The lock disengages with a satisfying thunk. I withdraw my tool and pull his front passenger’s side door open, but before I can get in, a black-and-white pulls into the lot and stops behind Jake’s car. Clifford is too small a town to be able to afford a full-time police presence at the high school, so the patrol officers take turns keeping the peace. I roll my eyes when I see who’s in charge of campus security today.

Doug Chalmers gets out of the patrol car and walks around the hood, one hand propped on his duty belt. “Beckett Bergen. Getting a head start on a life of crime?”

“Hey, Doug.” I give him an innocent smile. “How’s your mom?”

Doug grew up across the street from me. He graduated when I was in middle school and made it through a semester and a half of Clifford County Community College before deciding that higher education—higher than high school, anyway—wasn’t for him. So my mom got him a job with the Clifford PD. He’s been patrolling our three square miles of small-town glory ever since.

“That’s Officer Chalmers to you, Beckett.”

He doesn’t answer my question about his mother, but that’s okay. I already know she took a turn for the worse last week.

“Sorry, Officer Chalmers.”

“Isn’t this Jake Mercer’s car?” he asks, but he knows damn well it is.

A few weeks ago, Doug moved back home to help take care of his mother, who has stage three lung cancer—the inevitable yet tragic consequence of a three-packs-a-day habit. Which means he’s seen this Camry, reindeer antlers and all, parked in front of my house on countless occasions.

“You tryin’ to steal Jake’s car?”

I can’t see his eyes through his dark sunglasses, but his arched brows practically dare me to deny it.

“I wasn’t trying to steal Jake’s car.”

Doug pulls off his sunglasses and tucks them into his shirt pocket as his gaze finds the slim jim dangling from my right hand. “You are aware that you’re still holding the evidence, right?”

“I’m holding a slim jim, yes. But you’d have to have superpowers to leap from there to ‘grand theft auto’ in a single bound. For all you know, I always carry a slim jim, in case I lock my keys in my car.”

“I just saw you pop Jake’s lock.”

Okay, that part’s harder to defend.

“What’s going on?” an achingly familiar voice asks from behind me.

I close my eyes and exhale slowly, taking a second to compose myself before I respond.

“Hey, Jake,” Doug says, and I spin around to find my brand new ex frowning at me, waiting for an explanation.