At first, I figured, with a car like that it was probably someone coming to talk to Wynn and Stella about insurance policies or their investment portfolio, or the kind of stuff that never meant anything at all to me.

But I was wrong.

The guy who got out of the driver’s side stood in the street and watched me as I took out my keys and hit the remote.

I tried ignoring him.

I was so sick of people I didn’t know watching, staring at me. It was like I could feel his eyes pressing into my skin.

And with just one glance, I thought I had him sized up pretty good. He stood there, sucking in his stomach with his hands on his hips. He was one of those edgy grown-ups who’d played football in high school and bragged to his friends about how he goes to the gym every morning, and he probably did part-time coaching for a youth program just so he could yell at kids and tell them what pieces of shit they were.

You see guys like that everywhere in California.

I kept my head down.

The walk seemed to take forever.

How far away did I park my goddamned truck?

But I knew he was going to say something to me.

“How’s it going?”

I stopped.

Shit.

My hand was just touching the door of my truck. I calculated three seconds—if I had left my room just three goddamned seconds sooner, none of this would be happening and I’d be on my way to Conner’s house.

I pretended like I didn’t know the guy was talking to me.

I opened the door and started to get in.

He turned up his football-coach volume just a notch. Edgy. I could tell he thought I was another piece of shit.

“Hey. John? You’re John Wynn Whitmore, right?”

What could I do?

Nobody ever calls me John.

I was wedged inside my open door, one elbow resting on top of the cab. I looked over at the guy, who’d come around and stood in the street between our cars. His face was blank, but as soon as he saw me look at him, he cracked a smile.

“Yeah. My grandparents are in there.”

I nodded my head toward the house, trying to see if maybe the guy really was there to fill out beneficiary forms or some shit like that.

Nice try, Jack.

“I was hoping I’d catch you.”

Catch me.

He closed the space between us, his eyes fixed directly on mine, unblinking, smiling that fake football-coach smile that made me feel like a piece of shit.

Then he put out his hand.

I thought of Quinn Cahill.

And he said, “My name is Sergeant Scott. Avery Scott. I’m a detective with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s?”

He said it like a question, like he expected me to say, Okay, you can play that part in this game.

When I didn’t take his hand, he smoothly reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folding wallet with a gold badge and ID card.

“It’s pretty fucking hot today, wouldn’t you say?”

He kept the smile on. He was testing me. He wanted to see if my reaction would show him I thought he was cool for being an old guy who comfortably says words like fuck to a sixteen-year-old kid.

“I didn’t watch the Weather Channel today.”

Avery Scott laughed. He reinstalled his nice wallet into his pocket.

“I came out today. Well. I’m looking into a case we’ve got and I was hoping to ask you a couple questions. It has nothing to do with you.”

Sure.

Nothing.

“Am I in some kind of trouble or something?”

“No, no, no!” Scott was a little too exaggerated. “It’s just. Uh. Some background stuff. Do you mind?”

“Shouldn’t my grandparents be around? I mean, if you’re a cop and all, and want to talk to a kid?”

“Seriously, John. You didn’t do anything wrong, son. But if you’d like to go inside, we could talk to your grandparents, too. It’s about this thing you may have heard of. A doctor named Manfred Horvath. People called him Freddie. He was found dead. Not a nice guy.” Scott shook his head. “A fucking sicko. You ever watch the news?”

At that moment, I felt my balls twist their way up, crawling like snails inside my stomach.

Then I was suddenly aware of the sweat dripping down my temples, running from my armpits, playing xylophone on my ribs.

“Sometimes.”

Scott put his hand on the top of my car door. He had curly brown hairs on his fingers and wore a ridiculous class ring with a big green gem in its center.

“This is a sweet truck. You know the thing that’s fucked up about parking under these big oaks? The crow shit.”

Detective Scott pointed a finger at the grapefruit-sized splotch in the center of my truck’s roof, reaching across so he was pinning me in the small triangular space of my open door.

“I guess.”

“So, you want to go inside and we can talk with your folks?”

“Not really.”

“I just want to find a couple things out. Just checking up on stuff. You know, put this thing to rest.” He looked around. He cocked his head. Like a crow. “Hey. I know. Why don’t we sit in my car so I can turn on the air? You look like you’re burning up, John.”

I looked back at the house.

The crows were totally silent.

I felt my knees shaking.

I was so tired.

“Okay,” I said.

*   *   *

Avery Scott wasn’t sweating at all.

He probably bragged about stuff like that to his friends, too.

And I didn’t want to move once I sat down, because I was certain I’d left puddles of wet on his nice black leather seats.

Scott turned the air on high. I didn’t look at him. I watched the little indicator that displayed the outside temperature.

103°

When he pulled his seat belt on, I instantly thought this was it. I was trapped in a car again with some asshole who wants to fuck with me and I didn’t care anymore.

I was tired, and I believed I wanted to die.

“What do you say we get something cold to drink?” Scott laughed a fake football-coach laugh. “I mean, not a cop drink. You don’t drink, do you, John? Well, you don’t look like a kid who’d drink. A Coke or a shake or something. You want that?”

Hell no, I don’t want that. I want to be in my truck, heading to Conner’s house. I want to drive by Ben and Griffin’s so I can see if any of this is real. I want you to leave me the fuck alone. I want none of this to be happening.

I want to go back, but I don’t know where that is anymore.

I sighed.

“Do we have to?”

“Just a drink,” he said. “I’ll have you back in—” He rolled his wrist over. That was stupid. There was a clock the size of a goddamned brick glowing green in the dashboard right in front of his face. “Fifteen minutes. You got somewhere you need to be?”

No, coach. Whatever you say. I’m a piece of shit.

I shook my head and looked at my hands, pressing the legs of my shorts down against my thighs.

“Great! Buckle up, son. I’m buying!”

While we drove through Glenbrook, the cop went on and on and I hardly listened to him at all. He talked about my school—the football team, naturally—and asked if I did any sports. When I told him I ran cross-country, I could tell by the way he inhaled slowly that he was waiting for me to say something else, a different sport—something where boys hurt each other—because guys like Avery Scott don’t consider running to be a “sport.”

I didn’t look out the window when we drove down Main Street past Steckel Park, the lightpost where Conner and I tagged our initials, Java and Jazz.

I knew he was trying to observe what I paid attention to, so I kept my face forward, watching the swirls in the wood paneling on the dashboard. I wondered if it was wood or plastic.

I just thought about the swirls. Strings. Stella’s Russian nesting dolls. And I reasoned that there were all these strings, layers, stacking and stacking in every unimaginable direction; that they were all going through me—the center of the universe—and somehow I kept jumping from thread to thread.