Rick seemed to be on the verge of grinning as they prepared the crime scene for processing, but Tilly never caught him. She could feel his smugness though, and she accepted, definitively, that he had arranged for Sims to visit their office. It hurt to be both the target and beneficiary of so much conniving, and it was otherworldly how perfectly everything had worked out. Rick was right that they wouldn’t get reprimanded for killing the kid. And he was right that they didn’t really need the kid anymore. He’d ensnared his friends as soon as he’d sent that text message. And Rick was right that this case was whatever they made it to be. They’d known graffiti was a factor, the only factor, ever since they’d connected the J seared into the mountain to Jerry Urich, the dead kid’s dead friend with a rap sheet as long as a Greek poem. But nobody would have accepted the bland truth that kids are foolish and reckless and artful, small humans with big ideas. So, Rick made the case too big to fail, too important to end with such a straightforward explanation. And she’d drank the Kool-Aid and shared the recipe, priming Houndum and the press and presumably the entire city to await a grand ending for their grand story.

Tilly felt nauseated as she climbed into Rick’s Navigator, but her stomach and her thoughts settled as they left the park. Change had come.

chapter 18

Kai gnawed at a gas station cinnamon roll as flurries of charcoal exhaust drifted past the car windshield. Liquefied sugar swished around her mouth, settling between her molars, her tongue seeking cinnamon but only finding more gooey molasses. The rolls were on sale for a reason, she realized as she took her last bite.

The detour down Bankhead was failing gloriously, the night’s journey into the city obstructed by a gassy tractor trailer and miles of traffic. Faint traces of sunlight sputtered in the side mirror, a long kiss goodnight. Kai had thought she was doing everyone a favor by avoiding I-75/85 on the night of a Gucci concert and a Braves game, but her traffic app told her otherwise. Bankhead was backed up.

Upon receiving Theo’s oblique texts, the car had become silent. Kai couldn’t stop locking and unlocking her phone. Aimlessly, she scrolled through her apps, tweaking settings, changing fonts, relocating widgets, and locking the phone. Seconds later, she’d unlock her phone and the cycle would resume.

The car remained idle, and the four-wheeler’s fumes remained insouciant; stasis was in the air.

Zed flicked on the radio, cracking through the silence. A deep, silky voice oozed from the speakers, sweet yet mealy, pure honeycomb. NPR, of course. Zed shrieked when she realized the content of the broadcast.