“What?” I shrieked, jumping up, still clutching the blanket. My pulse raced so fast I was about to pass out. I brought one hand to my head and tried to focus. “I knew it! I knew—”
I paused and looked down at Tristan. He eyed me with a sort of reluctant expectance. Like he was waiting for me to realize what I was slowly realizing.
“How do you know about Steven Nell?” I asked, trembling. “Did the police tell you? Did they tell Joaquin?”
“It doesn’t matter how I know,” he said, standing. “I just do.”
I blinked, completely confused. “Chief Grantz said he’d gone to Canada. He said the FBI—”
“Chief Grantz lied,” Tristan said flatly.
“What?” I breathed. “Why?”
He blew out a sigh, looking at the floor as he shook his head. “It’s a long story.”
I paced in front of him, holding my head with one hand. “Okay, okay,” I said, my brain working hard to process all this. “How do you know he’s here? Did he contact you?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Tristan, you’re giving me nothing here. What’s going on?” I asked, growing more frustrated, more desperate, by the second. “What do you mean, you need my help?”
Tristan moved over to the north-facing window and leaned his elbow against the upper ledge on the lower pane. He closed his eyes and pressed the heel of his hand into his forehead, as if my questions perturbed him. As if he didn’t know how to answer.
“All I can say is, you’re the only one that can find her,” he said, turning to look at me, his blue eyes pained.
Then he gazed out the window in a way that made my heart skip a beat. He was looking at something or someone down below. My breath short and shallow, I walked over to join him, my long blanket swishing behind me. At first all I saw was the glow, but as I approached the window, the crowd came into focus. There were at least a dozen of them gathered in a close-knit pack in the sand. Each of them wore a hooded sweatshirt, and each carried a black flashlight. I could see Joaquin, Lauren, Krista, Fisher, Bea, and Kevin, plus a few others I’d noticed around town. They were all there, and they were all gazing up at me in grim silence.
“Will you help us?” Tristan asked quietly.
I swallowed hard. My throat was dry, my heart was pounding, and white-hot adrenaline warmed my skin from the inside out. I knew I should go wake my father. I knew I should get him to contact the police. Nothing about this made sense. And there was no way I should be going out with a pack of strangers, a pack of kids, to try to take on a serial killer. But when I looked into Tristan’s eyes, I knew there was only one answer to his question.
“Of course I will,” I said. “She’s my sister.”
The sand was soft and cold beneath my bare feet as Tristan and I made our way across the beach to his hooded friends. Every one of them watched my approach as if I were some kind of prophet. As if I were going to start glowing from within and spout the meaning of life. I held my running shoes to my chest, grasping them in my sweaty palms.
This was really happening. Steven Nell had found us.
“Rory,” Joaquin said in a deep, no-nonsense voice. “What do you know about Steven Nell?”
“Not a lot,” I said. “I thought he was just a regular math teacher until he attacked me in the woods near my house. I’m not actually from Manhattan,” I clarified, remembering how Darcy had filled Joaquin in on our faux history. “I’m from New Jersey.”
No one even blinked.
“Go on,” Tristan said, touching my back briefly.
“Well…it turns out he murdered fourteen girls all across the country, and I was the only one to get away,” I said. Tristan and Krista exchanged a grim look. “The FBI agent who put us into witness protection told us Nell had never failed before, so there was a good chance he’d try to come after us, but that’s all I know. I was hoping they’d caught him, until…”
“Until now,” Tristan finished for me.
“Yeah.” I gulped back a sob and looked down at the sneakers against my chest, knowing how terrified Darcy must be. If she was even still alive. “Until now. Why aren’t the police here?” I asked, looking up again, sniffling back a tear. “Shouldn’t we be talking to them about this? Or at least tell some adults?”
“The adults are useless,” Joaquin said with a scoff. “They’re all in denial.”
“They think it’s impossible for this man to be here,” Krista explained. “They refuse to believe us.”
I glanced at Joaquin, whose jaw was set. Was that what he’d been arguing with Officer Dorn about?
“But you think he’s here?” I said. “Why?”