He glanced back at the flashing lights outside the Walsh house. “My father’s been different over the past year and a half. Drinking a lot. Losing his temper. Board members and people from his office would show up at the house in the middle of the night and there were days when he wouldn’t leave his study. He wouldn’t tell us what was going on. Not me or Amy or even our mother. It got worse while I was away at school. Amy said he was getting obsessive. He kept asking where she and Mom were all the time and who they were with. By the time I came home for Christmas break last year, she was really scared.”
I swallowed. “So you broke into CBP to try and figure out what was behind the attitude change?”
Stephen nodded. “I figured it had to be something with work. Work is practically the only thing he does.”
“How did you get in?” asked Jason.
Stephen’s eyes flashed. “Whatever you think he did, he’s still my father. I’m not going to tell you how to break into his company.”
“You found something, didn’t you?” Kyle tried to keep things on track. “You took something. That woman we saw your father talking to—she said something about a breach and a leak. It wasn’t just that you got in. It was that you got in and took something.”
“Maybe.” There wasn’t much open space in the grove, but Stephen began to pace, his steps taking him on a winding path around the trees. “I didn’t have much time—even with . . . well, let’s just say I was lucky to get in at all. I copied as many high-level access files as possible onto an external hard drive. I barely even looked at what I got. I figured I could decipher it all later.”
“So what happened?” Jason’s voice was sharp and impatient. He cast a glance toward the road; we had already stayed here too long.
“Amy.” Stephen came to a stop and turned back to us. “She knew where I was going that night. She wanted to know what was going on, too, but she was scared I’d find something that would ruin the family. She waited until I got back. As soon as I left the room, she took the hard drive and disappeared. She turned up in the morning but wouldn’t tell me where it was. She said I didn’t want to know what was on it. No matter what I said or did, that was all she would say. I went back to school a couple of days after New Year’s because I didn’t know what else to do. A week before she was killed, she called me. She was scared and angry. She said I never should have gone to CBP that night, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”
His eyes locked on mine. “This whole time, I thought maybe I was the reason she had been killed. I knew it was a werewolf attack, but she was so frightened the night she called . . . I kept wondering if it could have been tied to the files I had taken. That’s why I didn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t—not when I thought I might be the reason she was dead.”
“You weren’t.” To my surprise, it was Jason who spoke. Some of the hostility had dropped from his voice. More than any of us, Jason had struggled under the weight of guilt after Amy’s death. He started to reach for his jacket pocket before casting a slightly mournful look at the spot in the trees where the flask had disappeared. “You don’t have any idea where Amy hid the hard drive?” he asked, turning his attention back to Stephen.
“No.”
“Would you tell us if you did?”
“I don’t know,” Stephen admitted. “Would you—if your father was potentially involved in something like this?”
“Completely different situation. I hate my father.”
Another thought occurred to me. “That’s why you were going through Amy’s things. That’s why you wanted to know if I had taken anything.”
Stephen nodded. “I finally ran out of places to check. You were her best friend. I thought she might have given the files to you. Or told you where they were. When you said she’d given you a USB drive, I thought maybe she had copied some of the data from the original hard drive onto it.”
“It was just photos and songs.” I was beginning to think Amy hadn’t told me anything. Nothing important, anyway. I stared at the red and blue lights pulsing in the distance. It looked like the ambulance was leaving. How could Amy have lived there, in that house, with so many secrets? How was it that Trey was the only one who had noticed something was wrong?
Why was Trey the only one she had turned to? The one she had called when she needed help.
Trey.
An idea hit me so hard that I reached out to steady myself against a nearby tree. I suddenly knew why there had been something familiar about the second key we had found in Amy’s room.
I reached into Kyle’s inside jacket pocket and fished out his phone. Turning my back on the others without explanation, I walked deeper into the grove of trees, teetering dangerously and trying not to break an ankle in my ridiculous shoes.
Behind me, the voices of the boys faded.
I stopped at the edge of the water trap and dialed.
Trey answered on the third ring.
“The night you picked Amy up at the strip mall—do you remember the date?”
“Dobs? Where the hell are you?” Trey’s voice was rough and unsteady, almost breathless.
My stomach twisted as I heard shouts and sirens in the background. “What’s going on? Is Serena—”
“She’s all right. We couldn’t stay at the church. Someone started a rumor that wolves were hiding in the empty houses in River Estates. Trackers flooded the development and set a few places on fire. The whole town is going crazy.”
“Where are you now?”
“The ball field at the end of Elm. Taking Eve’s car would have drawn too much attention, so we left on foot. We’re headed for your place. It’s the closest spot we could think of and Ree said your cousin would let us in.”
“She will. She knows Serena.” The last thing I wanted was to drag Tess into this mess, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of alternatives.
“What about you?” Trey asked. “Will you meet us there?”
“Yeah. As soon as we can.” I glanced over my shoulder. Kyle and Stephen looked like they were deep in conversation. Jason was watching me, but he was too far away for me to make out his expression. “We’re still on the north side. Right now, I just really need to know what night you picked up Amy at that strip mall and if it was the one on this side of the river.”