“You okay?” Janelle asked. Nate turned as well.

“Yeah,” Stevie said, pulling off her hoodie.

She looked around for where to sit. Ellie and David were still on the sofa, but there was space between them now. Ellie had a black notebook in her lap and was drawing. David had his computer, but again, he looked right at her.

Stevie caught his eye and looked away quickly. She sat at the table.

“Did they tell you what happened?” Nate said.

Stevie just shook her head.

“So are we going to be allowed out?” Nate asked.

“I guess so,” Stevie said. “Soon. My parents called me. I guess the school let them know? So your parents will know soon. Everyone is going to know.”

“Yeah,” David said. His voice caused Stevie to start. She saw Janelle take this in, and look from Stevie to David curiously. “The word is out. So we’re going to be knee deep in counselors soon.”

He would not stop looking at her. And not just looking. It was a penetrating, unwavering look.

“I better call my parents first,” Janelle said, grabbing her phone. “Can we do that? Do you think we can?”

Stevie shrugged.

“I’ll wait,” Janelle said, setting her phone down. “I’ll ask Pix when she’s out of the shower.”

“Après les déluge,” Ellie said, out of nowhere. “Les parents.”

No one knew what to say to that.

“So we wait,” Nate said.

“We wait,” David said.

Stevie became very conscious of where David was in the room. Yes, it was just kissing last night, but it was a lot of kissing. It was a lot of rolling. What did you say to someone you’d rolled all over?

Ellie stood up suddenly and stomped off to her room. Then there were four, sitting in awkward silence until the knock at the door. It was Larry, with a uniformed officer.

“Janelle,” Larry said. “Can you get your pass and come with us for a moment?”

Janelle’s eyes went wide, but she got up instantly and went to her room for the pass, then stepped out the door.

“Why do they want Janelle’s pass?” David asked Stevie.

“Because someone took it on Thursday,” she said, watching the door.

“So?”

Stevie said no more. David got up and sat next to her at the table.

“You have no idea?” he said.

“I can’t say anything,” she replied.

“So you have some idea.”

Nate observed this silently. Pix came downstairs.

“Was someone just at the door?” she asked.

“The police just took Janelle and her pass outside,” David said. “For no reason Stevie can say.”

“I’m not being a dick,” Stevie said. “I just can’t.”

Pix hurried to the door and stepped outside.

The atmosphere in the room continued to thicken. Stevie looked at David’s hand on the table. He had long fingers. Those fingers had run over her hair last night, and other places. His hands were strong, much stronger than they looked. She gave him a sideways glance. His eyebrows were thick and very expressive. They rose when he was playful, arched when he was being a jerk, and now were flat. He was watchful.

She had a strange desire to sit in his lap. To pull his face closer to hers. To kiss him again, right here, by the fire and in front of Nate and the moose head.

Where had that thought come from? It just shot through her brain like a rabbit across a road.

David pushed his chair back and went down the hall to Ellie’s room, leaving Nate and Stevie.

“So,” Nate said.

“Yeah,” Stevie replied.

“Are you really okay?”

She nodded.

“Because you seem freaked out. It’s okay to be freaked out. I was freaked out last night, and today I’m not as freaked out. So it’s your turn, if you want.”

“I always wanted to be around for a death,” Stevie said. “You know I’m into this stuff. And now I am around death. I feel bad for saying I wanted that, but I’m . . .”

She shook her head.

“You’re interested,” he said. “I saw how you looked when Larry came and said the police wanted to talk to you.”

“Is that bad?”

“No,” he said. “This just happened. We were here when it happened.”

He dug his nail into the grain of the wood.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what?”

“I just think you get me,” she said.

“I do,” he said, shrugging. “We have a limited emotional vocabulary. We’re indoor kids.”

The door opened again, and Janelle returned and sat next to Stevie, leaning her head into Stevie’s shoulder.

“They’re taking my pass,” she said. “And they’re going to go up to Hayes’s room to look around. I don’t know why they want my pass. I didn’t do anything.”

Stevie put her hand on her friend’s head. It was an unfamiliar feeling, this warm head on her shoulder. Janelle just trusting her and leaning on her. Nate reaching out.

And David, the person she’d just been closest to, being meaningfully silent.

20

HOUSE ARREST ENDED AT THREE.

It seemed only natural that the vigil would take place in the yurt. There was no announcement, nothing formal. People just started going, taking up positions on the dusty floor cushions and the busted old sofas and futons. The atmosphere was confused, with an electric quality—everyone was talking, but quietly, all at once, in a low, constant sound. People brought food. There were bags of chips and candy and all varieties of snack circling the room.

Stevie walked over with Janelle and Nate. Vi was waiting for them to arrive by the door of the yurt, and threw her arms around Janelle’s neck. They looked like a couple.

As soon as she walked in, Stevie realized she was the subject of a lot of attention. People turned to look at her in the way they looked at Hayes shortly before. People knew. She had been The One Who Was There.

Maris and Dash held court in a special area off to the back, on the largest sofa, with a small group sitting on cushions in front of them. Maris was all in black—tights, a formfitting sweater with a gold belt. She looked like she was dressed as Catwoman. Dash was in his oversized shirt again and was huddled, his knees pulled up near his chest. Maris was crying a slow, steady dribble. As Stevie came in, she looked up and put up her arms.

“Stevie!” she said. “Nate!”

Stevie walked over to them. When she was near enough, Maris clasped her hand.

Stevie looked at her captive hand. She couldn’t tell if this was a real gesture, or a dramatic one, or a real dramatic gesture. She felt very tired and very awake at the same time, and a strange guilt followed her like a smell.

“Did you talk to the police again today?” Dash said. “We both did.”

“Yeah,” Stevie said.

“Did they tell you anything?”

“They kept asking about the fog machines,” Stevie said.

“Yeah,” Maris said. “Us too. And where we were. And what time we came home the night we were in the tunnel.”

“What time did you leave him?” Stevie shrugged as if she asked out of an unspoken necessity. “I mean, he must have come home on time.”