When (7 page)

I leaned against the door frame; my knees were threatening to give out from underneath me. I stood there breathing hard as a mounting sense of panic began to overwhelm me. The news reporter
rattled off that the FBI was now leading the investigation in the disturbing murder, stating that Tevon’s body had been found riddled with wounds, and there were preliminary signs that the
boy had been tortured.

When the news cut to commercial I reached a trembling hand toward the phone, but Uncle Donny’s line went straight to voice mail again. “Donny? It’s Maddie. Did you hear the
news? It’s Tevon Tibbolt. They found him, and he’s been murdered. Please call me, okay? Right away. Please?

Still gripping the phone, I hobbled over to Dad’s old leather chair and collapsed into it. I stared at the TV, but the newscaster had already moved on to a house fire in neighboring Willow
Mill.

The doorbell rang twice and shouts of “Trick or Treat!” echoed through the door, but I didn’t move out of Dad’s chair. Instead I sat there and wept for a long time,
feeling so guilty I could barely keep my dinner down. If only I’d insisted that Mrs. Tibbolt listen to me. If only I’d run after her before she left our house and said, “Please
don’t let him out of the house next Wednesday!” or if I hadn’t hung up on her later that night but had tried harder to get her to listen to me, Tevon might still be alive.

At eight o’clock I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt and stood gingerly. It’d gotten dark in the room, and in spite of Ma sleeping on the couch, I turned on a light,
then I hobbled over to the door to check on the candy.

After struggling to get the door open, I saw the plastic bowl smashed and broken at the bottom of the front walk, and a roll of toilet paper hanging from the branches of the small maple tree in
our front yard.

I’d been sitting inside and hadn’t heard a thing.

My shoulders slumped, and I was about to pick up what remained of the bowl when I saw a dark sedan snake down the street to park a few houses away. The nearby streetlight gave off enough light
for me to see two figures inside. I felt cold all over. I knew with certainty that they were looking my way, waiting and watching. It was now official. I was in serious trouble.

UNCLE DONNY DROVE UP TO POPLAR HOLLOW
the next day, right after the FBI called him to say that they wanted to talk to me again. He arrived in his shiny
BMW, wearing a black suit and gold tie. Donny always looks good, but today I could tell he’d put a little bit extra into his appearance. The sight of him looking so sharp and confident made
me feel better. He walked me to the car after taking one look at Ma, who’d hit the bottle kind of hard the day before; even though it was nearly noon, she was still pretty groggy. Uncle Donny
told her she’d better stay home.

Once we were in the car, Donny turned to me and said, “How you doin’, kiddo?”

I shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“No, really,” he pressed, his brow all furrowed and concerned. “How
are
you?”

I almost laughed. It was ridiculous. “I’m fine, Donny. Can we please go?”

But Donny didn’t start the car. Instead he glanced toward the house, then back at me. “You can always come live with me, you know,” he said in a serious tone.

I swallowed hard. I loved Donny, but ever since my dad died, I’d had trouble with the city. In fact, it’d been one of the reasons Ma had moved us all the way out here. I’d
started having panic attacks and couldn’t seem to concentrate at school. Some days in class I would shake so hard I couldn’t hold a pencil. Other times I couldn’t seem to catch my
breath, and I’d nearly pass out.

The minute we moved out of Brooklyn, leaving behind all the noise and people, I’d settled down. But it was hard for me to go into the city to visit Donny for even a day without the shakes
and shortness of breath coming back. I couldn’t imagine going there to live again.

Then there was Ma to consider. We were an hour and forty minutes by car outside of New York City, two and a half hours by train. I couldn’t leave Ma, because who’d get to her quickly
if something bad happened?

“Thanks, Donny,” I said, “but I’m okay.”

Donny sighed and started the car, heading west.

Poplar Hollow, Jupiter, Willow Mill, and Parkwick are all villages technically within the city of Grand Haven, New York. Mostly, the villages circle Grand Haven like planets in a solar system,
and the distinctions between the villages are measured more by the sizes of the houses than anything else. Willow Mill is a step down from Poplar Hollow, and Jupiter is a step up, but you’d
need a ladder to get into Parkwick. The rest of Grand Haven isn’t so grand, though, and most of us kinda thumb our noses at it. We all have our own school system with about a thousand kids in
each high school, except that Grand Haven itself has two high schools—North and South—and they have at least two thousand kids in each. Both of their football teams clobber our team
every year, but we usually stand a fighting chance against the other schools. Still, it seems we’re always duking it out with Jupiter for second-to-last place.

Downtown Grand Haven is on the small side when you compare it to any other major city, especially New York, but every year it gets another few tall office buildings added to it. Now it even has
two malls.

The bureau offices are downtown, about a block away from the police station in a building that’s new and trendy. Not the kind of place you’d expect to find the FBI.

Donny took up two slots in the parking garage so no one could park too close to his BMW, and then led the way to the stairs—he always takes the stairs—and we finally came out on the
third floor. Donny’s footfalls were steady and sure as we wound our way through the maze of hallways. I was back on tiptoe.

At last we came out to a central catwalk that encircled the lobby below and wound around to a large staircase with a gleaming brass railing. Donny followed the railing up to a set of double
glass doors with a stenciled sign that read,
OFFICES OF THE FBI
—
GRAND HAVEN BRANCH
. Before pulling the doors open Donny paused with his palm on
the handle and said, “Remember, Maddie, don’t answer any question without looking to me to see if I approve; and if I do,
just
answer the question, okay? Nothing else.
Don’t elaborate beyond the simplest answer.”

My mouth had gone dry as we’d stepped onto the third floor, and I wanted a glass of water badly. My legs were trembling, and I found it hard to concentrate on what Donny was saying. Still,
I managed to nod when he looked at me and opened the door.

We walked in to find the place pretty busy for a Saturday. “They mostly monitor drug and weapons traffic coming in and out of New York City from here,” Donny whispered. That made
sense when I thought about it, as Grand Haven sits right next to I-87, which heads straight to Canada.

Donny pointed to a leather chair in the lobby and I sat while he checked in with the receptionist. After letting the feds know we were there, she came over to us. Her deathdate read 2-12-2061.
“Agents Faraday and Wallace will be with you shortly. Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”

“Coffee,” Donny said, flashing a smile. Donny’s a big flirt.

“I’ll take water please,” I told her.

After she came back with our drinks, Agent Faraday appeared and motioned for us to follow him.

He led us to a glass-enclosed office with an open ceiling where he pointed to the two chairs that faced his desk, and as we took our seats Wallace entered the office, pushing a chair in front of
him.

Faraday shut the door behind Wallace before taking his seat, and I moved my gaze to his desk. It was cluttered with papers and files, but one corner was fairly neat. Several picture frames were
arranged there with their backs to us. I assumed they were of his family, and I felt oddly curious about what his wife and kids looked like. Then I glanced at the wall behind Faraday and saw three
rows of mug shots of dangerous-looking felons. All of them had the word
CAPTURED
in bright red stamped across the top of their mug shots. I couldn’t help
noticing that a few were already dead.

Belatedly, I realized that Wallace and Faraday were both staring silently at me as if they were waiting for a full confession. I shifted in my seat and looked at Donny, who seemed impatient to
get things going.

“Do you guys have questions for us, or should we come back on a day without all this excitement?” Donny said.

Both Faraday and Wallace didn’t seem to like his attitude. Wallace glared, and Faraday asked, “You in a hurry, counselor?”

“Yeah, Agent Faraday. I am,” Donny replied, pulling at his shirt cuffs and tugging at his tie. He was playing up the hotshot lawyer.

Faraday rolled his eyes a little but turned his attention back to me. “You claimed when we spoke to you a few days ago that you never met Tevon Tibbolt. Is that right, Madelyn?”

I looked at Donny, and he nodded.

“I never met him,” I said. I thought I should make it perfectly clear to Faraday, so I added, “I’ve never met Tevon or talked to him or texted him or e-mailed him.
I’ve never met him in any way at all.”

Faraday looked confused. “See, this is what I don’t get: if you never met, or talked or texted or e-mailed Tevon, then how exactly could you know that he’d been murdered when
we didn’t even know that until yesterday?”

I glanced at Donny, a little exasperated. If this was the way it was going to go, then we were going to be here a really long time. Donny put a hand on my arm and said, “My niece and my
sister-in-law have both told you that Maddie has a special and unique talent. She has psychic abilities that allow her to accurately predict the deathdate of any individual. She didn’t know
that Tevon would be murdered, only that he would die, and this information she attempted to share with his mother when she came to see my niece for a professional reading.”

Wallace squinted at Donny. I could tell he didn’t believe him any more than he had me. “Yeah,” he said, drawing out the word. “She’s psychic.”

I opened my mouth but looked at Donny first. He was glaring at Wallace, so I took a chance and said, “I told you before, I’m not psychic. I see dates. That’s all. I don’t
have visions, and I can’t predict the future, and I don’t see dead people. All I see is a date, and that’s what I tell people. I tell them the day they’re going to
die.”

Wallace shook his head a little. He clearly didn’t buy it. “Really?” he asked. “What day am I going to die?”

He said it so flippantly that I opened my mouth to tell him if only to shock him, but Donny put his hand on my arm and gave it a firm squeeze. “We’re not playing that game, Agent
Wallace,” he said.

“Is this a game?” Faraday asked.

“Only to you guys,” Donny replied. I totally agreed. Clearly, these two were playing their own game of mean cop/meaner cop.

Faraday snorted and looked back at the file. “I’m curious about the alibi Madelyn has given us for the day Tevon went missing.”

“She was with her best friend, Arnold Schroder, studying for a chemistry test,” Donny said, his hand still on my arm. “Both she and her best friend have told you that
already.”

“About Arnold,” Faraday said, turning a page in his file. “What’s the deal, Madelyn? Are you two an item?”

I didn’t know what he was getting at so I looked at Donny, and after a moment he nodded at me to answer. “No,” I said. “We’re just friends.”

“Best friends,” Faraday corrected. “Right?”

My palms were sweating. I was so afraid of giving them an answer that might make them suspect me more that I didn’t want to confirm or deny anything. But Donny was nodding at me again, so
I said, “Yes. We’re best friends.”

“Would Arnold lie for you if you asked him to?” Faraday asked next.

I knew exactly what he was getting at, and Donny did, too. “He’s not lying about her alibi, Agent Faraday. Move on.”

“What’d you get on the chemistry test?” Faraday asked almost too casually.

I breathed a tiny bit easier. “A ninety-eight,” I said. They could check that if they wanted, and I had no doubt they would.

Donny sat back with a smug grin. He liked my answer, too. “Hardly the score of a young lady who’s gone and murdered a thirteen year-old the day before,” he said, his tone as
mocking as Wallace’s had been.

“Did you text or call anyone during that time?” Wallace asked me. He was still fishing.

“No, sir. I was too busy studying for my chem test.”

Wallace and Faraday exchanged another look. I saw that they knew they weren’t going to poke any more holes in my alibi, which was good. For a minute I had hopes that they’d lay off,
but then Wallace leaned over toward the file on Faraday’s desk and pulled something out from the back. He slapped it down in front of me. I stared at it, and it took my brain a few seconds to
catch up to what my eyes were seeing, and by the time I understood that I was staring at a picture of Tevon Tibbolt, lying dead and bloody in pile of leaves and mud, it was too late to shut my eyes
against it. Donny reacted by leaping to his feet and snatching the photo off the desk. I could feel my eyes water, the shock of what I’d seen had caught me totally off guard.
“What
the hell?”
Donny roared, throwing the photo back at Agent Wallace.