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My brow furrowed. Why had they asked about all that again?

As I was contemplating that, Stubby added, “Oh, and they wanted to know why we were sitting in the Jupiter team’s bleachers last Friday instead of with our school.”

That was weird. “What’d you tell them?”

“I said our bleachers were too crowded, and we had a better view of the game from the visitor’s side. But then they wanted to know why we left early, and I said because you had a
stomachache.”

I sighed with relief. “Maybe we’re okay.”

Stubby was quiet on the other end of the line, and belatedly I realized he was still upset about Payton. “Do you want me to come over?”

Stubby sniffled. “If it’s okay with you, Mads, I think I want to be alone for a while.”

That took me aback, and I couldn’t help but feel hurt. I was upset over Payton, too. “Uh…sure. Okay, Stubs. Call me later, though, if you want to talk?”

“Okay,” he said. And then he was gone.

Cold and feeling sad and alone, I began pedaling back home. My cell rang on the way and I answered my uncle’s call. “What’s happened?” Donny asked sharply, no doubt
irritated with me for the voice mail.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to tell him. If I came clean about sending Payton a birthday card, warning her of her imminent death, he’d be furious and he might even insist that I
move to Brooklyn with him, if only to keep me out of trouble. Then again, if the feds never found the card—if Payton maybe threw it away or we’d been careful enough and they
couldn’t trace it back to us—we might be worrying over nothing. I decided not to risk angering Donny unnecessarily, and luckily, I now had a pretty good backup excuse for calling him.
“The feds were just at Stubby’s house,” I said. Then I explained what they’d wanted. By the time I was done, I was home, walking my bike up the drive.

On the other end of the call, Donny was quiet for a long time, and that worried me. “Okay,” he said at last. “Keep me posted if you hear anything else.” With that, he was
also gone. Sighing, I headed inside to get warm and tried not to let my thoughts linger too much on Payton Wyly. That proved impossible, though, especially when Stubs didn’t text me once the
rest of the night.

Friday sucked.

There was no other way to describe it. Stubby texted me that morning that his little sister was sick, and he had to stay home with her because his mom had a meeting she couldn’t miss. Not
having him next to me in the hallway made me feel small and vulnerable, and at lunch it was even worse. I sat by myself at a table in the cafeteria, eating quickly. The only bright spot was Mr.
Pierce, who stopped me again on my way out of class. “You hanging in there, Maddie?” he asked kindly.

I didn’t feel like talking, so I merely gave him a halfhearted nod.

“Good,” he said with a warm smile. “And great job on the lab experiment today.”

I thanked him and hurried to my next class. Still, it was nice to know that all my teachers weren’t against me.

Later, when I came out from school to get my bike, I found it once again covered in eggs and shells, but this time Stubs wasn’t around with his usual wad of paper towels and sunny
disposition. It hit me how much of the sting he managed to take out of all those times I’d been bullied or made fun of.

After cleaning up my bike, I pedaled home. I’d checked the Web at lunch to see if they’d found Payton, or if there were any leads in the investigation, but nothing new was posted. I
was anxious to follow the story, and by now I had a terrible suspicion that her abduction and death were somehow linked to Tevon’s, which meant that I could indeed be sucked into her murder
investigation, too. It would also indicate that there was a serial killer on the loose.

Payton was a sixteen-year-old girl, and Tevon was a thirteen-year-old boy. They weren’t very similar as victims except for the fact that they were young. Still, something nagged at me,
something dark and scary that again made all of those hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

When I turned onto my block, I saw Donny’s car parked at the curb. “Hey, Maddie,” Donny said out the window as I stopped next to the driver’s side. “Your
mom’s at work. Feel like grabbing a bite?”

I looked at the display on my phone. “It’s only three,” I said.

Donny grinned. “Feel like grabbing a snack, then?”

“What gives?”

“We should talk,” he said cryptically.

I waited for him to say more, but he simply sat there looking at me until I gave in.

Donny drove us out of Poplar Hollow all the way to Parkwick. We entered a nice Italian eatery, which barely had any patrons because it was still so early. Sliding into a booth, Donny handed me
one of the menus the hostess had given us and said, “Spill it.”

At first I didn’t know what he meant. “Spill what?”

“Your mom called me today and said that another kid in the area has gone missing. She said that when the girl’s photo came up on the news broadcast last night you looked like you
were about to faint. She also said that you refused to talk about it, but then you bolted over to Stubby’s the first chance you got, so she’s wondering if maybe you read for one of the
girl’s parents and we might have another issue with the FBI on our hands. So come clean, kiddo. What’re you hiding?”

I set the menu down. Donny had me and he knew it. “Stubby and I went to the Poplar game against Jupiter last Friday night. We sat on Jupiter’s side, and Stubby pointed out this new
cheerleader on their squad, Payton Wyly, that he had a crush on. We were near enough to her so that I could read her deathdate.”

He went a little pale. “Is she dead?”

I nodded. “Wednesday.”

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed, closing his own menu and shaking his head. “Please tell me you kept that to yourself.”

I took a sip of water but had a hard time swallowing.

“Madelyn?” Donny said sternly. “Please
tell me
you didn’t share that with anyone.”

I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I told Stubby.”

Donny blinked. “And?”

“See, Stubs really did have a huge crush on this girl, so he was really upset—”

Donny buried his face in his hands. “Jesus,” he mumbled. “What’d he do?”

I took another sip of water. My hands were shaking like Ma’s. “It’s what
we
did, Donny.”

Donny parted his fingers and looked at me with one eye. “What did the two of you do, Maddie?”

“We sent her a birthday card.”

The hands fell away and revealed his slack jaw. “You sent her a
birthday card
? Why the hell would you do
that
?”

“Payton’s birthday was Wednesday, the same day as her deathdate. We wanted to warn her, but we didn’t know how, and I’d promised you that I wasn’t going to tell
anybody their deathdate, but we couldn’t just let her die without warning her, Donny!” My voice had risen, and my eyes misted. I was starting to get overcome by what’d
happened.

Donny laid a hand on my arm and said, “Hey, sweet girl, take a breath. Tell me what happened and we’ll figure it out, okay?”

I wiped my eyes and tried to calm myself, feeling embarrassed because we were in a public place and I was sure I’d called attention to us. When I felt calmer, I told him what we’d
done. “We took the card to Starbucks, and Stubby wrote out a message. He broke his arm last Sunday, so it disguised his writing pretty good. Anyway, we pretended to be Payton’s secret
admirer, and we told her that we were someone who sometimes had visions of things before they happened. We said that we’d had a vision of her getting hurt in an accident, and we wanted her to
be really careful when she drove her new car—we overheard Payton at the football game telling the other cheerleaders that she was getting a new car for her birthday.”

Donny nodded, but his expression was grave. “Okay, so is that all you said in the card?”

“No. We also said that she needed to be careful on her birthday because the stars suggested it wasn’t a safe day for her.”

Donny closed his eyes as if that was the worst thing we could’ve written. Finally he said, “Okay…is that it?”

“Yeah, mostly. Stubby mailed the card, but we both were careful to handle it using our sleeves. I don’t think either one of us ever touched it with our fingers.”

“The card went out on what day?”

“Monday. We mailed it from the Jupiter post office so it’d get there by Tuesday.”

“What return address did you use?”

“We didn’t. We kept it blank.”

Donny sighed and shook his head. “Kiddo…” he said, and I knew he thought it was bad.

“I’m sorry, Donny!” I told him. “We only wanted to try and save her. We didn’t think it’d turn out like it did with Tevon.”

Donny reached out again and squeezed my hand. “Well, kiddo,” he said, “the feds haven’t come around your house holding the card in an evidence bag, so I guess
that’s a good thing. They would’ve gone through everything in Payton’s room by now, so if it was there and could be traced back to you, they’d have done that by now. Maybe
she got it Tuesday, thought it was a joke, and threw it out.”

I nodded. I sincerely hoped that’s exactly what’d happened.

“So until this becomes an issue, you don’t tell anyone about this card,
capisce
?”

“Okay.”

“If the feds haul us in and ask us about it, though, you’ll have to tell them the truth.”

I looked down at the table, dreading that thought. “I know.”

“Hopefully, it won’t come to that. In the meantime, do me another favor,” he said.

“What?”

“The next time you see the deathdate of anybody who’s about to die, you call me first before you send them a card or a gift basket or anything else you can think of to get around my
direct order.”

It was clear that Donny was trying to make light in order to cheer me up, so I attempted a smile and held up three fingers. “Yes, sir. Scout’s honor.”

But Donny looked taken aback.

“What?” I asked.

It was his turn to smile sadly. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just that your dad used to do that. Three fingers and Scout’s honor. It was funny because he got kicked
out of the Scouts when he was twelve for being dishonest.”

I laughed, surprised by the lightness between us again at the mention of my dad. “I never knew that.”

Donny sighed and his gaze dropped to the table again. “I miss him, Maddie.”

And just like that all the humor left me. That happened a lot with the memory of my dad. It could make me laugh and cry at the same time.

“Donny?” I asked after a bit, still worrying about the possibility of being accused of Payton’s death.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I’ll be okay?”

It was Donny’s turn to push a smile onto his face as he held up three fingers. “Sure, kiddo,” he said. “Scout’s honor.”

I didn’t have it in me to ask Donny if he’d been kicked out of the Scouts, too.

PAYTON WYLY’S BODY WAS DISCOVERED
early the next morning. I found out when Donny called me after breakfast and said he was headed our way again.
The feds were asking us to come back in for another meet and greet, and I felt a terrible foreboding.

Ma had been at work at the Drug Mart until late the night before, and was still in bed by the time Donny arrived, so we left her to sleep and headed to downtown Grand Haven. The bureau offices
were again buzzing with activity, and this time when we came through the doors we found Faraday waiting for us. He walked us back to a room with a two-way mirror on the wall, and an overhead
fluorescent bulb that gave our skin a sickly hue.

Donny and I sat down and Faraday asked us if we wanted anything to drink. I’d brought my own bottled water this time, and Donny declined, but Faraday left us anyway, saying that he was
going for some coffee.

We waited patiently for him, but after twenty minutes it was clear that he was leaving us to sweat. Donny got up to pace and he even went to the door, but he found it locked, and that seemed to
infuriate him. After two hours the door opened, and in walked Faraday. He had a records storage box with him and he set it on the table in front of us. My heart was pounding. I knew that whatever
was in that box was bad.

“Have a seat,” he said to Donny and me.

Donny started in on him right away. “Is my niece under arrest?” he barked, pointing to the door. “Because we came down here, Faraday, on our own good faith, and you locked us
up in here without charging her, which is illegal.”

Faraday cocked his head, and he wore a mocking sort of smile that I knew only angered Donny more. “Was the door locked? Huh. Sorry about that. Sometimes the door sticks, like at your
sister-in-law’s house, and it can be a real pain to open.”

Donny’s fists clenched, and I could tell he wanted to storm right out of there, but Faraday calmly lifted the lid of the box and peered inside like he had a secret treasure he
couldn’t wait to show us.

Donny looked at me, raising an eyebrow. I shook my head slightly. I had no idea what was in the box. With a sigh, my uncle took his seat and crossed his arms. He’d put up with this little
charade only as long as it took for Faraday to deal his hand, then I knew he’d demand to leave.