Page 33 of Middle of the Night

When a rabbit darts out, close enough that I can feel the prickle of its fur on my shins, I yelp so loud I fear it’s awakened the entire neighborhood. It certainly startles the rabbit, which zips across the driveway. I run in the opposite direction, around the rear corner of the house, not stopping until I realize where I am.

The backyard.

Halfway between the house and the woods.

Standing in the exact spot where my tent had been that night.

I suck in a nervous breath. I can’t remember the last time I stood in this backyard. Definitely years. Maybe even decades. All this time, I’ve purposefully avoided it, afraid to confront the memories being here would bring.

Now here I am, back at the scene of the crime, and my first thought is how the yard has barely changed in the past thirty years. It remains a tidy swath of grass stretching from the back of the house to the edge of the woods. The magnolia tree directly behind the house is bigger, of course, its branches now brushing the siding and roof. But everything else looks exactly the same. Even the grass where the tent once sat. A shock. Considering how unholy this spot is in my mind, it feels like it should be nothing but scorched earth.

I kneel and run my hand over it, the freshly cut blades tickling my palms as the green, earthy scent does the same to my nostrils. Beyond the lawn, the forest is alive with noise. Crickets and cheepers and birds that hunt in the dark. Fireflies lazily dance in the trees, as bright as the stars sparkling in the cloudless sky.

It’s all so peaceful.

And menacing.

I stand and start walking toward the forest, inexplicably drawn to it. I peer into the dark cluster of trees, horrified by the knowledge that almost thirty years ago, on a night very much like this, someone emerged from these woods. They stood next to the tent where Billy and I slept. They sliced the tent, grabbed Billy, and—

I force myself not to think about the rest. It’s too horrible to imagine.

To distract myself, I pull my phone out of my pocket and consider calling Claudia again. Instantly, I decide against it. Not twice in one day.

As I drop the phone into my pocket, I notice something strange.

The sounds coming from the woods have stopped. No crickets. Orcheepers. Or birds of prey hurtling through the night with a flap of their wings. Even the fireflies, so bright a moment ago, appear to have fled.

In their place is silence and a tickle on the back of my neck that tells me I’m not alone.

Someone else is here.

In the yard.

Right behind me.

I spin around and see—

Nothing.

There’s no one else around. It’s just me and the grass and the magnolia tree, its moon shadow stretching across the lawn to my feet. My gaze follows it back to the house, which sits silent and dark, casting its own rectangular shadow onto the backyard.

And in that darkness, barely visible on a patch of grass that only seconds earlier had been empty, is another baseball.

NINE

It’s a joke.

After a night spent awake thinking about it, that’s the only explanation I can come up with for this second baseball, which is identical to the first.

I know it’s a different ball because the one the lawn guy found yesterday remains in the living room, where I showed it to Ragesh. Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, I now stare at both baseballs, obsessing over who could have placed one in the yard unnoticed as I stood mere feet away. How did I not see them? Had I been so distracted by the woods and thoughts of Billy that I completely missed someone rushing through the yard, dropping the baseball along the way?

Beyond the mystery of who put it there is this question: Why? There seems to be no purpose behind it other than to remind me of Billy’s secret message. Not that I need reminding. I remember it well.

So someone is playing a prank. A cruel one. Someone who knows Billy was taken from this yard—which, thanks to the internet, is everyone—and decided that the discovery of his body would be the perfect time to fuck with the person living here. Which happens to be me.

But, according to Ragesh, very few people outside the police know Billy has been found. Just me, Russ, Ashley, and whoever they secretly told. If they told anyone at all.

When you subtract those who don’t know the meaning of the baseball left in my yard, that leaves only two people who could have done it: me and Billy.

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