She can’t help it, but she laughs. It’s not that she thinks dead murdered dogs are funny—but her brain concocts a really weird version of the board game Clue where a bunch of uppity rich white folks chase terriers and retrievers around a mansion with various found weapons. It was Colonel Mustard who killed the Yorkie. In the kitchen. With a rubber doggy bone! Jenny seems offended, though, so Atlanta just clears her throat and stands back up with enough force that the chair falls over.

“Jenny, was real fun meeting you. But I don’t solve murders. Especially . . . dog . . . murders.” She puts her hand back out, but Jenny just stares at it like it’s a squirming tentacle instead of a human limb.

“But I’m Steven’s cousin. He said you’d help me.”

“I don’t know a Steven.”

“Steven Burkholder. Steve.”

Atlanta narrows her gaze. “Mmm-nope.”

Jenny shifts uncomfortably. “He has . . . big teeth.”

“Chomp-Chomp!” Atlanta says, suddenly getting it. “I mean. Steven. Steve. Stevie. Sure.”

“So you’ll help me.”

“Uh-uh. I like your cousin well enough, but I kinda sorta helped put a couple of his buddies in the hospital. We’re not close or anything.”

“But he said you help people.”

“I don’t help anybody.”

“I can pay.”

“Real nice meeting you,” Atlanta says, already walking away. “Good luck with your . . . dog situation.”

And she goes inside the porch and slams the screen door behind her. Jenny stays out there for a while. Atlanta thinks she sees the chick crying, and part of her thinks to go out there and console her, but in this life you need to learn to find your own consolation. Dog died? Harden up, Care Bear. Her friend died. A human friend.

People matter. Animals, not so much.

Atlanta’s never had a dog.

That night she doesn’t need Adderall. Sleep is evasive, ducking and feinting, slippery like a pig slathered in its own grease. The day was hot, but somehow the night seems hotter. The air thick and stuffy like she’s a piece of French toast puffing up and sweating on the griddle. Summer’s not even here yet, but the season has sent an early preview.

And all this thinking about food has her feeling hungry.

Restless legs kick off covers. Then she gets cold, drags the covers back. Hot, cold, hot, cold. Sometimes she almost falls asleep, but there it is: a sensation like she’s falling down a flight of steps. Her arms jerk like those of a marionette operated by an epileptic puppeteer, and then her breath gets caught in her chest like a rat in a trap, and she gasps and sits up, again chasing sleep away with a swipe of panic. And guilt.