"Not really. It's pretty quiet that time of night." He looked up at the ceiling, remembering. "I remember a blue pickup pa.s.sing me, one of those cool old Chevys from the fifties. Other than that, nothing. But I never got less than a few yards from that girl. I certainly didn't touch her. You have to believe me."

"I do," Nick said. "Of course I do."

But he didn't. Not really. Because according to the DNA, it had to be one of them who killed her. And if it wasn't his dad and it wasn't him, then it had to be Kyle.

CHAPTER 37.

ALEXIS.

SAt.u.r.dAY.

PUSHED TO THE EDGE.

"Over here!" Alexis waved at Ruby when the other girl walked into Stumptown Coffee. Nick had wanted to meet here, and Alexis had to admit it was cool, with its exposed brick and hipster vibe. But she couldn't afford to drop nearly four dollars on a latte. Instead she had gotten a house coffee. Which was still expensive.

While Alexis waited for Ruby to order, she cradled the warm mug in her hands and thought about Bran. His confession had brought them closer together, knocked down a wall she hadn't even known existed. They were getting together again tonight.

But first she had to help Nick. Or try to help him.

Carrying a drink and a pastry, Ruby made her way to the table. "Have you read the paper yet today?" she demanded as she put down her things.

Alexis shook her head. Reading the paper seemed like something only old people did.

"There's a paper in that bin by the door." Ruby took a small foil packet from her backpack. "Go get the metro section."

Alexis followed her instructions. She started reading the story as she walked back.

POLICE SEE PROGRESS IN MURDER CASE.

PORTLAND-Four days after Lucy Hayes was found stabbed in a vacant lot in Portland, police say they have identified a possible suspect in her murder.

"We have interviewed several people who could be suspects and eliminated all but one," Homicide Detective Rich Meeker said. "We're putting together a solid case against this person, including DNA evidence."

Meeker said the suspect was a male teenager, but he would not identify him further, saying he did not want to jeopardize the investigation.

A 21-year-old college student, Hayes was discovered near death Monday morning in a vacant lot in Southwest Portland. She was found a few blocks from the Last Exit Pub and Grill, which she had left the previous night on foot. She was killed by a single stab wound.

A private funeral will be held today for Hayes.

Accompanying the article was a photo of Lucy Hayes with a man, his face covered by a black dot. He had his arm around her shoulder. Both of them were dressed semiformally, like for a wedding or a dance.

Alexis felt queasy. To the general public, "male teenager" didn't say much. But if you knew that the police had taken Nick from school and questioned him for hours, it was pretty clear who they meant.

The sharp smell of rubbing alcohol made her look up. Holding her fork with a napkin, Ruby was painstakingly wiping the tines and handle with a small white wet square.

"You never know who's touched something that's kept in a communal container," she said, giving her fork one final squint-eyed inspection.

Ruby's mind worked in mysterious ways. But maybe it was good that it worked the way it did. Alexis hadn't thought anything of it yesterday when Nick texted them, half bragging about how he was consulting with the police. But Ruby's increasingly frantic texts telling him to be careful and Nick's radio silence had slowly changed her mind.

"It sounds like they're sure Nick's guilty." Alexis folded up the paper.

"You know he didn't do it, right?" Ruby looked at her for a half second and then her gaze slid away.

Alexis hesitated. She didn't want to believe Nick had done it, but was it possible? Nick was impulsive. He didn't like rules. On callouts, they were supposed to wear their SAR helmets at all times, but Nick wouldn't put on his until one of the leaders or an adult reminded him. She had also seen occasional flashes of impatience and anger. What would Nick do if he were pushed to the edge?

And he was so awkward around girls. He could barely look her in the eye-and not just because he sometimes was staring at her chest. Sometimes he was staring at his own feet. Stammering and mumbling.

But there were other facets of Nick. He could be kind, generous, even unexpectedly brave. Were those two sides of the same coin? Was he also capable of unexpected violence?

Nick wasn't perfect. But he was her friend. The same was true for Ruby. And she was sure the other two would say the same about her.

All this flashed through her mind in a few seconds. She shook her head. "No, I don't believe it. Not Nick."

"We've got to figure out a way to prove it." With nearly surgical precision, Ruby cut off a segment of her pastry.

"And how are we supposed to do that? How do you prove a negative?"

As Alexis's question hung in the air, Nick pushed open the door. His eyes were sunken, his shoulders hunched. At the counter, he spoke to the barista so softly that she had to ask him to repeat his order.

He shuffled over to their table. "Sure you guys are okay with sitting with me?" He tried on a smile.

Alexis patted the bench beside her. "Come on. Sit down."

He did as she ordered, but he didn't slide any closer.

"Why were you walking so oddly?" Ruby demanded.

Alexis tried to kick her under the table but only connected with the center post. Nick didn't need to be nitpicked when he was clearly falling apart.

He leaned back and looked at his feet. "Remember how they sent me home in shower shoes? The cops took some of my clothes at my house and all my shoes. These belong to my brother. He's got bigger feet." When he lifted his head, he caught sight of the newspaper. "And with what the cops are telling the media, they might as well have drawn a big target on my back. Harriman was all chatty with the school secretary yesterday. She likes to talk. Half the kids at school probably know now." He scrubbed his face with his hands. "I might as well give up right now. The cops aren't ever going to take any other answer than me having done it."

Alexis thought of something. "You throw up at the sight of blood. But we didn't find any vomit at the scene."

Nick rubbed his temple. "I'm pretty sure they won't think that's proof."

"That's why we need to figure out who really did it," Ruby said. "Because the cops won't. Or can't." She made a humming noise. "It's likely they found some of her DNA on your things, and that could be making them more suspicious. After all, you crawled through her blood on Monday."

"Harriman knew I got her blood on my gloves," Nick objected.

"There could still have been a transfer from your gloves to something else that's making them more suspicious." Ruby speared the last bite of her pastry.

"And there's my dad being a killer," Nick said.

Alexis blinked. "What?"

She sat stunned while Nick told her the truth about his father. How many times had Nick boasted about him or talked about how he planned to follow in his footsteps? She couldn't imagine how he was feeling now. Or maybe she could, at least a little. Her mom was mess, too. Her mom was her shameful secret. But at least she had grown used to it.

Nick finished by saying, "And the cops said they found my DNA on Lucy's hand."

"That's not what they said," Ruby corrected him. "If it was a full profile, then yeah, DNA is as unique as a fingerprint and they could say it was you and no one else. But what they're talking about is just a few places on the Y chromosome. Did that report say what the chances were that another person would also match what they found?"

"There were so many numbers." Nick looked up, remembering. "I think it was one in 244."

"That's all? I wonder if that means 244 men, since they were just looking at the Y chromosome, or 244 people. Either way, that still adds up to a lot of other people who could have left it. There's probably more than 244 people walking down this street right now." All three of them turned to look out the window. "I did some reading last night, and a lot of times a Y-STR would yield a much smaller pool, like only one in a thousand." Ruby smiled. "One of your ancestors must have had a lot of kids. And since we know you never touched that Lucy girl, the little piece of DNA they found has to belong to some distant relative of yours."

Instead of looking rea.s.sured, Nick pressed his hand to his mouth. He spoke so softly that they both had to lean forward to hear him over the roar of the espresso maker. "There's something you guys don't know. That n.o.body knows." He stopped.

"What?" Alexis prompted.

"Kyle told me he was there. At the same bar Lucy was."

"Well, there's your explanation." Ruby was unfazed. "He must have brushed past her or something."

Nick shook his head. "Kyle said he never got that close to her."

Someone was lying, Alexis thought. But was it Harriman? Or Kyle? She took a sip of her coffee, but it was now cold and bitter.

"Then there has to be some other explanation," Ruby said.

"I don't know what to think." Nick's eyes looked shiny. "Kyle doesn't even care about knives. But it seems like it has to be me or him. And I know it's not me. So it has to be him."

"The Unibomber's brother recognized his brother's writing style when they printed his manifesto in the paper," Ruby said. "Ultimately he went to the police. Even knowing that his brother would go to prison and might even be sentenced to death."

Nick looked miserable. "If I did that, it would kill my mom."

As far as Alexis was concerned, their priority was saving Nick. If his brother had done it, then that was terrible, but it was far worse to think of Nick going to prison for something he hadn't done. An idea occurred to her. She opened the paper and looked at the photo of the dead girl again. Nick shifted on the hard bench and looked away. "How much do you weigh, Ruby?" she asked.

Any other girl might have hesitated. Ruby just said, "One hundred twelve point four."

"Point four?" Alexis echoed.

"My mom has a Weight Watchers scale. It weighs in increments of one-tenth of a pound."

"And how much do you weigh, Nick?"

Nick was the one who hesitated, clearly trying to figure out what the "right" answer was. "Hundred sixty." Sitting taller, he squared his shoulders.

Alexis narrowed her eyes. "Really?"

"Um, maybe a little less."

"Look at this picture of Lucy. She's about the same height as the guy standing next to her. I would guess she weighed at least what Ruby does."

"So?"

"Let's go back to the field. Go back and see if you can drag Ruby as far as they said the killer did."

"What?" Nick gritted his teeth. "You don't think I'm that strong?"

"Don't get huffy. Have you ever had to drag someone who's deadweight? I have, and it's hard." Even though Alexis weighed more than her bone-thin mom, it was almost impossible to move her if she was not responsive. "I just don't think you could have done what they're saying." She didn't say anything about Kyle. She had seen him at the crime scene, and he was clearly bigger than Nick.

They bused their table and then went out to Ruby's car. A minute later Ruby looked in her rearview mirror. "That's weird."

Nick twitched. "What?"

"I think someone's following us."

Suddenly she was turning right, hard enough that they all swayed in their seats. At the end of the block, she turned right again, her eyes darting back and forth between her rearview mirror and the road ahead. She repeated the same move two more times. Alexis realized they had just driven in a big square.

Ruby settled back, satisfied. "Well, I either lost them or they were never following us in the first place."

CHAPTER 38.

K.

SAt.u.r.dAY.

FIX THIS THING.

Kenny read the words a fifth time. "We're putting together a solid case against this person, including DNA evidence." Meeker said the suspect was a male teenager, but he would not identify him further, saying he did not want to jeopardize the investigation.

A teenage boy, one whose DNA had been found on the dead girl. Kenny had no idea who it was or how it had happened. All he knew was that he himself was twenty years past being a teenager. And he had worn gloves that night.

The tight strings inside him loosened. The police knew nothing. Better than that, what they thought they knew was wrong.

Picking up his cup of coffee, Kenny went into the living room. He looked through a crack in the blinds at the vacant lot across the street. For years, he had ignored it, or tried to, while his mother complained it was bringing down their property value. Sometimes teenagers would hang out on the back side, smoking cigarettes or even marijuana. And during the summers, little kids would occasionally pick the blackberries from the th.o.r.n.y bushes, their faces smeared with purple juice. But mostly the lot was ignored.

Now no one could ignore it.

He stiffened. Across the street, three teenagers-two girls and a boy-were getting out of a car.

What were they doing? He pressed closer, his breath fogging the gla.s.s. He recognized them from Monday. Kids from Search and Rescue. Kenny had even eavesdropped on the boy and his brother.

The three teenagers were talking, pointing, gesturing. And then they moved deeper into the lot until they were next to the blackberry bushes. The spot where it had happened. The redheaded girl lay down on her back. The boy reached down, grabbed her under the arms, and began to drag her.

Back to the spot where Kenny had left her. Left her in a blind panic.