“Hey bro, I was going to text you about that,” she said, leaning in to give me a kiss on the cheek. “What’s going on? Looks like every story I see involves a black or Latinx student.” Her expression looked a lot like I felt, tight and unimpressed. “Not a good look. It’s frankly super disturbing, and not a trend I want to see picked up here.”

I shook my head as I pulled back from kissing her. “Believe me, I am not thrilled about any of it, and I’m still not sure how I’m going to deal with it.” I thought about the meeting with Day in the morning and whether that would bear any results. I doubted it. In some ways I felt like I was infringing, that I shouldn’t interfere, but I also couldn’t just let these stops continue to happen without saying anything. I remembered Patrice’s face when he’d told me about Ari, and felt sick to my stomach.

“You don’t look so great, is this getting to you?” She gave me a concerned look and my grandfather looked up from whatever game he was playing on his iPad.

I lifted a shoulder as I made a move to grab a mimosa from a tray one of the servers was passing around. “Of course I’m worried about it. I’m also frustrated because Cindy wants to be extra cautious about not stepping on toes, and I want to go in guns blazing and tell the sheriff to tell his people to cut it out.”

Emma’s brows furrowed and she moved in to squeeze my shoulder. “You know I love Cindy, and the joy it gives me to have an out and proud District Attorney who is the boss of my brilliant and out and proud big brother—”

I knew a “but” was coming.

“But, Cindy fought long and hard for that office, I mean she was in the trenches for years.” She frowned, and I could tell sharing this was not easy for her. “I don’t know if she’s going to take up arms for this too. And someone has to, East. No matter how many good people we have in this town, and we have plenty, problematic things will continue to happen until they are dealt with head-on. That’s why you need to think about running for DA. You’re ready and this town needs some shaking up.”

I looked at her for a moment, really looked at her, and felt so much pride in my litter sister, always the truth teller. And because my brain could not help itself, the thought just appeared, she’d get along great with the other truth-teller in my life.