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fuzzy, but I heard him. There was excitement in his voice. Maybe this danger was what he liked. Maybe he felt he was back with the Vultures. “In deep,” he’d said. In deep like Pauline and Otis. My chest ached.
    “But why are you saying all this stuff?” I whispered. “You’re making it worse.”
    “I’m doing it for you. Protecting you. You want me to say you made them drown? Look, I could be getting myself in big-time trouble, too. But we’re cousins. We’re pals. I’m …”
    Dad was coming down the stairs with our red and blue Mexican blanket over his arm as the doorbell rang.
    He tossed the blanket to Alex. “I won’t letanybody in,” he told me. “You just rest. I’ll find out who it is.”
    Mom gave me a glass of water and the pill.
    I took them both. Water spilled on my front as I swallowed.
    Dad came back into the living room. “There was nobody there. These were on the porch.”
    He was carrying two rolled-up towels, streaked with dirt, one yellow to match the flowers on Pauline’s bikini, one a faded, raggedy black. The last time I’d seen these, I’d been stuffing them into the hole on the riverbank.
    Alex shot me a quick disbelieving glance.
    “Who do they belong to?” Mom asked.
    “Somebody must have thought they were ours,” Dad said. “Maybe they thought Brodie and Alex left them there this morning.”
    Mom touched the yellow bundle. “But Alex brought theirs home. Do you think those two poor children left them on the beach when they went swimming?”
    “But wouldn’t the police have seen them this morning?” Dad asked. “You didn’t notice them, Brodie? Or Alex?”
    Alex spoke quickly. “They could have been there. Everything happened so fast.”
    “We’d better call Raoul,” Dad said. “He’ll know what this is about.”
    My hands were sweaty and I rubbed them on my pajamas. Who had found the things I’d hidden? Who?

CHAPTER 6
    R aoul came.
    He asked how I was doing. He said he was sorry he hadn’t been able to come sooner when Mom called. He was down at the river with the other officers and volunteers. They were searching the banks of the Blackwater in case Otis had managed to catch hold of something, maybe even crawl out. “We’ve had no luck,” he said. “So far.”
    Nobody even spoke. Then Dad asked quietly, “How are Pauline’s parents? And Otis McCandless’ mother?”
    Raoul shook his head. “Pauline’s dad is holding up. He needs to. You heard Mrs. Genero had a heart attack?”
    My fault, the heart attack. My fault everything.
    “I’ll go see her this evening,” Dad said.
    “They might not let you. But her husband could probably use a few words of support. They go to St. Mark’s, don’t they?”
    Dad nodded.
    I remember Pauline, sitting in her pew, all prim and proper on Sunday mornings. The glow from the stained-glass window made colors around her, like a kid’s painting that had gone over the lines. I was still lying on the couch, and I clenched my fists under the blanket till my arms ached.
    “What about Otis’ mother?” Mom asked.
    Raoul shrugged. “She’s waiting and praying. Her daughter’s with her—Wendy—the one that’s married and lives in West Lin. I don’t know if this tragedy will bring the father back. Lord only knows where he is.”
    Raoul sighed, and I thought how many times I’d seen him there, in our living room with his wife and his daughter, Maria. We’d all have dinner, and Raoul and Dad would play guitar afterward, Raoul picking at Dad’s old strummer thathe’d had in high school. Sometimes we’d all sing “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain,” or “Shenandoah.” I liked him a lot. Now he frightened me.
    “So let’s see the towels,” he said.
    Dad led the way to the dining room table where he’d set the two bundles. I got up and followed. Mom pulled out one of the dining room chairs. “You sit, Brodie. He’s still shaky,” she told Raoul.
    “I bet.” Raoul unwound the black towel. Inside were