might at any point somersault into the center of the room.

Or maybe he was just walking in and her brain chemistry was telling her stories.

He had changed his clothes and was now wearing jeans and a formfitting black sweater, which complemented his dark curls and made the musculature of his arms and chest clear. He smiled at her and Germaine, then went over to Janelle and Vi. Mudge and Nate had gone to examine some of the board games on the shelves.

“A friend’s phone?” Germaine said again.

“Yeah,” Stevie said, getting up. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe worth finding out?” Germaine called to her as she rejoined her housemates.

David was leaning on the back of the futon, talking to Janelle and Vi. Janelle had her face tipped up toward him, an expression of dull patience on her face. Vi’s arms were crossed. They did not look impressed.

“I’m on house arrest,” he said. “No trips to Burlington for me.”

“Seriously?” Janelle replied.

“I know,” he said. “I don’t think they can do that.”

“No,” she said, “that’s it?”

“Isn’t that enough?” he said. “I didn’t even do anything.”

“Yes, you did,” Vi said. “Everyone knows you did.”

“Am I the squirrel whisperer?”

“It’s not cool,” Vi said. “You’ve been waking people up, you’re damaging stuff we like, that we use. We all have issues, dude. Get over yourself.”

“I thought learning was a game,” David said. “Why is no one having fun but me?”

Vi shook their head and took Janelle’s hand. The two of them stood up.

“I’ll see you at home,” Janelle said, and it was pointedly to Stevie only.

“Sometimes I don’t think people like me,” David said, watching them go.

“You know why,” she said.

“A return to responsibility,” he said, lifting his eyebrows rakishly. “You know who loves that?”

“A lot of people,” Stevie said. “Just because . . .”

It seemed too dangerous to say your dad out loud. Stevie could feel Germaine’s eyes on them, boring into the back of her head.

“I think I might go too,” she said. “Want to come?”

“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

Germaine kept her head down as they passed, but Stevie saw her stealing a sideways glance at them.

“It was only, like, forty squirrels,” David said when they were outside.

“How did you even get forty squirrels?”

“No magician reveals his secrets,” he said. “You didn’t find anything else, did you?”

His change of conversation was so sudden that Stevie lost the thread for a second.

“Look,” Stevie said. “What are you suggesting happened to Ellie? You’re saying you don’t think she could have made it out? So you think she’s here?”

“I’m saying . . .” He lowered his voice. “I don’t see how she made it away from here that night, or the next few days. I don’t know how she got out.”

“But let’s say she did, because that’s probably what happened,” Stevie said. “Do you know where she’d go?”

“She could have gone anywhere,” he said. “Ellie grew up on a commune, she lived in France. I guess she’s in a . . . I don’t know, in a café basement in Berlin or something.”

“Kind of hard for her to get out of the country.”

“Okay. So . . . in an Airstream trailer in Austin selling designer tacos or a tree house in Oregon . . .”

“I get the idea,” Stevie said. “She’s not from anywhere, so if she’s nowhere, it’s like she’s home.”

David regarded her for a moment.

“Right,” he said. “If she’s nowhere, she’s home. Yeah.”

“Or she can just be in someone’s apartment in Burlington,” Stevie said.

“I think she would want to get out. If she could get to Burlington she could get in someone’s car and go. I don’t think she’d stick around.”

“But why run?” Stevie said. “Why run if you did nothing?”

“Fear,” David said.

“Of what?”

“Of being accused of murder.”

“I never said she did it,” Stevie shot back. “I said she wrote the script for The End of It All and took Hayes’s computer, which she did.”

“I know,” he said. “I know. Calm down.”

“Do not tell me to calm down,” Stevie replied. “I’m the one who started this. I know what I’m saying. It’s just . . . if not her . . .”

“Look,” David said. “Maybe . . . maybe he did take the dry ice? Maybe Beth Brave was wrong about when she thought they were talking?”

“There’s a call record.”

“I know, but . . . what if it was wrong somehow?”

“Or what if Ellie did do it?” Stevie said. “She had motive. She had the ability. She could have done it as a goof, to mess with the video. She doesn’t seem like someone who would know all the science. Why would she think that would hurt him?”

“Because that’s not how she was,” David said. “She wouldn’t move hundreds of pounds of dry ice to mess up someone else’s art.”

For the first time, she heard his voice take on a raw edge.

“I’m just saying . . .”

“Look, I get what you did and it makes sense. I’m just telling you. She wouldn’t do that. The one thing Ellie would never do is mess up someone else’s art. That was like her religion. I know things ended kind of weird with us and maybe you don’t trust me, but you have to trust me.”

It was a sudden twist.

“You mean how your dad isn’t dead and is Edward King?” she asked.

“I mean, if you want to get super specific about it. Just so you know, I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you right away. But there were two reasons I didn’t. One, because my dad is Edward King, which means you would hate me. And two, my dad is Edward King, which means everyone would hate me.”

“I didn’t even know he had kids,” Stevie said. “I didn’t know he could mate with humans.”

“Yeah,” David said. “Nature finds a way.”

Had he moved closer? It seemed like he might have. Stevie’s mouth had gone dry. The thing about David was that he was very beautiful—long and lean and damaged and twisted, smiling at her. She saw Edward King’s silhouette in David’s features again. In his smile.

Good job, Stevie. That’s right. Kiss him. That will make him happy.

Stevie stepped back a few feet, repelled by the thought. Her brain could not handle this conflict of input. There was something there, something that pulsed between her and David. And now there was Edward King hanging overhead, almost literally. He even had cameras on them. The thought made her queasy.

“I should have told Nate I was going,” she said. “I’m going to go back . . . tell him.”

David lifted his chin an inch.

“Sure,” he said, with the slightest trace of a smile. “Nate. Yeah. I’ll see you at home.”