“’Cause that stuff’ll kill you,” she said. “Sit down. What’s new? I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

A lot was new of course. She had to know from reading the papers what had happened with Brian and Graham.

“My next-door neighbor is a hero, I guess.”

She nodded, still chewing on the ginger. “That’s what I’ve been hearing. Did you know he had taken those movies of Brian Phillips?”

I nodded and suddenly felt weird. Realized that maybe this was why I had come down to the office. I guess I wanted to talk about it.

She looked at me for what seemed like a really long time. Then she got up and shut her door.

“What’s up?” she said when she sat back down.

“I think it’s kinda effed-up,” I said.

Richards nodded. “Me too.”

“He wasn’t going to tell the police about it at all, but we all convinced him to do it. If four other people hadn’t been nagging him, he never would have gone to the police in the first place. And he was scared to do it.”

“Why was he scared?”

“That’s just it, I don’t know. And I don’t know why we saved his ass instead of telling them we thought something weird was going on. He’s made a lot of films of people.”

“Has he made one of you?” she asked.

“Not me,” I said. “Unless he’s done it without me knowing.”

I swallowed hard and continued. “And now this hero stuff. I mean, it’s so frustrating. Maybe he’s a hero somehow, but I guess I just don’t know if what I’m thinking is right or if I’ve made him some kind of monster in my head. Nobody wants to believe someone like him would do anything bad intentionally.”

“What do you really think?”

“I think he’s a creep. No one else does, but I do, I think there’s something weird there. But every time I talk to him he’s nicer and cooler to me and I guess we’re becoming friends. God, I don’t know what to do.”

She said, “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Tate. And I think you do know what to do. The main thing is you need to protect yourself. If you think he’s made any movies of you or anyone else, you should go to the police.”

I nodded. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “Hey, can you write me a pass? I’m going to be late for chemistry after all this gabbing.”

She got out her pink pad and wrote me an excuse. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said, “and don’t start getting in trouble just to come hang out here. You don’t have to do that. You can come talk to me any time you want.”

“I know,” I said. Then I took a few of those gross ginger candies so I could give them to the kid I got stuck with for a lab partner. I’d tell him they were apple-flavored.

My family was so happy when Brian Phillips was found. We all were, the whole town. So relieved. My parents gave his mom a raise and started paying for her family’s health insurance. I didn’t know they had no health insurance, but as my mom said, they would sure need it now.

Brian had to stay in the hospital for a couple days, and then my mom said he was going to need a lot of counseling, but he would be okay. We went to visit him. I brought him a Wolverine action figure. I knew he already had one, but I figured another couldn’t hurt.

“I don’t really have superpowers,” he said when I saw him. We were in his parents’ backyard on a narrow little street down by the harbor.

“Me neither,” I said.

“What did you think yours were?” he asked.

“I thought my superpowers were that I could tell what everyone was like by looking at them,” I said.

“I thought that too!” Brian said. “And also that I had metal bones and could fight.”

“I have real powers, though,” I told him.

“What are they?”

“I can hack into computers—I’ll show you sometime. What are your real powers?”

“I’m more patient than anyone on earth,” he said. “And I can remember everything.”

“That means that you actually will have superpowers one day,” I told him.

“Really?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “Come here, bud.” I gave him a big hug. “You have a good memory, but you’re forgetting some of your other real powers.”

“What are they?”

“You’re brave. You’re one of the bravest kids I know. You’re smart. You’re friendly. You’re good. You’re a very, very good little boy. Those are all real powers.”

He jumped a couple of times after I said it and took the Wolverine action figure and threw him and caught him.

I looked up and saw my mom and his mom standing in the window, looking out at us and smiling. And I knew then that we were all friends and that these people were not just people who worked for my family. I was proud of my mom. And for the first time since I was maybe Brian’s age, I thought I wanted to be just like her when I grew up.

There were no other cars in the driveway, and I’d watched him and his stepmom Kim leave about twenty minutes before, carrying her Hermès bag, wearing her Prada boots but still dressed in that weird way she had. Loose jeans covered with paint, her hair tied up in a knot at the back of her head and falling in her face. She looked like she didn’t care what anyone thought of her ever. They drove somewhere every Tuesday at four and they were always gone for about two hours—sometimes three.

Once inside the house I realized they were richer than I’d imagined or noticed before. Something about being there alone. The house really was a mansion. I was afraid the minute I got inside that I was in over my head.

The kitchen looked like it came right out of some celebrity chef show. Stainless-steel everything. Everything in the house was at once modern and also somehow antique. Had the feeling of perfection and old money around it. Or at least the kind of money I’d never encountered before. Sure, some kids’ parents were doctors or lawyers or had inherited money—but this family seemed loaded in a way that you see on television. They also clearly didn’t hire a cleaning lady—even though the place was like a palace it was kind of a mess. Not the way it looked when Declan and Becky and I came over the other day. Books strewn about, papers piled on tables. Half-empty glasses left out with things moldering in their bottoms.

The central staircase was wide and winding and a chandelier hung in the center of the vaulted ceiling. I headed up to Graham’s room—quiet as a mouse. His parents’ bedroom had a fireplace in it and huge glass-front bookcases. It was the only room in the house that was actually cozy and not filled with some weird art.

There were four rooms upstairs: an art studio, a study lined with books, a room with floor-to-ceiling windows filled with plants, and Graham’s room. It was the farthest away from his parents. I expected when I opened the door for the place to be a complete mess like it was when I had seen it before—clothes strewn about the place kind of smelling like boy the way Declan’s room smelled. But when I opened it I was shocked. It was pristine. Ordered like some kind of laboratory. Not an article of clothing on the floor. The bed perfectly made. Not a thing out of place on the desk. No crumpled paper, no electronic cables or cords lying around. Nothing. It looked like no one had ever used the room for anything. Like it belonged to a ghost. Like it was a room some parents had perfectly preserved, instead of a place where someone actually lived.

The fact that it was so neat made my heart race. Like he had already cleaned up the scene of a crime. I’d have to remember not to leave a hair out of place or he’d know someone had been in the room. The shelves were filled with DVDs and books. I was again shocked when I realized they were in alphabetical order. I opened his drawers—even the contents were squarely in order. There was a notebook, five identical black pens. A compass and binoculars.