“And maybe use your bathtub while I’m at it. If you don’t mind.”

“Take whatever you need from the medicine cabinet. Deodorant, toothpaste.” She paused. “Makeup.”

Blue smiled.

April smiled back. “I’ll put out some clothes you can change into.”

Blue couldn’t imagine anything designed for April’s willowy body fitting her, but she appreciated the offer.

“My car keys are on the counter,” April said. “There’s a twenty in the drawer next to my bed. When Riley wakes up, would you mind driving her into town for lunch?”

“I’m not taking your money.”

“I’ll bill it to Dean. Please, Blue. I want to keep her away from him until Jack’s people get here.”

Blue wasn’t sure that keeping the eleven-year-old away was the best thing for either Riley or Dean, but she’d already been called to task for meddling, so she reluctantly nodded. “All right.”

April had laid out a delicate pink camisole and a frothy little afterthought of a ruffled skirt. She’d hastily modified both garments with some kind of double-sided tape to make them smaller. Blue knew she’d look adorable in the outfit. Way too adorable. The fluff-ball who wore those clothes might as well be wearing a SCREW ME OVER sign. This was the problem Blue always faced whenever she got around to fixing herself up, the main reason she’d stopped doing it.

Instead of the clothes on the bed, Blue appropriated a navy T-shirt. It did little to improve her purple tie-dyed yoga pants, but even she couldn’t stomach appearing in public in her orange BODY BY BEER sleeping T-shirt. Vanity reared its ugly head, and she dipped into April’s makeup—a swipe of soft pink tint on her cheeks, a little lip stain, and enough mascara to make it apparent exactly how long her lashes were. Just once, she wanted Dean to see that she was perfectly capable of looking decent. She simply didn’t care to.

“You look nice with makeup,” Riley said from the passenger seat of April’s Saab as she and Blue headed into town. “Not so washed out.”

“You’ve spent too much time around that awful Trinity.”

“You’re the only person who thinks she’s awful. Everybody else loves her.”

“No, they don’t. Okay, probably her mom. The rest are just pretending.”

Riley gave a faint, guilty smile. “I like it when you talk bad about Trinity.”

Blue laughed.

Since Garrison lacked a Pizza Hut, they picked Josie’s, the restaurant across from the pharmacy. Josie’s was short on charm, the food was lousy, and it lacked employment opportunities—Blue asked about a job first thing—but Riley liked it. “I never ate anyplace like this. It’s different.”

“It definitely has character.” Blue had settled on a BLT, which turned out to be more L than B or T.