The dense path gave way, opening up to a patch of velvet grass an army of gardeners mowed and raked and fertilized into perfection every Tuesday afternoon, blinding green against the glittering lake. The house in the middle was a faded gray shingle, big and square with shiny black shutters on the windows. It sat on the water, so close you could drive the boat right into the attached garage, a yawning hole carved into an extension of the house that stuck out over the lake like a long finger. When they were younger, his mom had installed a slide to the deck up top, and all summer long you could hear squeals and splashes as he and his sister, Pamela, took turns skidding down. Jax had never lived anywhere else.

Now home was the last place on earth he wanted to be.

He banged through the back door into the kitchen, where Pamela was preparing dinner. “Where have you been? Dad’s home, and he’s been calling all over for you.”

Jax could hear him on the other end of the house, yelling at some poor sucker through the phone, ruining his Saturday afternoon. That call had nothing to do with Jax. It was a business call, and an angry one at that. It was the one thing he and his father had in common, this constant, all-consuming rage.

Jax leaned his rifle against the wall. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you? Lyin’s a sin, Pammy.”

“I’m not lying. And what are you doing out there in the woods all day, anyway?”

A year ago he would have brushed her off with Why do you care? You’re not my mother, but even Jax wasn’t that much of an asshole. Their mother was a sensitive subject these days. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He pushed past her for the stairs, and she skittered after him. “‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’ Pastor Williams says if we keep that verse in mind, we won’t feel so alone.”

She was always doing that, flinging Bible verses at anybody who was close enough, waving them around like some magic potion for whatever ailed you. It was maddening, especially since up until a few years ago they’d been twice-a-year churchgoers at best—sunrise service on Easter morning and candlelight worship on Christmas Eve. Mom never hung crosses on the walls, never taught them to pray before meals or bedtimes. He’d lost count of how many times he’d heard his dad say goddamn.