it, you're not as smart as you look." Jenny's nose and eyes were stinging. "Listen, Summer Parker-Pearson was one of my best friends. I lost her. Now I've lost my boyfriend over this, too. I just don't want anything worse to happen-which it will, if you don't help me."
Angela's eyes dropped, but not before Jenny saw the shimmer of tears.
Jenny spoke softly. "If you know where P.C. went that morning, then you have to tell me now."
Angela shrugged off Jenny's hands and turned away. Her entire body was tense for a moment, then it slumped. "I won't tell you-but I'll show you," she said.
"Jenny? Are you in there?"
Dee's voice, from the back door. As Dee appeared, narrow-eyed and moving like a jaguar, Jenny reached out quickly to Angela. "It's okay. She's my friend. You can show us both."
The girl hesitated, then nodded, giving in.
To Jenny's surprise, she didn't head for the front door, but led them out back. Cam followed them through the foxtails. The backyard sloped down to dense brush; there was far more land here than Jenny had realized. Beside an overhanging clump of trees was a warped and leaning toolshed.
"There," Angela said. "That's where P.C. went."
"Oh, no you don't." Jenny caught Dee in mid-lunge and held her back. "This isn't the time to be yanking doors open. Remember the Game?" She herself was trembling with anxiety, triumph, and anticipation.
Angela was fumbling with a large old-fashioned locket she had tucked into her tank top. "You need this to open it, anyway. I locked it again-afterward. It was our secret place, P.C.'s and mine. Nobody else wanted it."
Jenny took the key. "So you saw him go in that morning. And then ... ?"
"Slug went in, too. P.C. climbed the porch and woke me up to get the key. That's my bedroom." She pointed to a second-story window above the porch roof. "Then he and Slug went down and unlocked the shed and went in. I could see everything from my room. I waited for them to come out-usually they just stashed stuff there and came out."
"But this time they didn't."
"No... so I waited and waited, then I got dressed. When I came down here, the door was still shut. So I opened it-but they weren't inside." She turned on Jenny suddenly, her dark eyes huge and brilliant with unshed tears. "They weren't inside! And there aren't any windows, and they didn't go out the door. And the key was on the ground. P.C. would never leave the key on the ground; he always locked up and gave it back to me. Where did they go?"
Jenny answered with a question. "There was something else on the ground, wasn't there? Besides the key?"
Angela nodded slowly.
"A..." Jenny took a breath. "A paper house."
"Yeah. A baby thing. It wasn't even new, it was kind of crumpled, and it was taped up with electrician's tape from the shed. I don't know why they took it. They usually took stuff like-" She broke off.
Dee cut a glance at Jenny, amused at the admission.
"It doesn't matter," Jenny said. "At least we know everything now. And it should still be inside if this place has been locked ever since that morning."
Angela nodded. "I didn't touch anything, even though-well, I sort of wanted to look at the house. But I didn't; I left it there on the floor. And nobody else has a key."
"Then let's go get it," Jenny said. Deep inside she was shaking. The paper house was here. They'd found it-and no wonder it had eluded them so long, sitting in a locked toolshed used by juvenile delinquents for hiding stolen goods.
"Monster positions?" Dee suggested with a flash of white teeth. She was clearly enjoying this.
"Right." Jenny took up a position beside the door. Dee stood in front of it in a kung fu stance, ready to kick it shut. It was the way they'd learned to open doors in the paper house. "Stand back, Angela. You, too, Cam."
"Now." Jenny turned the key, pulled the door open.
Nothing frightening happened. A rectangle of sunlight fell into the dusty shed. Jenny blocked it off with her own shadow as she stepped into the doorway. Then she moved inside, and Dee blocked the light.
"Come on in-I can't see-"
Then she did see-and her mind reeled.
The blank white box was on the floor, open. Beside it was the paper house Jenny had described to the police. A Victorian house, three stories and a turret. Blue.
Dee made a guttural sound.
When Jenny had