HEAD THROBBING FROM standing too close to the DJ’s speaker all night, Maddox was grateful when Seneca and Madison motioned him over. “Any news?” Seneca asked when he got close enough to hear.
“Nope,” Maddox said. He gazed around uneasily. “It’s aggravating, with everyone in masks. He could be right in front of us, and we wouldn’t know.”
Seneca bit her fingernail. “I know. But listen, Madison and I figured out a way to clear Jeff. His Fitbit shows that he was sleeping between eleven thirty p.m. and six a.m. the night Chelsea vanished. That can prove that he didn’t abduct her.”
Maddox blinked. “That’s great.” Of course Seneca had figured out how to exonerate him. She was amazing.
“Jeff’s on his way here. After I fill him in, he can go to the police.” Seneca stood on tiptoe to see over someone’s very tall, feathered hat. “Actually, where is he? It’s been at least ten minutes. He said he had something to tell me. It sounded urgent.”
“Speaking of not being able to find people, has anyone seen Aerin?” Madison piped up. She had her hands on her hips and was squinting at the food table.
Maddox frowned and pivoted in the direction she was staring. “Isn’t she right there?” But Aerin had vanished. “Huh,” he said softly, feeling a nervous frisson. “Maybe she just went to the bathroom?”
A wrinkle formed on Seneca’s brow. “Someone should text her. Just in case.”
Madison scrambled for her phone and sent a text. When Aerin didn’t reply, she rolled back her shoulders. “I’ll do a lap. I’m sure she’s okay.” But as she said it, her voice wobbled. Maddox’s stomach clenched.
Madison’s dark hair disappeared into the group, and Maddox and Seneca were alone. Seneca jiggled on her heels. “If only we could just message Brett and say, Okay, we’re here. What’s your big surprise?”
“I know.” Maddox ducked out of the way of a group of girls trailing large helium balloons behind them. “Maybe his surprise is that there isn’t a surprise?”
Seneca twisted her mouth. “Doubt it.” Then her phone beeped. Madison. Maddox leaned over to view the message. Think I see her heading toward the exit. She looks okay.
Maddox breathed out. Then he watched Seneca scroll through her phone some more, noting the time. “Where is Jeff?” she asked, annoyed. “I would have thought he’d drop everything to come here, considering what we discovered.”
Maddox felt a lump in his throat, recalling his conversation with Jeff yesterday—especially the look of extreme disappointment on Jeff’s face. “I think he’d drop everything just to see you, period,” he said softly.
Seneca’s head snapped up. “Huh?”
He let out a stifled, sheepish laugh. “Well, the guy’s into you. I thought you noticed.”
Seneca’s mouth made a line, and two bright spots appeared on her cheeks. “Whatever,” she said, gazing into the middle distance. “It doesn’t mean I’m into him. Not like that.”
“Because you’re not into anybody right now,” Maddox stated.
Seneca’s head jerked toward him, and her eyes narrowed. Maddox could feel her watching him, sliding her gaze over his features. He was about to apologize—he hadn’t meant the statement to sound accusatory; he was just stating facts. But when he peeked at her, she had a strange smile that seemed to be so many things at once—tentative, sad, but also…nervous. Jittery. Call him crazy, but he’d seen that look on her face before—he just thought he’d never see it again.
His stomach suddenly swooped. “Am I wrong?” he asked.
She turned to face him head-on. Her expression had changed to something sheepish, uncertain. She coughed awkwardly into her fist. “I know this isn’t the time or place for this, but I feel it needs to be said. It, well, it sucked not having our normal conversations for the last three months.” She was speaking so quietly, Maddox had to lean closer to hear her. “I felt totally rudderless. I made bad decisions.” She caught his gaze and lifted her chin. “I joined the Annapolis Parking Authority, for God’s sake.”
Maddox tried to laugh, but it came out choked. “That is a bad decision. I would have talked you out of that one.”
In the distance, the bass thrummed. Someone laughed loudly. Seneca suddenly feigned intense interest in her thumbnail. “I wish we would have talked, period,” she mumbled. “I wish…a lot of things.”
She looked so timid and unsure of herself. Maddox’s breath caught. Was it possible? He felt the corner of his lips wobble into a smile. Seneca smiled nervously, too. They both laughed, and a butterfly flapped its wings inside Maddox’s stomach.
There were goose bumps on his arms as Seneca slowly took his hands. He reached out and pushed a sprig of hair from her eyes. She smiled at him crookedly, and his heart squeezed. He was going to kiss her. Pull her to him. Whirl her away from this party and…forget, even just for a moment.
Then they heard the screams.
They shot apart. Maddox followed Seneca as she ducked haphazardly around partygoers through a small hedge archway at the perimeter. They found Madison standing in front of a chain-link fence. “It came from there,” she cried in a wobbling voice, pointing inside the vacant lot. “I think…I think it’s Aerin.”
Seneca ducked clumsily through a ragged hole in the fence. Maddox and Madison followed, blinking in the sudden darkness. When another scream rose up, his heart leapt to his throat. It was coming from somewhere very close by. He looked right and left. The patchy grass, jutting out of the gritty sand, quivered in a gust of wind. Aerin emerged in front of them, ghostlike, her eyes wild, her mouth open in a silent wail.
“What?” Seneca said, grabbing Aerin’s shoulders. “What’s going on? What did you see?”
“Brett?” Maddox whispered, daring to say his name out loud.
Aerin’s mouth opened and closed, and she struggled to get sound out. Eyes popped wide, she gestured behind her. “There,” she whispered.
They pushed through the grass, bypassed some abandoned cardboard boxes, and rounded a Dumpster. Aerin stopped and pointed again. Maddox looked down. Something incongruously lumpy lay twisted on the ground. It had volume. Hardness. Angles. Seneca breathed in sharply and backed away. Maddox’s eyes adjusted, but it took him a moment to understand what he was seeing. It was a hand. A human hand.
“Oh my God!” Seneca screamed. “Someone call an ambulance!”
Maddox kept looking. Connected to that hand was an arm, a shoulder, a broken neck…and a head. The face was in profile, the skin an ashen gray, the lips slightly parted, a mass of long, thick hair cascading around the shoulders. Maddox took in the sharp nose, the chiseled chin, the enviable cheekbones. He clapped a hand over his mouth. The world started to spin.
It was Jeff.