“Fine,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But anyway, even if he—or she—didn’t have anything to do with the fire, maybe they saw something we can use.”
Rose’s head bobs slowly in agreement. “We can start with the kids who live on that street.”
“Do you think it could really be a kid who sets the school fire?” I ask. I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around that idea since last night, that a kid might be the one responsible for murdering two people.
Rose looks at the figurine in her hand. “I don’t know,” she says, “but we’ve got two days to figure it out.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
ROSE
The last door swung closed with a definitive click.
Sighing, Rose crossed the final name off her list, the thick black ink slashing away a bit more of her hope that Justin’s discovery of the action figure actually meant something.
They’d spent the whole afternoon knocking on doors, working off a neighborhood directory that Mrs. Hanley kept in a kitchen drawer. Any house with kids went on their list, which turned out to be a lot of houses. They’d had to split up in order to get to them all, but their methods were the same.
Claiming they were working on a school project, they started out by asking whether anyone in the house liked Star Wars, and then whether they had any Star Wars action figures. After that, Rose had caught a few breaks, learning that a birthday party accounted for a bunch of the Star Wars–loving kids’ whereabouts. There had also been a Girl Scouts meeting that day, along with a soccer game, which knocked another big chunk of names off her list.
Of the remaining kids, though, none of the alibis stuck out as being particularly suspect.
And the payoff for all her labor was . . . nothing. Even if they were right and the owner of the action figure had been there the day of the fire, there was no way to figure out who it was, unless Justin had had better luck than she did—which she doubted, since if he’d uncovered a lead, she assumed he would’ve found her and told her. Otherwise, with no additional ideas about where to look for the kid, they’d never identify them in time.
Shielding her eyes with one hand, Rose squinted toward the setting sun. Another day, nearly gone. When Justin had first shown up in her life, a week had seemed like plenty of time to change something. Now time was almost up, and they were no closer to solving the mystery of what was going to happen to Bill and Veronica Warren than they had been at the beginning.
I could quit, she thought. Walk away and never look back. She hadn’t asked for any of this, and Justin certainly didn’t deserve her help. He’d apologized for the way he treated her the day before only because he needed something from her. And while at first she’d been convinced that her path had intersected with Justin’s for a reason—that they were somehow destined to solve this problem together, saving lives and changing the future for the better—now she wondered if she’d just been fooling herself this whole time.
Maybe Justin was right. Maybe they couldn’t actually change anything. Maybe this whole thing had been a waste of time.
Or maybe he was wrong about everything, including—especially—the time travel. Maybe there wasn’t going to be a fire at all. Maybe he was just delusional.
Her mind kept churning over maybes as she walked slowly back to Mrs. Hanley’s house, where they’d agreed to meet after they’d finished up their lists. If Justin was wrong about everything, then there was no point to any of this. She could just walk away, and it wouldn’t matter.
She tried to make herself believe it. A big part of her wanted him to be wrong, so that this could all be over. He could disappear, and she’d never have to think about him again.
The problem was, she didn’t think he was wrong. Despite everything, she was sure that if they didn’t succeed in their mission, in two days, two innocent people would die. If anything, that feeling had only grown stronger since he’d first told her his unbelievable story.
Once she was standing in Mrs. Hanley’s driveway, she decided to walk around the garage yet again, as if this time, she’d suddenly spot something she’d missed the first dozen times she’d done this.
She was crouching behind the garage, examining a smear of soot underneath the windowsill, when she heard the back door of the house creak open, then smack shut. Rose turned to see Mrs. Hanley picking her way through the grass in her house slippers, a tall glass filled nearly to the brim clutched in one hand.
“How’s the investigation going?” she said as she got closer, holding out the glass.
Rose accepted it, took a sip. Homemade lemonade, perfectly sweet and tangy. She closed her eyes a moment to savor. “Not great,” she admitted. “Everywhere we look seems to be a dead end.”
Mrs. Hanley sighed, her eyes roving over the ruined garage. Rose wondered whether she was seeing past the smoke-darkened walls to the years of memories packed lovingly inside, now little more than piles of ash.
If Justin was right—if they couldn’t solve this—she’d never even know why.
“Well, in any case, I appreciate you kids for trying.” Mrs. Hanley smiled sadly, patting Rose on the cheek. “I’ve always thought my grandson was particularly skilled at picking his friends.”
“Oh,” Rose said, her ears heating with embarrassment, “Mrs. Hanley, I’m not actually doing this because of Noah—”
“No matter,” Mrs. Hanley said, waving away her explanation. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re trying to help out an old lady, even though I’m sure you have better things to do.”
Justin came around the side of the house, looking glum. Rose’s heart sank, knowing what he was going to say, but needing to confirm it anyway. “No luck?”
He shook his head, kicking at a clump of weeds. Rose searched for something to say, some right next step they could take, but her mind was blank. The action figure had seemed so significant. Like a sign that they were on the right track, that they could make a difference. She didn’t know what to do with the possibility that it meant . . . nothing.
Plus, there was a part of her that kind of wanted him to feel lost and hopeless. Served him right after how he’d acted yesterday.
Although, somehow, that didn’t make her feel any better.
The sound of tires crunching on gravel pulled her attention, and she peered toward the front of the house to see the neighbor’s car pulling into the driveway. She looked at Justin. “Did you do that house yet?”
“Nope. No one was home.”
Hope surged in Rose’s chest. “Mrs. Hanley, your neighbors have kids, right?”
The old woman nodded, a slight frown deepening the wrinkles in her face. “One. Nasty little boy.”
Rose’s jaw dropped slightly. She couldn’t remember ever hearing Mrs. Hanley speak so harshly about someone before, much less a child. “Nasty?”
“You remember Tiddlywinks?”
Rose nodded, confused about what Tiddlywinks had to do with Mrs. Hanley’s neighbors.
“Tiddlywinks?” Justin whispered under his breath.
“Foster cat,” Rose explained. A couple of years before her husband died, Mrs. Hanley had taken in the extremely pregnant stray and, not long after, her two tiny kittens. Rose and Noah had named Tiddlywinks together, along with the kittens, Parcheesi and Boggle. After Tiddlywinks ran away, Rose sometimes stopped by to help give the kittens their bottles, even when Noah was busy.