Isabel pursed her lips. “What? Olivia’s not dead.”
“I’m going to go ask him to come over and sit with us,” Grace said.
“Oh, no, please don’t,” I said. “It’s going to involve lying, and I’m not good at that.”
“But I am,” Grace said. “He looks pitiful. I’ll be right back.”
And so she returned a minute later with John and slid back in next to me. John stood at the end of the table, looking slightly uncomfortable as Isabel waited just a moment too long to make room for him on her side of the booth.
“So how are you?” Grace asked sympathetically, leaning her elbows on the table. I might have been imagining the leading tone to her voice, but I didn’t think so. I’d heard that sound before, when she asked a question she already knew the answer to, and liked what she knew.
John glanced at Isabel, who was leaning away from him, in a fairly tactless way, arm against the windowsill. Then he leaned toward me and Grace. “I got an e-mail from Olivia.”
“An e-mail?” Grace echoed. Her voice conveyed just the right combination of hope, disbelief, and frailty. Just what you’d expect from a grieving girl who was hoping her best friend was still alive. Only Grace knew Olivia was still alive.
I shot her a look.
Grace ignored me, still looking, all innocent and intense, at John. “What did it say?”
“That she was in Duluth. That she was coming home soon!” John threw his hands up. “I didn’t know whether I should crap myself or scream at the computer. How could she do this to Mom and Dad? And then she’s just like, ‘So I’m coming back soon’? Like she just went off to visit friends and now she’s done. I mean, I’m really happy, but, Grace, I’m so angry at her.”
He sat back in his seat, looking a little surprised that he’d confessed so much. I crossed my arms and leaned on the table, trying to override the prickle of jealousy that had unexpectedly surfaced when John had said Grace’s name with such a feeling of connection. Strange what love taught you about your faults.
“But when?” Grace pressed. “When did she say she would get back?”
John shrugged. “Of course she didn’t say anything other than ‘soon.’”
Grace’s eyes shone. “But she’s alive.”
“Yeah,” John said, and now I saw that his eyes were rather shiny as well. “The cops told us that—you know, that we shouldn’t keep our hopes up—anyway. That was the worst, not knowing if she was alive.”
“Speaking of the cops,” Isabel said. “Did you show them the e-mail?”
Grace briefly turned a less-than-pleasant face to Isabel, but it had melted back into gentle interest by the time John turned back to her.
He looked guilty. “I didn’t want them to tell me about how it might not be real. I guess—I guess I will. Because they can track it, right?”
“Yes,” Isabel said, looking at Grace instead of at John. “I’ve heard cops can track IP addresses or whatever they’re called. So they could find out the general area it was coming from. Like maybe even right here in Mercy Falls.”
In a hard voice, Grace replied, “But if it was from an Internet café from a pretty big city, like Duluth or Minneapolis, it wouldn’t really be useful.”
John interrupted, “I don’t know if I really want to have Olivia dragged back here, kicking and screaming. I mean, she’s almost eighteen, and she’s not stupid. I miss her, but there had to be some reason for her to go.”
We all stared at him—for different reasons, I think. I was just thinking that it was an awfully perceptive and selfless thing to say, if slightly uninformed. Isabel’s stare looked more like an are-you-a-total-idiot? stare. Grace’s was admiring.
“You’re a pretty good brother,” Grace said.
John looked down into his coffee cup. “Yeah, well, I don’t know about that. Anyway, I’d better get going. I’m just on my way to class.”
“Class on Saturday?”
“Workshop stuff,” John said. “Extra credit. Gets me out of the house.” He slid out of the booth, pulling a few bucks out of his pocket for the coffee. “Would you give this to the waitress?”
“Yup,” Grace said. “See you around?”
John nodded and retreated. He had only been out of the diner for a moment when Isabel slid back into the center to face Grace.
“Wow, Grace, you never told me you were born without a brain,” Isabel said. “Because that’s the only way I can figure you would do something that incredibly stupid.”
I wouldn’t have put it in those terms, but I was thinking the same thing.
Grace waved it off. “Psh. I sent it the last time I was in Duluth. I wanted to give them some hope. And I actually thought it might keep the cops from looking so hard for her if they thought it was an annoying almost-legal runaway instead of a possible homicide-kidnapping thing. See, I was using my brain.”
Isabel shook some granola into her palm. “Well, I think you should stay out of it. Sam, tell her to stay out of it.”
The whole idea of it did make me uneasy, but I said, “Grace is very wise.”
“Grace is very wise,” Grace repeated to Isabel.
“Generally,” I added.
“Maybe we should tell him,” Grace said.
Isabel and I both stared at her.
“What? He’s her brother. He loves her and wants her to be happy. Plus, I don’t understand all the secrecy if it’s scientific. Yeah, the greater world would definitely take it the wrong way. But family members? You’d think they’d be better about it, if it’s just logical instead of monstrous.”
I didn’t really have words for the horror that the idea inspired in me. I wasn’t even sure why it elicited such a strong reaction.
“Sam,” Isabel said, and I realized I was just sitting there, running a finger over one of my scarred wrists. Isabel looked at Grace. “Grace, that is the dumbest idea I have ever heard, unless your goal is to get Olivia rushed to the nearest microscope for poking and prodding. Also, John is clearly too highly strung to handle the concept.”
This, at least, made sense to me. I nodded. “I don’t think he’s a good one to tell, Grace.”
“You told Isabel!”
“We had to,” I said, before Isabel could finish looking superior. “She had already guessed a lot of it. I think we should operate on a need-to-know basis.” Grace was starting to get her blank face, which meant that she was annoyed, so I said, “But I still think you’re very wise. Generally.”
“Generally,” repeated Isabel. “Now I’m getting out of here. I’m, like, sticking fast to the booth.”
“Isabel,” I said, as she got up, and she stopped at the end of the table, giving me this weird look, as if I hadn’t called her by her name before. “I’m going to bury him. The wolf. Maybe today, if the ground’s not frozen.”
“No hurry,” Isabel said. “It’s not going anywhere.”
As Grace leaned in toward me, I caught another whiff of the rotten smell. I wished I’d looked more closely at the photo on Isabel’s phone. I wished the nature of the wolf’s death had been more straightforward. I’d had enough mysteries for a lifetime.