When (5 page)

“That clock is ten minutes fast,” Ma said quickly. I knew they were both referring to the antique wooden clock above the mantel. It was Dad’s clock. He bought it for Ma on
their first anniversary, and he used to set it ten minutes ahead so he’d always be early for his shift. We’d never corrected the time.

“Even accounting for the difference,” Faraday continued, “she’s still fifteen minutes late.”

I took a deep, steadying breath and opened the storm door. It squeaked loudly. “Hey, Ma! I’m home!” I decided to play it like I had no idea what was happening in the living
room.

“Maddie?” Ma called back nervously. “Where’ve you been, honey? You’re late.”

“Sorry,” I said, dropping my backpack on the kitchen table so it’d make some noise. “Someone smeared something slimy on my bike seat, and I had a hard time getting it
off.”

I then walked into the living room and pretended to come up short. “Oh,” I said. “You guys are here.”

Faraday cocked an eyebrow. I was pretty sure he could tell a faker a mile away. “You have a bike, Maddie?” he asked in that same casual tone that I didn’t trust for a
second.

I nodded. “It’s in the garage.”

Faraday then looked to Wallace. “How many miles between here and Parkwick?”

“Four or five,” Wallace said.

“How long would that take on a bike?”

“Ten minutes, maybe.”

Faraday turned back to Ma. “You’re
sure
your daughter was here with you yesterday between the hours of three and six
P
.
M
.?”

Ma looked at me and nodded firmly. “I’m positive. Remember, honey? We watched that show…What was it?”

And there it was. I either had to agree with Ma, who looked so earnest in her effort to create an alibi for me, or correct her and make the agents suspect her for a liar. I decided to try and
protect us both. “Uh, Ma, I think you’re thinking of Tuesday. I was at Stubby’s yesterday studying for that chem test. Remember?”

Ma’s brow furrowed, and all that confidence that she’d mustered up in front of the agents fell away, and she looked lost. Casting her gaze down to her lap she said, “Oh. I
thought that was yesterday.” Then she reached for the big plastic glass on the table filled with clear liquid that I knew wasn’t water.

“Who’s Stubby?” Faraday asked.

“Arnold Schroder. He’s my best friend. He can vouch for me.”

Faraday made a note in his notebook and asked for Stubby’s address. As he was jotting that down, Wallace said, “Do you think your friend Arnold might know the whereabouts of Tevon
Tibbolt?”

He’d asked that so casually, like he was asking if I knew where to get the best cheeseburger in town. I sighed and looked at Ma, who was back to frowning at the agents. “My daughter
and her best friend had nothing to do with that boy’s disappearance. If you want to keep pressing the issue, then I will insist on calling my brother-in-law.”

Wallace pursed his lips and considered Ma with a cool, steady glare. “Little early in the day to be drinking, don’t you think, Mrs. Faraday?”

I felt my chest tighten and I stopped breathing. This was exactly what I feared.

Ma paled and set the plastic cup down. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said meekly, then she reached for her cigarette pack and fished one out. Her hands were shaking, and I
knew the agents noticed.

Wallace smiled tightly. “No. I’m sure you don’t.”

Ma glared at him while she lit up, and I saw her spine straighten a little. “Maddie,” she said. “Can you bring me the phone? I think it’s time we called Donny.” I
was rooted to the spot for a second. The phone was sitting on a table right between the two agents. I was afraid to retrieve it.

While I hesitated, Faraday tucked his notebook into his pocket, motioned to Wallace, and stood up. Before heading to the door, Faraday pulled out a business card from his inside coat pocket and
said, “If you want to call and talk, Madelyn, this is my number. Maybe you didn’t have anything to do with Tevon’s disappearance, but if you know anything…anything at all about
what might’ve happened to him or where he is, you can call me and I’ll listen.”

After placing it next to the phone, he and Wallace walked to the front door, which sticks. They had to tug on it a couple of times to get it to open, but then they were gone. The minute they
pulled the door closed, Ma turned to me. “The phone, honey. I need to call Donny.”

My uncle Donny is my dad’s younger brother. He’s an attorney in Manhattan, and he’d handled the lawsuit against the city Ma filed after Dad died. He also managed the settlement
we’d gotten as a result, sending us a check every month to cover most of the bills.

Donny still lives in Brooklyn, and he used to come around to check on us every couple of weeks. Now, though, he hardly visits at all. Ever since Ma’s drinking got worse, he and Ma stopped
getting along. Still, he’s always gotten me a great Christmas gift, and this past summer, he’d taken Stubby and me to Florida. I knew that, if anybody could help explain things to the
feds, it was Donny.

After bringing Ma the phone, I headed upstairs to lock myself in my room. The first thing I did was hop on my computer and FaceTime Stubs. He answered on the sixth or seventh ring, and simply
seeing his baby-faced smile brought a measure of comfort. “I thought you’d never call,” he said, scratching at the light-blond stubble on his chin. “You looked totally
freaked out at school. What happened with Harris?”

I explained everything to him, about the feds waiting for me in Harris’s office and then again here at home. “Whoa,” he said, after I was done. “Maddie, that’s
bad!”

“I know,” I said, feeling like the weight of the world had firmly settled onto my shoulders. And then I remembered that I’d given Stubby as my alibi. “They should be
calling you,” I told him. “To confirm where I was when Tevon went missing.”

“When did he go missing?”

“Yesterday after school. The feds said he never made it home.”

Stubby’s eyes grew wide. “What do you think happened to him?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea, but when they showed me his picture, his date confirms that he’s dead.”

“Oh, man,” Stubby said. “Maddie, maybe we shoulda done something more to try and save him.”

I bit my lip. That’s what I’d been thinking, too. I felt terribly ashamed of myself because, even though I’d known it was coming and I’d found it really sad, I
hadn’t expected Tevon’s death to be so mysterious. What if he’d fallen into a ravine and his death had been slow and painful? Or what if he’d been hit by a car on a dirt
road and the driver hadn’t stopped to report it, and he was simply out there somewhere where nobody would find him for weeks? I couldn’t imagine what his mother was going through. No
wonder she thought I had something to do with it.

“I feel really bad,” Stubby said quietly. “I know she got mad when you called, but maybe I should’ve gone over to her house and explained to her that I knew you, and that
you’re not a fake. You’re a good person. I bet I could’ve convinced her.”

“You couldn’t have known it was going to be like this,” I said. It was exactly like Stubs to feel guilty over something he had no control over. For a guy, he was incredibly
softhearted.

And then I saw Stubs jerk and look over his shoulder. Turning back to me he said, “Somebody’s at the door.”

I had a suspicion about who it was. “Is your mom home yet?”

“No,” he said. “Hold on a sec and let me see who it is.” Stubby darted off, and I was left to wait anxiously for him to return. It took about fifteen minutes, but he
finally came back and tried to smile at me encouragingly. “That was them,” he said, referring to Wallace and Faraday. “I told them you were here the whole time yesterday after
school, studying with me for the chem test.”

I relaxed a fraction. “Thanks, buddy. What else did they ask you?”

“They wanted to know if I believed you were really psychic. I told them I didn’t know about being psychic, but I knew you could read deathdates. And then they asked me how I knew
that, and I told them that you’d told me about my grampa dying right after Christmas last year, and he died the exact day you said.”

“Did they believe you?”

Stubby frowned. “I don’t think so, but they left after that.”

I swallowed hard and looked down at my lap. This whole thing was so bad, I didn’t know what to do. When I looked up again I saw that Stubby was studying me. “You gonna be
okay?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I hope they find him soon, Stubbs. I hate to think that Tevon is out there somewhere where no one can find him.”

Stubby was quiet for a minute, then he said, “You don’t think somebody…?”

“What?”

He grimaced. “Murdered him.”

My eyes widened. “In Parkwick? No way.” Parkwick was known for its big houses, big money, big parks, and its nearly nonexistent crime rate. It had its own police force, which had a
reputation for stopping anybody who looked like they didn’t belong in the neighborhood.

But Stubby seemed unconvinced. “Then what happened to him, Mads? And why doesn’t anybody know where he is?”

I shrugged, feeling incredibly sad. “I don’t know, Stubs. It could be that he simply wandered off into the woods and fell and hit his head or something. Or maybe he got hit by a car
and no one’s found his body yet. Anything like that might explain it.”

Stubs sighed. “Yeah, okay. Listen, I gotta go start dinner for Mom. FaceTime me later if you wanna talk.”

After I got off the computer with Stubs, I headed downstairs and found Ma pacing back and forth in the kitchen, her plastic cup nearly empty. She jumped when I entered the room. I could tell she
was having a tough time dealing with the visit from the FBI. “I spoke to Donny,” she said. “He’s had court all day and he had to go back to the office to work late on a
case, but he told me that if those agents come back to call him right away.”

With a pang I noted that Ma was starting to slur her words. “Want some dinner?” I asked, trying to distract her.

Ma moved over to the pantry where she kept her booze. “No, honey. I’m not hungry. There’s some turkey in the fridge, though. I got some from the deli today.”

I made myself a sandwich and avoided looking at Ma while she poured a refill. I made a half of a sandwich for her, too, just in case, and set it down in front of her in the TV room.

I then took my sandwich upstairs to eat it while I did my homework, but it was nearly impossible to concentrate, and I barely got through it. I finally called it quits around eight and went back
down to check on Ma. She hadn’t touched her sandwich, but she’d nodded off, plastic cup in hand.

It took me a little while to get her up to her bedroom, but at last she was settled for the night. I went back downstairs, where I tried to watch some TV, but I was too wound up and anxious.

For a long time I sat in the dark, listening to the light rhythm of Dad’s clock. Now that he was gone, its constant ticktock was the closest thing we had to his heartbeat. I loved
listening to it—and to the chimes, soft and sweet, like the first notes of a lullaby.

Dad’s photo was on the mantel right under the clock. As the minutes ticked by, I found myself staring at his image and missing him like crazy. In my heart I knew that if he were here,
he’d get Faraday and Wallace to believe me. It was yet another example of how little Ma and I mattered to a world without Dad. He’d been our center, the glue that held us together and
gave us purpose. His absence was greater than the sum of our parts, and I didn’t think we’d ever feel quite whole again.

With a sigh I turned away from the photo and went to the window. Peering out into the night, I saw a sedan come down the street and park a bit up from our house. I could see that the motor was
still running, because the tailpipe was giving off vapor, which sparkled in the light from the streetlamp. Squinting, I could just make out the figures of two people in the car. My heartbeat ticked
up. It was Wallace and Faraday. I waited for them to get out of the car and come to the door, but as the minutes passed they remained where they were. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, the
agents slowly pulled away from the curb and drove off.

I knew then that no matter what alibi I’d offered them, this wasn’t over.

The next day passed in a fog. I was jumpy and on edge the whole time, and even Stubby couldn’t make me feel better. “They can’t prove you had anything to do
with it, Maddie,” he said as we rode home together.

But I didn’t have a good feeling.

Stubby and I parted ways at the midway point between our houses, and I pedaled hard toward home. It was Halloween, and I had to make sure we had enough money in the grocery envelope for candy
for the few kids brave enough to ring our doorbell. There’re lots of kids in the neighborhood, but our house never sees much traffic. Too many people have heard the rumors that Ma and I are
witches.

As I sped down the street, my thoughts were occupied by the need for a backup plan if there was no cash in the envelope. As I turned the corner onto my block, I had to lean to the side to avoid
the large truck parked between our house and Mrs. Duncan’s. Taking a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure there were no cars behind me, I was ready to begin making the turn into our
drive when I turned back to the road, and all of a sudden, two men, hoisting a plastic-wrapped sofa between them, stepped out from the back of a delivery truck and right into my path.

Tensing, I squeezed the hand brakes with all my strength. It caused the bike to skid, then wobble, then crash right into the front of the sofa.

I went down hard and felt the pavement burn the side of my leg all the way to my thigh. My hip took the brunt of the fall, and it hurt so badly I cried out, squeezing my lids shut as hot tears
stung my eyes.

A moment later I heard my neighbor, Mrs. Duncan, exclaim, “Oh, my goodness! Maddie, darling!” followed by a quick shuffle of feet. I focused on the pavement and the cluster of shoes
hurrying toward me, while I tried to get my bearings. Then there were hands pulling at the bike and at my arms. It all muddled with the pain searing my leg and thigh.