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auren knew she shouldn’t have yelled at her mother like that. Mom was the revenging type. She was probably downstairs thinking up every possible thing she could take away from Lauren—her allowance, her telephone privileges,
her television time.
No more meetings under the ghost tree. No more riding her bike wherever she wanted to go.
But Lauren had been biting her tongue for days, suppressing her irritation at Mom’s constant nagging. When they were sitting there at the table and she asked Mom about magic, Mom had given her that slightly superior look that she always gave when she thought Lauren asked a stupid question.
And it had just been the last straw.
But it wouldn’t have happened at all if Mom had just left her alone the way she’d asked her to.
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Night of shades 23
Lauren fully expected her mom to flip out over her behavior the night before, and that might have happened if she hadn’t needed her mom’s assistance finding the sanitary pads.Mom had taken one look at Lauren’s red face and the clean pair of underwear clutched in her hand and said, “Well, that explains a few things.” Then she went into her clothes closet and pulled down a box of Stayfree maxi pads. She handed the box to Lauren. There was a woman walking on a beach in a white dress. Her dark hair blew in the wind and she looked unreasonably happy for a person who presumably had her period, Lauren thought. Across the bottom corner of the box it said Beltless.“Do you need any help?” Mom asked.“Uh, no. I think I can figure it out,” Lauren said.&ld
Night of shades 24
Alex really was not in the mood for the fair. The captain decided that Alex and Miller would rotate shifts with Hendricks and Pantaleo and that there would be at least one pair patrolling at the fair at all times from open to close—which wasfrom eleven to eight every day, and until ten p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The chief tried to soften the blow with the promise of overtime pay (“already authorized by the mayor, who’s grateful for our presence”), but Alex didn’t care about the money.He cared about the hours he was going to spend walking in the heat, dealing with out-of-towners who lost their kids in the crowd or got their pockets picked by teenagers. And when he wasn’t dealing with petty theft and children distracted by the sight of balloon vendors, he’d be gi
Night of shades 25
Lauren went out after lunch, leaving her bike at home. She could cut into the woods from the cul-de-sac at the end of the road. Mrs. Schneider, of course, never let anyone through her yard—not even a raccoon—but pretty much everyoneelse expected the neighborhood kids to use their yards as access points and didn’t mind.She only needed her bike if she was going straight to the ghost tree, and she didn’t want to start at the ghost tree today.Lauren had a small green canvas duffel bag that used to belong to her father slung over her shoulder. She had carefully packed this bag with all the things she thought she would need if she actually came across the crime scene.It was easier for her to think of it that way, to consider it in a distant and scientific manner. If she di
Night of shades 26
Jesus, I think one of my eardrums is bleeding,” Jake said, holding his hand to his right ear. “What are you doing here?” Lauren asked.Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears. Her hands shook and she’d dropped the duffel bag when she’d spun around.She felt ready to dash away at the slightest provocation, a trembling little rabbit in sight of a fox.Jake reached back and rubbed the back of his head in a sheepish gesture. He’d gotten his hair cut, Lauren noticed now.It was short in the back and a little longer on top.Kind of like Matt Dillon in The Outsiders, she thought, and wondered if Miranda would agree.But Jake’s new haircut was not the point. The point was that he was standing there in her woods (my woods???) very close to a m
Night of shades 27
The last person Miranda expected to see in that part of the woods was Lauren. She hid behind an old oak wide enough to keep her body out of sight and peeked around the edge. Lauren and Jake Hanson were walking back in the direction ofLauren’s neighborhood, carrying large plastic bags. Were they out here picking up trash?Miranda snorted to herself. Real romantic, Lauren. Why don’t you take him down to the pharmacy and ride the mechanical pony for a dime while you’re at it?But the sight of them together, and this deep in the woods, annoyed her. She and Lauren almost always stayed near the ghost tree, and she hadn’t imagined that Lauren would even enter the forest without her. She was such a little mouse.Miranda thought that without her friend, Lauren would sit
Night of shades 28
Alex found his opportunity to sneak down to the archives late in the afternoon. Hendricks and Pantaleo were out patrolling. Christie was in a meeting with the mayor about the security preparations for the fair. About two hours afterlunch Miller fell asleep in his chair, his head lolling forward onto his chest. Miller had his legs up on his desk at the time. Alex wondered if he would stay in that position or if the rolling wheels of Miller’s chair would slowly creep away until his feet crashed to the ground.Would he wake up if that happened? Possibly not.Once Alex and Miller had been out on the county road with the speed gun and Miller had conked out in the passenger seat. When an out-of-towner in a yellow Mustang went by doing a cool eighty-five miles per hour Alex had flipped on the lights and sirens and
Night of shades 29
Lauren and Jake emerged from the woods the same way that Lauren had gone in—through the Arakawas’ yard. Mrs.Arakawa’s white Mazda 626 wasn’t in the driveway and Lauren was glad. She didn’t want to answer any questions right now about what they’d found in the woods, or why she’d gone in alone but returned with Jake.From the Arakawa house there was a fairly commanding view of the cul-de-sac and the houses on the street beyond. Lauren saw Jake’s bright orange Gremlin in his driveway six houses away from the cul-de-sac. A few houses past that was Lauren’s home.There was a police car parked in front of her house, and she saw her mother standing by the mailbox talking to Officer Hendricks.Her first thought was Great, I can hand these bags
Night of shades 30
Sofia Lopez stared at the two plastic-wrapped packages that Lauren diMucci had left on her dining room table. She didn’t want to touch them, felt vaguely that they were like grenades with their pins pulled partway out.She couldn’t leave the bags on the table. If Lauren was right—and she’d certainly believed she was right, Sofia could see that—then these bags were valuable evidence. If they weren’t moved, one of the children was sure to find them and grow curious about what was inside. It was fortunate that all three of them were off playing elsewhere when Lauren arrived.They’d been in the backyard earlier but as the other children of the neighborhood drifted out to play, the lot of them had migrated to another yard, one that had a tree house. Daniel and Camila had run inside onl
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