“What did you do about Ava?”

“Peter’s staying over. She won’t notice.” Riley’s au pair had come from Hamburg, Germany, two months ago. Peter was Ava’s boyfriend, and all they did was make out. When Riley’s mom was alive, Ava hadn’t been allowed to have Peter in the house, but with her mom dead, he’d been sleeping over about every night. It would be breakfast before Ava figured out Riley was gone, and maybe not even then, because they didn’t have school tomorrow for end-of-the-year teachers’ conferences. Riley had stuck a Post-it note on her door saying she had an upset stomach and not to wake her up Sal still didn’t get in the car. “I want two-fifty. I forgot about gas.”

She tugged on the car door, but he had it locked. She scratched her legs. “I’ll give you twenty dollars extra.”

“You’re rich. You don’t have to be so cheap.”

“Twenty-five, and that’s all. I mean it, Sal. I don’t want to go that bad.”

A big lie. If she didn’t get to her brother’s farm, she’d lock herself in the garage and turn on her mom’s Benz—she knew how—and sit in the car until she suffocated to death. Nobody could make her come out, not Ava, or her Aunt Gayle, or even her dad—like he’d even care if she died.

Sal must have believed her because he finally unlocked the car doors. She dropped her backpack on the floor of the front seat, then got in and fastened her seat belt. The inside of the car smelled like cigarettes and stale hamburgers. She pulled the directions she’d got from MapQuest out of the zipper pocket of her backpack. He peeled away from the curb without even looking to see if a car was coming.

“Watch out!”

“Relax. It’s midnight. There’s nobody around.” He had stringy brown hair, and some hairs growing on his chin that he thought made him look cool.

“You’re supposed to go to Interstate Forty,” she said.

“Like I don’t know that.” He tossed his cigarette out the open window. “They’re playing the Moffatt Sisters’ CD on the radio all the time now. I bet you’re going to make about a million bucks.”

All Sal ever wanted to talk about was money or sex stuff, and Riley definitely didn’t want him to talk about sex stuff, so she pretended to study the MapQuest papers, even though she’d already memorized everything.

“You’re so lucky,” Sal went on. “You don’t have to work or anything, and you get all this money.”

“I can’t spend it. It goes in my trust fund.”