“Please,” I said, stepping aside. “Come in. Sit down. Tell me everything.”
He shook his head and stayed on the porch.
“I shouldn’t be here. I know how it looks. I followed the way she walks home one afternoon, just to be sure she got here safe. But I couldn’t keep quiet another night.”
I looked down at the sealed lunchbox in my hands.
“I shouldn’t be here. I know how it looks.”
“Why do you have Alice’s lunchbox?”
His eyes dropped to the pink box.
“The boy grabbed the brown bag she brought me today and threw it into the dirt. Alice picked it up, but the food was ruined. So she gave me her lunch, but I couldn’t eat it.”
“Which boy? Alice never said a word about any boy.”
I thought I was about to get all the answers.
Instead, the mystery only deepened.
“Why do you have Alice’s lunchbox?”
