Another game

“Kerry?” I shouted, my voice cracking. “Kerry? Are you here?”

Silence.

“I didn’t see him outside,” Brendan said. “Did anyone see him when we ran to the dock?”

“Yes, he was outside with us,” I said. “I ran right beside him. I know he was there when we saw the boat leaving with the staff. But then when it started to rain…” My voice trailed off.

I thought hard. “I … didn’t see him run back to the house,” I said.

Brendan scratched his head. “He stayed outside in the rain? No way. He wouldn’t. Would he?”

No one answered. I shut my eyes and tried to picture running back through the rain to the house. Was Kerry still beside me? No. No, he wasn’t.

“I knew he was totally messed up about Patti,” Brendan said. “But he seemed to be getting it together. Why would he stay outside by himself? He had to come back into the house. I know he’s here somewhere.”

“Stop talking!” I cried. “Talking isn’t going to find him. We have to look for him!”

“Rachel is right,” Brendan said. “Should we split up?” He paused. “No. Better not. We’ll go together. We can’t search outside. It’s a downpour. We’ll start on the first floor of the house. And then go up a floor at a time.”

A frightened hush fell over everyone as we started to the ballroom door. I hurried to catch up to Brendan.

“We’ll find him,” Brendan said softly. “Maybe he just got lost. This house is so confusing, and he wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sure he’s okay.”

But I could hear the fear in his voice. He kept his head down and didn’t look me in the eye.

As we followed the long hall, I kept picturing Kerry on the boat when we sailed to Fear Island, his arm around Patti. I kept picturing how happy they both looked. How funny they looked together—a tiny doll with a giant basketball player.

We walked through the brightly lit kitchen. The workers had left it a mess, with dirty pans and stacks of unwashed pizza trays, dirty glasses piled in the sink. The countertops were grease-stained and cluttered with scraps of uneaten food.

No sign of Kerry.

Behind the kitchen were several rooms for maids and kitchen workers. We searched them all. Then we turned a hall that led toward the back of the house.

“Hey, stop shoving!” Spider shouted from behind me.

“I didn’t shove you. I didn’t touch you,” I heard Eric reply.

Brendan spun around. “Let’s stick together, guys.” He raised his hand for us to come to a stop. “Kerry won’t be back here. It’s all construction. My parents are building a big shed and boat hangar back here. I think we should turn around and—”

“No,” I interrupted. “Let’s check it out. We have to look everywhere.”

Brendan hesitated. I gave him a gentle push toward the backdoor. “Okay. You’re right,” he said. He pushed open the door, and we followed him out to the construction site.

The rainstorm had been short. The rain had stopped but the heavy clouds lingered, hanging low over the trees. I squinted into the eerie gray-green light.

The ground was covered with long concrete slabs to build the hangar foundation, I guessed. They were stacked neatly in rows across the dirt, about six or eight feet high.

One pile looked as if it had fallen. The long slabs were tilted over each other at weird angles.

Was that the crash we heard? I wondered. The sound of these slabs toppling over?

My eyes moved down to the bottom of the pile. I blinked. I felt a sharp jolt of shock run down my body. I tried to scream but no sound came out.

I stared at the legs poking out from under the fallen slabs.

The long legs.

Kerry’s legs.

Oh, no. Oh, please no.

The rest of him … crushed …

A concrete slab lay over the middle of his body. His stomach … his chest … crushed beneath its weight. His legs sprawled from one side of the boulder. I could see his neck and head on the other.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. This isn’t happening.

Brendan dove toward Kerry. He picked up a sheet of paper from the top of a concrete slab. He read it out loud: “I Never Was Good at Jenga.”

Brendan crushed the paper in his fist and tossed it to the ground. Then he lowered himself to his knees. Bent over Kerry. He grabbed Kerry’s head in both hands. He tried to hold it up. But then he set it gently back onto the ground.

Brendan climbed to his feet and turned to us, his face pale, his chin quivering. “Kerry is dead,” he said. “He’s dead, too.”

23.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20