Free The Camaro Murders by Ian Lewis Page B

he even makes gear shifting noises.
    Soon the younger brother notices us and follows. He’s loud and doesn’t know how to play with the cars the way Ted says. His name is Joey.
    Ted and Jim aren’t happy about this, and so Jim takes Joey back down the steps and distracts him with the G.I. Joes.
    When Joey isn’t paying attention, Jim returns to the landing. We have a few good wrecks and explosions before Joey is back on the landing.
    After this happens a few more times, I start to wish Joey would stay at the bottom of the steps. He interrupts us so much that I feel like we didn’t get to play long enough when Mom comes to tell us it’s time to eat.
    The four of us follow her into the dining room where there’s a big table for the grown-ups and a smaller table for the kids. One of the men says the blessing and offers up a prayer of thanksgiving for Ezra’s health.
    The food is passed around after that. There’s roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, Jell-o, rolls, and things like that. Mom makes sure I get a helping of green beans.
    I don’t say much during the meal. Ted and Jim talk about what they want for Christmas. The grown-ups talk about the weather and the choir at church. No one talks about Starla.
    I wish somebody wanted to talk about her. Talking about her is the next best thing to seeing her. I hope she’s OK.
    My mom cried when she heard Starla disappeared. I think she was thinking about how she’d feel if it was me or my sister who was missing. I didn’t tell her that I was in the woods with Starla, but somehow she found out.
    My dad wasn’t happy when he heard about it. “You know better than that,” he said. “I don’t ever want to hear about you sneaking off during recess again. Look what happens when you disobey.”
    I knew dad would be disappointed in me, but wasn’t Starla more important? I don’t understand why it bothers him so much if I “goof off.” He always wants me to be so serious.
    The grown-ups are passing the food around a second time when I ask to use the bathroom. I finished my plate and need to go number one.
    My mom tells me the bathroom is at the top of the stairs. “Don’t forget to wash your hands,” she says.
    I shove my chair away from the table and walk out of the dining room. In the hall, I decide I don’t like old houses. They smell funny and creak every time you take a step.
    The stairs make more noise than the floor does. Past the landing, it’s a lot darker than downstairs.
    The bathroom is across from the stairs, just like mom said. Inside, there’s a big white tub with feet. The toilet sits next to a window on the far wall. It’s freezing near the window and I can’t see out of it because it’s frosted.
    I pee and then turn around to wash my hands. There’s a little piece of soap shaped like a sea shell in a dish on the sink. The whole room is really plain.
    I wipe my hands on my jeans because I can’t find a towel. At the bathroom door, the sound of everyone downstairs in the dining room is far away. I stop to listen to them for a few seconds, and pick out Mom’s voice from the rest.
    There are two rooms with open doors on each side of the bathroom. One looks like a bedroom. It must be Ezra’s. The other is filled with cardboard boxes and piles of newspapers.
    There is a third room but the door is closed. I didn’t see it at first because it’s around the corner from the stairs. The door has a keyhole in it like the others, with a skinny metal key inside.
    I wonder why this room is closed. All the other rooms in the house are open. Maybe it’s a closet. The light from the bathroom window falls at the bottom of this door and I can see there’s something small underneath.
    On my hands and knees, I find that it’s the edge of a pink ribbon. I pull and the rest of it comes out from under the door. A pink