An idea takes shape.

Weak spots.

After a little more digging, I learn that only six months ago, Aaron Pulaski hopped from the county prosecutor’s office to a state congressional seat, running on an anticorruption, antiestablishment platform that easily handed him the vote. And though Pulaski doesn’t appear on Optimal’s list of corporate donations, a quick visit to the financial disclosure section of the Indiana state legislature confirms my suspicion.

Only a few months after Pulaski was quoted in a newspaper saying he would investigate Optimal for labor violations, and a few short months before he landed his congressional seat, Associated Polymer, Optimal’s parent company, wrote a $100,000 check to his campaign.

A bribe.

Has to be.

But more important: a way in. We’ll need help, and luck, and a really friendly circuit court. But Optimal might turn over their finances to us even before we’ve filed if the alternative is turning them over in a criminal case.

It’s a long shot—but at least it’s a shot. Finally. Something.

My whole body is humming with something something something by the time Joe throws open the door with his shoulder. I’ve almost forgotten the nagging doubt that tailed me all morning, that something terrible happened at the bonfire.

“It’s a Saturday.” Joe smiles at me.

“Exactly. What are you doing here? Couldn’t resist the Barrens social scene?” I say. A joke—until I realize, from his just-got-laid grin, that he probably spent the day with Raj. Joe can’t do one-night stands. The sex always unrolls into brunch dates and trips to the farmers’ market, Saturday-night Netflix binges on the couch. Joe is one of those people who can be around other people all the time. He doesn’t need solitude to recharge, like I do.

He’s just easy and malleable and he can make a home everywhere he goes.

Some of us are out of place even when we are home.

“I figured I’d have a better shot at going door-to-door on a Saturday.” He shook his head. “But it seems we’ve already overstayed our welcome.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most people wouldn’t even open their damn doors. Not used to a queer black man showing up on a weekend, apparently! One asshole—Paul Jennings, I think? Or Peter?—came to the door with a shotgun. I kid you not. He apologized and said he was jumpy because his wife never came home last night. I wouldn’t, either, if I was married to him. And then a woman named Joanne Farley tried to convince me that—”

“Wait.” In the flow of his complaints washing over me, alarm bells have started going off. Misha. “What did you say?”

My pulse is so hot in my ears, I miss Joe’s reply.

“More important,” he’s saying, “the guy slammed the screen door in my face—my tie almost didn’t make it out alive. So much for small-town hospitality.” He stops when he takes in the expression on my face. “Are you okay?”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Inside, fear sharpens.

Misha Jennings didn’t come home last night.