She’s quiet for a moment, and I understand that I shouldn’t have said his name. Finally, I realize that she’s not over my brother. Even though they’ve hardly spoken in seven months.

“I know,” she says at last. “He said that, in his car that day.”

In my car. The day my brother and my best friend had sex in my car.

Not the point, Beckett.

“But I don’t think it’s true,” she adds.

“Why would it be? I mean, he had a family! A good one! Mom loved him, and their marriage was good, until the Oxy. Landry— She worshipped him. Penn’s killing himself right now, trying to turn himself into our dad. To be a better version of him. And I’m not sure whether to applaud him or slap him silly for that. For wanting to be like the man who abandoned us. Or for believing that he can do a better job of it.

“He was in the newspaper once, did you know? The Dallas Morning News. My dad’s unit was sent out to Texas, for hurricane relief, and a reporter snapped a picture of him saving a dog from floodwater. My mom still has, like, ten copies of—”

Amira’s phone beeps, and before she can pick it up, I see that it’s an alert. My hand clenches around what’s left of my cookie.

The Crimson Cryer has tweeted again.

CRIMSON CRYER

@crimsoncryer · 2h

Finally @CliffordTNpd has evidence that @BeckettBergen TRULY IS #LullabyDoe’s mother.

#JusticeForLullaby

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Chapter Sixteen

SIXTEEN

I leave Amira’s house so quickly that I forget my plate in my rush to race home and ask my mom what on earth the Crimson Cryer could be talking about.

So far, that anonymous asshole’s information has been so accurate, according to my mother, that the police think someone in the department is leaking information. But there’s one exception.

Me.

Twice now, the Cryer has either implied or announced that I am Lullaby Doe’s mother, and obviously that’s been wrong, both times. Yet a few days ago, the Cryer also came to my defense, asking people to leave me alone and reserve judgment.

Why the change of heart? Why the transition from fact-based—if leaked or stolen—information to flat-out lies about me?

I park on the curb in front of the house, because Penn’s already claimed the second spot in the driveway, and I stomp across the yard, ready to demand answers from my mother. But when I throw open the door, Landry stumbles to a startled halt in the middle of the living room, on her way to the kitchen.

“Beckett! Come on! We’re doing gingerbread!” She holds up the Bluetooth speaker Mom gave her for her thirteenth birthday, which she’s evidently just retrieved from her room.

Doing gingerbread?