It was a well-kept little house, neat and cozy and warm. Not much to it—a little living room and an open kitchen and dining area, a hallway leading off toward the bedrooms—but it was tidy, and it was clean; there were dishes drying on the rack by the sink, a couple of magnets stuck to the fridge with old pictures beneath them. The kitchen was lit bright, fluorescents overhead, but the living room was darker, a pair of lamps casting a soft glow, comfy-looking furniture, a room for curling up with a good book and waiting for the rainy season to end. It was a house that looked lived in, looked like somebody’s home, somebody who still cared about keeping up appearances, and Jess thought about her own little four-room disaster and wanted to hate Shelby Walker even more.

Then Jess remembered she didn’t even have a house to go back to, not after this afternoon, and she felt sad and angry and stupid for even bothering to be jealous. There was nothing she had in her life that someone like Shelby Walker could covet.

Shelby ducked into the kitchen, came back with a bottle of Wild Turkey and three tumblers, an ice tray. She cracked the ice from the tray and dropped a couple of cubes into each glass.

“I don’t know about you all,” she said, “but if we’re going to do this, I need a drink.”

She poured for the three of them, generous pours, gestured to the seats at the little table, and took a healthy draw from her glass as Jess sat, and Lucy wandered, sniffing around the kitchen, to the end of her leash. She nosed up to Shelby and sniffed at her, too, nuzzling under her hands until the girl relented and pet her, her tail whapping hard against the legs of the table, Shelby smiling despite herself. The dog was a regular goddamn Benedict Arnold.

Burke remained standing. If he was amused by Lucy’s antics, he wasn’t showing it.

Shelby set her tumbler down, looked him over. Then she looked at Jess again. “He doesn’t sit?”

Jess shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Does he talk at least?”

Burke shifted. “I talk.”

Shelby looked at him again. Longer, appraising. “Looks like an upgrade from the old man, anyway,” she told Jess finally. “No offense.”

Jess sighed. “Are we doing this, or what?”

“We’re doing this.” Shelby sat down opposite Jess at the table. “What do you want to know?”

Jess surveyed the little house again. Wondered if the Walker girl had played house with Ty here, if she’d cooked hot meals for him, if they’d cuddled on the couch, watched movies together.

She wondered if Ty had fucked Shelby Walker here, in this house, while Jess was getting her ass shot at in the Hindu Kush. While Jess was watching Afia die.