December Park(59)

“You hungry?” Adrian asked, rifling through one of the cupboards.

“Not really.” I looked up and noticed there were no lightbulbs in the ceiling fixture.

Adrian produced a box of Pop-Tarts from the cupboard. “You didn’t get in trouble the other day, did you? For getting home after dark?”

“No, man. It’s cool.”

He ripped into one of the foil packages and had a Pop-Tart in his mouth an instant later. He ate like a starving prisoner. “Whatcha got there?” He nodded toward the yearbook under my arm.

“Oh.” I hadn’t rehearsed this part. I hadn’t rehearsed any of this. It was all I could do to sound casual. “It’s a yearbook.” I set it on the counter and pushed it over to him. “It’s got a picture in it I think you should see.”

Adrian looked at the yearbook cover. “Since when did you go to an all-girls’ school?”

“It’s got Courtney Cole’s picture in it. The dead girl.” When I could tell by his expression that he wasn’t taking the hint, I said, “She’s wearing a necklace.”

Adrian tossed the box of Pop-Tarts onto the counter, and with the one he’d been eating still protruding from his mouth, he opened the yearbook. Big glossy pages glared up at us as I stepped beside Adrian and looked down at the book with him.

“What page is she on?” he asked.

I flipped the book to Courtney’s page, which Scott had tabbed with a yellow Post-it.

Adrian stared at the photo for a long time, not speaking, not making a sound. Then he looked at me. Without his glasses his eyes appeared too small for his head. “That’s her.” It was not a question but more like hearing someone marvel to themselves over the secrets of the universe.

“Yeah,” I said.

He returned to the photo. Squinting, he leaned closer to the page. “But she’s wearing the wrong necklace.”

“I just thought you should know.”

“That I should know what?”

“Well, uh . . .” I gestured toward the page. “She’s wearing a crucifix. Not a heart-shaped locket.”

Adrian blinked at me. “So?” Then he looked past me and out the bay window. “Tell them to come in here.”

“Who?” For a moment I had genuinely forgotten about Peter, Scott, and Michael in my backyard, though when I glanced up I could see that they were easily visible through the window. “Oh. Yeah.” I fumbled for words. “They thought . . . I mean, we thought . . .”

“It’s okay. Call them in.”

I opened the patio door and yelled to the three stooges to come up to the house. They feigned ignorance and surprise before bumbling across the lawn.

“Hey, guys,” Michael said, coming through the back door. He tried to sound like this whole meeting was purely serendipitous and that they had been shooting the shit on the woodpile in my yard without my knowledge. “What’s going on? Whatcha doin’ here, Angie?”

“Cut it out, moron,” I told him.

“It’s okay that you guys know,” Adrian said.

“Know what?” Michael said, keeping up the fa?ade until Peter punched him on the arm.

Adrian carried the yearbook to the kitchen table and sat down in one of the chairs. The rest of us gathered around him. No one said a word, not even Michael. Then, just when the silence was becoming overbearing, Adrian rose from his chair and disappeared down the hallway. I heard his rapid little footfalls on the stairs.

Peter and I exchanged a look. Michael grew instantly bored and went to the box of Pop-Tarts on the counter. Scott continued to stare at the yearbook on the table.

“Is he all bummed out?” Peter asked me.

“I don’t really know. I think he still thinks the locket is hers.” I came up beside Scott and studied the photo again. It was almost unfathomable to think of that attractive young girl as the same one we’d witnessed being dredged up from the woods next to December Park, pale and gray beneath a sheet of white, the right side of her face punctured. Dented. Like a tin can.

“Poor little buffoon,” Michael commented. I turned and glared at him as he hopped on the counter, half a Pop-Tart poking out of his mouth. He shrugged, then yanked the Pop-Tart from his mouth and gave me his best politician’s smile—wide and toothy.

After several minutes passed and Adrian still hadn’t returned to the kitchen, we all began to feel restless.

“Where is he?” Peter asked, peeking down the hallway.

I stepped into the hall. “Adrian?” My voice reverberated off the barren walls. I started down the hall but froze at the sight of him sitting on the bottom step of the staircase. He held the heart-shaped locket. He wore his glasses—he had probably gone to his room to retrieve them, I realized—and when he looked up at me, I had a hard time dissecting the mixture of emotion in his eyes.

Peter, Michael, and Scott came up behind me.

“It could still be hers,” Adrian said, though much of the conviction had been stripped from his voice. I felt responsible for it. “That picture in the yearbook doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sure,” I said. “Anything’s possible.”

“Can I see it?” Scott asked, approaching the front of the stairs. His shadow fell across Adrian’s face.