Page 53 of Two Sticky Nuts

“How?” I ask.

“It’s like with you.” He throws his arms to his sides. “I didn’t want to tell you the truth about Carter, and look what happened.”

Oh. I get it. “You never told your fiancée that Carter is bat-shit crazy.”

“No.”

My heart softens. I think back to when I first met Logan, and he told me he didn’t believe in bad-mouthing his brother.

“I’m really sorry, Logan. For everything.” I have to call Sofie and tell her we need to set the story straight.

“It’s not your fault,” Logan says. “It’s mine. And now Carter is gone and…”

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll have to let the police handle it.”

Logan said there’s blood in the hallway. Is it fake blood? Is Carter filming us right now? “Please don’t hate me for saying this, but what if this isn’t real? What if Carter is just setting all this up?”

“He had no idea I was coming over.”

“Maybe he had a hunch? I mean, by now he probably saw what I posted. Maybe he figured you’d be pissed off and come looking for him to find out what happened.”

Logan stares off into the distance but doesn’t speak. I can tell he’s going over what I just said.

“I’ll go in and take a look before the police get here,” I say.

“Don’t touch anything.”

“I won’t.” I go down the hallway, stepping around the drops of dark red liquid. Could be real. Could be corn syrup. I’m not about to check.

I get to the first open door, and the room is neat, decorated in blue and white. There are little baseball trophies on a tall dresser, and there’s a framed photo of an eagle on the wall. Everything is meticulous.Definitely Logan’s old room.

I go to the next room and peek inside. There are smudges of blood on the wall, and the space looks like it’s been put through a blender. Even without the ransacking, I can tell this is Carter’s old room. It has overlapping posters slapped on the walls—girls, rock bands, and…An evil unicorn with a bloody horn? Weird.

I tiptoe around piles of clothes, papers, and broken electrical equipment on the floor, to find a clean spot on the carpet where I can stand.

Jesus. This looks legitimate.Carter lugged his cameras and film equipment with him everywhere. It’s all here. It’s all busted up.

Next to my foot, I spot something brown and fibrous poking out from beneath a shirt. I carefully lift the fabric to find one of Carter’s coconuts. There’s blood on one side.

Oh shit.I wonder if he tried to defend himself and hit the perpetrator in the head. Maybe the blood outside belongs to whoever did this.

I’m about to leave to tell Logan my opinion—this is not a drill—when a blue shirt on the floor, with a big black shiny button, catches my eye. The button is aimed right at the doorway.

It’s the shirt Carter wore to my house on the fake arrest day. I step over more junk and grab the shirt. The shirt is torn on one side, and some of the real buttons are gone, but the tiny camera is still there. It’s attached to a small black box inside the shirt. I think, and then I think some more.

Did Carter film himself being taken?

I make my way back outside with the shirt. “Logan, I think Carter might’ve had this on.”

“Well, he doesn’t anymore.”

“No, I mean the camera.” I point to the button. “Do you know if he has a laptop or something around here so we can try to take a look?”

“I don’t know, but we should hand that over to the police.”

“To do what? Sit on it for a week?” I ask.

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