◆◆◆

When she got to the truck, Izzy took out Cyrus’s phone and typed in a different combination of their birthdays, 128113. No. Then 012890. His birthday, not hers, not theirs. The numbers jumped and settled. 011990? The phone remained locked. She only had three more attempts left before she’d be locked out permanently.

Did he think she’d try to check his phone behind his back? How could he think that?

In the desert heat, her heart burned like a bird on a wire.

◆◆◆

“No word yet?” Jody asked.

She and Del sat on the porch drinking beers, as if they’d never left. But this time they both stood when they saw Cyrus’s truck. Del spat in the sand, maybe because he realized it was just Izzy at the wheel. The crevices in his face looked deeper somehow.

“No word,” she said, then asked “You?” though she knew the answer.

They both shook their heads. “Haven’t heard anything,” Jody said. At least Jody hadn’t given Izzy that look—the one that said, he took off and left. But every time Izzy had that thought, the alternative loomed even worse.

Del handed Izzy a beer, and she took it without thinking. “I saw Joe today.”

Jody frowned at the mention of her older son, her thin freckled skin crinkling like tissue paper, and asked how he was doing.

“Not too upset about Cyrus. He wanted candy.”

“Drink your beer,” Del said.

Izzy needed something, so she popped the can and took a sip. It tasted metallic. But cold. Like she’d reminded Larry, she and Cyrus never drank, except maybe a glass of sparkling wine on New Year’s Eve. Maybe a little out of vanity, but also for practical purposes, Cyrus kept his system clean and kept out of trouble—there was always so much work to be done. Though Larry and Joe and the cops had implied otherwise.

“Did Cyrus ever have problems with the cops?” Izzy asked.

Jody and Del turned their heads at the same moment and looked at each other, then away. Jody said, “We thought he was heading that direction. Hanging out with Selma and all.”

“Till she got her hands on Joe,” Del said.

“Wait, what? Selma? Joe’s Selma?”

“It was before he met you,” Jody said, as if that was some consolation.

Del scowled at his boots and remained silent.

“What kind of trouble was he heading for?” Izzy asked Jody. “Something with drugs?”

Jody said, “The drugs were all Selma. My boys are good boys.”

The grime of CAL still clung to Izzy’s skin, the beer roiled in her stomach, and the thought of Selma made her sick, but Izzy knew she’d have to go see her now.

◆◆◆

Izzy found Selma Jenkins at the Range, an outdoor de facto stage where bands performed, and where sometimes the locals showed up in dresses and tuxes from a communal collection reserved for the Slab City “prom.” “For people who never went to one,” Izzy had been told. She had to admit there was something about this practice she liked; she and Cyrus and Seth and Nephy hadn’t gone to the prom since all of them except Cyrus had been homeschooled, but once, a few years ago, they’d strung up some Christmas lights in the White’s backyard, played some nineties music, and danced in their own thrift store finery.