Page 25 of If Anything Happens To Me

She laughed and raised her eyebrows. “Hello, I have a car. Why didn’t you call me? Don’t answer that, I already know.”

I was sure she did. “It’s not like Matt and I don’t hang out sometimes.”

“Yes, but in our nature group. You and Matt without us—this is progress!” She paused. “Chris is helping me look.”

Chris?

“Where is he?” I asked, feeling sudden dread.

“He’s cutting through backyards,” she said. “Looking up in trees, under bushes.”

I nodded, but my insides hurt. The mention of Chris sent me spinning. Eloise had liked him so much; I wondered if he was getting close to Adalyn. She hadn’t mentioned it, but maybe that was because she knew it would be a tender subject. I almost felt like warning her, spilling my doubts about him.

Adalyn caught sight of Iris in the back seat. “Who’s that?”

“I just met her,” I said. “You won’t believe this . . . I found her . . .” I stopped myself. I trusted Adalyn, but if she was hanging around with Chris, telling her about Iris was the last thing I should do. Then I had a brainstorm. “She seems to know a lot about cats. Maybe she’ll have advice about where Thea’s kitten could have escaped to.”

I waved to Iris, and she rolled down the back window. She was eyeing Adalyn a little suspiciously, but I managed to skip introducing her and Adalyn by name, in case Adalyn mentioned anything to Chris. Iris looked relieved, and Adalyn was too distracted to notice. She told Iris about the missing kitten.

“They like to hide,” Iris said. “That’s the big thing. In closets, basements, under buildings. Under parked cars. In alleys.”

It interested me to hear her rattling off these ideas—she really did know about cats, so that was something to add to my list. And something about the places she named stuck in my mind—I wasn’t sure why.

“Where were you when the kitten ran away?” Iris asked Adalyn.

“My house is over there,” Adalyn said, pointing at the familiar white Cape I’d spent so many happy times in over the years, since fourth grade. “I opened the front door to get the mail when Esmeralda dashed outside and disappeared.”

“Can you show me where you last saw her?” Iris asked. “I might get a sense of her.”

Another mystery, another search.

“We’ll meet you at your house,” Matt told Adalyn.

We parked in the Bandas’ driveway. When Adalyn got out of her car, Iris got out of the Jeep and together they headed toward Adalyn’s front door. I was curious about the fact that Iris was willing to be seen out in the open with Adalyn when she had been so cautious all along. I figured it must have to do with her love of cats.

Matt stayed in the driver’s seat, scrolling through his phone. I got out of the Jeep and started to follow Iris and Adalyn when I heard a boy speak my name.

“Oli.”

I turned to see Chris, and I stiffened. He stood a few feet away from me in Adalyn’s yard, hands in his jeans pockets, sunlight glinting on his blond hair. It was hard for me to look at him, and this was the closest he had come to me in months.

I froze, waiting to see how he would react to Iris. If he was the one—Eloise’s killer, Iris and Hayley’s kidnapper—he would freak out at the sight of her. But when Iris passed by him with Adalyn, he barely glanced at her. He didn’t seem to recognize her at all. He was only focused on me.

“How’ve you been?” Chris asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. “How about you?”

“Fine, too,” he said.

I stared into his eyes and saw something I hadn’t expected: true sadness. Like me, he was lying about being fine. Even though I’d seen him with friends at school, laughing and talking like things were normal, at this moment I felt grief pouring off him. Maybe bumping into me was as hard for him as it was for me.

“I keep thinking I’ll see her again,” he said quietly. “Especially times like now, seeing you. Because you two were so often together.”

“It’s the same for me, Chris,” I said. “She always . . .”Wanted to be with you,I thought but didn’t say.

“I’m so sorry, Oli,” he said.

“For what?” I asked, almost afraid to hear what he was going to say.

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