Page 40 of Broken Things

“You saw the guy. He’s a wreck. You really think he could have tackled Summer?” I shake my head. “Besides, Mr. Ball didn’t know about Lovelorn.”

“He could have guessed,” Mia insists. “He could have read the book—”

“And the fan fic? Nobody knew about it except for us—and Owen.”

“Owen didn’t do it,” Mia says quickly. “It’s another dead end.” She draws her knees to her chest. “I don’t know. Maybe this was stupid. What do we know that the cops don’t?”

“Lovelorn,” I say. My head hurts. Like someone’s kicking my eyeballs from inside my brain. “We know Lovelorn.”

“If only we had our book back,” Mia says, exhaling so hard her bangs flutter. “The cops must have finished with it by now. The case is cold. They’re not even doing anything.”

“It’s evidence,” I say. I don’t know much about the law, despite Officer Neuter’s you don’t have to answer any of my questions unlessyou want tolectures, but I’ve watched enough TV to understand the basics. “They’re not just gonna go out and try and sell Summer’s stuff at the Goodwill. Besides—” I break off, seeing Wade’s face. “What?” I say. “What is it?”

“The cops don’t haveReturn to Lovelorn,” he says carefully, as if the words carry a strange flavor.

“What are you talking about?” Mia’s voice is sharp. “Of course they do.”

“Theyneverhad it,” Wade insists. “It wasn’t with the rest of Summer’s things. It wasn’t at home or in her locker. I know. I asked. Itoldyou that,” he says, turning to me.

“You didn’t,” I say automatically. “I would have remembered.”

“I did,” he insists. “You just don’t listen to me.” He has a point. I’ve always thought Wade’s ramblings were like elevator music: best to just tune out. Now I’m realizing how wrong I was about him. He really does care. He does want to help.

“But...” Mia’s voice is weirdly high-pitched, like someone has a fist around her vocal cords. “That’s impossible. They knew. They knew all that stuff about the sacrifice scene we wrote. They knew about the three girls and the Shadow and the knife.”

Wade frowns. “They knew because you told them.”

“No.” Mia shakes her head so hard her bangs swish-swish with the movement. “No way. I never told them any of the details. I never...” She trails off, inhaling sharply, as her eyes land on me. “Oh my God. No. You didn’t.”

I feel like I’ve been locked into a toaster: I’m hot all over, dryand crackling. Now everyone’s staring at me. “Hold on,” I say. “Just hold on.” I’m fumbling back through those old, awful memories—that dingy interview room and Mom sobbing next to me, as if she really thought I’d done it. My sister in the corner, tight-lipped, gray-faced, her eyes closed, like she was willing us all to be a dream. “I only told them because I knew they’d find out eventually. They had the book. Theyhadit. How else would they have known about the stuff we were writing? How else would they have known all about Lovelorn?”

Mia squeezes her eyes shut. Now when she speaks, it’s in a whisper. “I told them about the original book,” she says. “I told them we liked to imagine going to Lovelorn. I thought... well, if they had our fan fic, they’d find out anyway, right?”

For a long moment, no one speaks. For once, even Abby has nothing to say, although I can still feel her watching me, this time pityingly. My whole body is pulsating, like I’m being rattled around the belly of a giant snare drum, beating the same word back to me over and over:stupid, stupid, stupid. It’s so obvious now. How did I not see it? All those times Detective Neuter, and later Lieutenant Marshall, left the room to get sodas, snacks, water for my sister, tissues for my mom... all those times, he was just ratting to the other cops so they could wring information out of Mia, and so he could use whatever Mia said to get me all wound up.

They were playing us against each other the whole time.

Mia said she left you and Summer alone in the woods. Mia said shehad nothing to do with it. Mia’s trying to get out of trouble.

I stand up, suddenly desperate for air, and wrench open the window. The cops don’t haveReturn to Lovelorn. They never evenfoundit.

“The killer,” I blurt out. I turn back from the window. “The killer must have the book. Think about it,” I say, when Mia makes a face. “Summer loved that thing. She never even let us take it for the night. So why didn’t the cops find it with her stuff?” The more I speak, the more excited I’m getting. “The killer must have known it would lead back to him. So he took it and destroyed it. Burned it, or buried it, or something.”

“You think the killer broke into Summer’s house to get a bunch of fan fiction?” Abby asks, in a tone of voice that clearly says:You, Brynn, are a deluded subspecies.

“Maybe not,” I say, matching her tone. “Maybe he convinced Summer to give it to him. Maybe he offered to keep it safe for her.”

Strangely, Mia has gone totally white and very rigid, like a plaster model of herself. “Oh my God,” she whispers.

“What?” Abby at last turns to Mia, and I’m glad when her eyes are off me.

But it’s to me that Mia speaks. Her eyes are huge, anguished, like holes torn in her face. “I think I know where Owen went that day,” she says. “I think I know what he was doing.”

No one had seen the Shadow since the original three had been to Lovelorn. Gregor’s hair was now a wiry gray, since obviously without the Shadow’s protection people got old and ugly and died. Some people were even grumbling about it. Things had been different when the Shadow was around. Maybe they’d even been better.

—FromReturn to Lovelornby Summer Marks, Brynn McNally, and Mia Ferguson

Mia

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