“Hey, baby girl. What’s the latest?”

Sam glanced at Scotty, reluctant to speak freely in front of him despite what he’d already seen and heard. “How much do you know?”

“Enough to be sick with worry—and fear for our Brooke.”

Upon closer scrutiny, she could see the exhaustion etched into his face and deduced he hadn’t slept much the night before. A flash of anger directed at Brooke overtook Sam. With a huge and potentially life-threatening surgery pending, her dad needed all the rest he could get, not sleepless nights worried about a granddaughter gone wild.

“Scotty, will you do me a favor, buddy?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Will you make me a coffee? I’m about to fall over. I need a boost.”

“No problem.” He got up and dashed out of the room. After Nick taught Scotty to make hot chocolate in the Keurig, he’d taken over all the coffee-making duties. They called him their barista.

While they had the room to themselves, Sam gave her dad a quick summary of everything she knew so far about what’d happened the night before and recited her list of unanswered questions. Not wanting to upset him any more, she purposely skimmed over Scotty’s potential involvement as well as the part about pictures and videos cropping up on the Internet.

“What else?” Skip asked, eying her shrewdly.

“What makes you think there’s more?”

“Because I know you, and you never could lie to me. Not sure why you’d try to start now.”

“You’re supposed to be resting and relaxing and gearing up for surgery. I don’t want to lay a pile of shit at your feet right now.”

“You didn’t. Brooke did. Tell me the rest.”

With tremendous reluctance, she told him how Scotty had witnessed the drop-off at their house and about the photos and videos online.

“Goddamn it,” he whispered. “This’ll crush poor Tracy. And Mike...”

“They’ll get through it,” Sam said with more confidence than she felt. How did one get through having their teenage daughter gang-raped and then having the attack broadcast to the world? “If there’s any blessing, Brooke was so stoned she won’t remember any of it.”

“Until she sees the video.”

“Hopefully we can make it go away before then, but...”

“But what?”

“The video, along with her tox screen and BAC, proves she was stoned out of her mind before the murders. It might be the only thing that keeps her off the suspect list.”

“Jesus.”

Scotty came back carefully balancing a steaming cup of coffee presented in her favorite Redskins mug. “Here you go, Sam.”

“You’re the best. Thanks.”

“Did I do the cream and sugar right this time?”

Sam took a sip. “Mmm, perfect.”

He beamed at her.

She extended her arm to him. “Come sit by me.”