“Sweetheart, I don’t walk around armed. My gun is locked up. I’ll prove it to you when we get to my place.” He paused and ran a hand back through his hair. “Unless . . . do you want to go to the cops? Your neighbors are already calling them, but . . .”

Her life had to be pretty shitty to have two guys offering to take her to the police in the span of one week.

And this time, at first, she did want Tyler to take her to the police station. She’d tell them everything she’d seen, and she’d have him there to back it up.

But then they’d arrest her brother. And possibly her parents. Quinn was only seventeen. Where would they send her? A foster home or something? Or would she be arrested, too?

And what would they do to Jordan? At least her little brother was practically living at his friends’ houses. She hadn’t seen him in over a week. She didn’t have to worry about him coming around.

“No,” she whispered. “No cops.”

“You all right?”

She shook her head. “How do you know that Anthony guy?”

“We went to school together. I didn’t know your brother was Jake Briscoe. Talk about how the mighty have fallen.”

Quinn blinked at him. They’d come to a red light, and it reflected off Tyler’s fair skin and hair, making him look a little softer. “What does that mean?”

“Didn’t he win a scholarship to Duke or something?”

“Yeah. He’s home on a break.”

Tyler looked over. The expression on his face said, Come on, don’t be stupid.

But she must have been, because she didn’t get it. “What?”

“What break? It’s the middle of October. I’m not on break. Why would he be?”

“You think—you think he left school?”

Tyler snorted. “He’s smoking crack with a high school dropout. I’d bet my truck your brother got kicked out of school.”

Kicked out of school. The golden boy.

Quinn wondered if this added a new intensity to her parents’ problems.

And it wasn’t like things were great before.

“Was my mother okay?” she whispered.

“She was lit,” said Tyler. “Where’s your dad?”

Quinn shook her head. “I never know anymore. Sometimes he works nights, but sometimes . . . I try to stay out of there as much as I can.”

And now she’d burned her bridges with Becca and Nick. She had nowhere to go.

Tyler was silent for a long while, and she watched the lights zip by outside his truck.

“You want me to take you somewhere else?” he finally said. “You have a friend you want to stay with or something?”

Quinn shook her head. “You can just—” She had to clear her throat. “I’m all right. You can let me out at the next street corner. I’ll call someone.”

“You think I’m buying that?”