“Kate?”

She heard the hesitant way he said her name and it struck her suddenly: Did he feel all these things, too?

Slowly, she looked up.

Neal smiled down at her; he was only a little unsteady on his feet. “You’re beautiful,” he said, and then he kissed her, right there in the middle of the dance floor. Kate drew in a sharp breath and stiffened in his arms. It was so unexpected that she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

His tongue slid into her mouth, forcing her lips to open a little.

“Wow,” he said softly when he finally drew back.

Wow what? Wow, you’re a spaz? or Wow, what a kiss!

Behind her, someone yelled, “Cops!”

In an instant, Neal was gone and Tully was beside her again, taking her hand. They made their lurching, desperate way out of the house, up the hill and through the scrub brush, and back down to the trees. By the time they got to the car, Kate was terrified and her stomach was in open revolt. “I’m gonna puke.”

“No, you aren’t.” Tully yanked open the passenger door and shoved Kate inside. “We are not gonna get busted.”

Tully ran around the front of the car and opened her door. Sliding into the driver’s seat, she stabbed the key into the ignition, yanked the gearshift into reverse, and stomped on the gas. They rocketed backward and slammed into something hard. Kate flew forward like a rag doll, cracking her forehead on the dashboard and then slumping back into her seat. Dazed, she opened her eyes, tried to focus.

Tully was beside her, rolling down the driver’s-side window.

There, in the darkness, was good old Officer Dan, the man who’d driven Tully away from Snohomish three years ago. “I knew you Firefly Lane girls would be a pain in my ass.”

“Fuck,” Tully said.

“Nice language, Tallulah. Now, will you please step out of the car?” He bent down, looked at Kate. “You, too, Kate Mularkey. The party’s over.”

The first thing that happened at the police station was the girls were separated.

“Someone will come talk to you,” Officer Dan said, guiding Tully into a room at the end of the hall.

A gunmetal-gray desk and two chairs sat forlornly beneath a bright hanging lightbulb. The walls were a gross green color and the floor was plain bumpy cement. There was a sad, faded stink to the place, a combination of sweat and piss, and old spilled coffee.

The entire left wall was a mirror.

All it took was one episode of Starsky and Hutch to know that it was really a window.

She wondered if the social worker was on the other side of it yet, shaking her head in disappointment, saying, That fine family won’t want her now, or the lawyer, who wouldn’t know what to say.

Or the Mularkeys.

At that, she made a little sound of horror. How could she have been so stupid? The Mularkeys had liked her until tonight, and now she’d gone and thrown that all away, and for what? Because she’d been depressed by her mom’s rejection? By now she ought to be used to that. When had it ever been any other way?