Free Hallowed by Bryant Delafosse Page A

girl found in the ravine had been identified as belonging to eighteen year old, Grace Fischer, who had disappeared from Renton over three months ago.
    Little detail was given on Grace, though it clicked right away that I knew her family, as I read her biographical information.  In fact, her cousin Martin was second chair cornet in our band.  I was second chair trumpet, so we were associated through our respective inability to reach that topmost position reserved for overachievers like Brent Jacobs and Nathan Graham, who between the two of them must have been on every team or club available to a teen at Haven High.  I remembered Grace because she would sometimes come with Martin’s aunt and uncle to the varsity games and sit next to us in the bleachers.
    As I was finishing up the article, Dad hung up the phone.  I looked up at him framed in the doorway, and for a moment, his reddened eyes almost gave me the impression that he’d been crying, if I didn’t know him any better.  Stress just caused him to blink less.
    “What’s going on?” I asked, my wavering voice sounding as if it had emerged from the mouth of a five-year-old child.
    “That was Vernon Fischer.  I just wanted to find out how Grace’s mother was doing since the news.”  Mr. Fischer was Grace’s uncle and ran a dry-cleaning business just outside of town on Farmroad 321.
    “She okay?”
    “Vernon says that she still believes that there’s been some kind of mistake.  That’s a typical reaction.”  Dad turned his back to me to refill his cup at the coffeemaker.  “The funeral’s on Tuesday,” he grunted.
    I stared down at the shivering hand holding the newspage.  I willed it to stop.
    “Dad, what do you think about this other girl, the one that disappeared?”
    “People disappear and reappear all the time, especially headstrong teenagers.”
    “Claudia thinks this girl Grace is the first of a series.”
    Dad stopped sipping his coffee and cocked a brow at me.  “Paul, you’re going to start hearing a lot of things in the newspaper, on TV, and from your friends at school.  Everyone is going to have an opinion.  But until they have the facts to back them up, that’s all they are.  Opinions.”  Dad took a seat at the table.  “As for Claudia, well, she’s always been on the melodramatic side.”  He fixed me with a look and fished through the bulk of newsprint until he’d found what he was looking for, the sports section.
    “Paul, you might want to watch what you say around school.  This is the sort of thing that when emotion takes over, folks stop listening to reason.”
    I nodded.  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, “What if this thing does turn out to be true and we have some degenerate strangling teenage girls?”  But just before I was about to utter the words, it occurred to me that it was the same sort of panicky speculation that he had just railed against.  So I let it go.
    It was already after noon when I gathered up the main section of the newspaper and walked it over to Claudia’s house.  Mrs. Wicke answered the door.  Her eyes looked sleep-deprived.
    “I just wanted to drop the Herald by in case you guys haven’t already seen it.”
    “We have a copy.”  She gave me a look and sighed.  “She’s still sleeping.”
    “Did she have another late night?”
    “No, she went to bed around eight last night.”  Mrs. Wicke gave me a look of concern.  “Paul, I don’t think you should encourage this… this whole runaway teenager thing.  In a couple of weeks, when this Nayar girl comes back home on her own, this’ll all blow over and everything will return to normal.”
    I lowered my head.  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
    “I’ll tell her you stopped by.  Okay?”
    Figuring that was my cue, I took my leave.

Chapter 8 (Monday, October 5th)
    Monday at band practice, Martin entered the hall accompanied by four or five people.  He politely excused himself and retrieved his case from the