Kimbra sealed the paint can shut, readied herself to go. A thought finally occurred to her: maybe she had other options. Look at all she’d uncovered by herself this week. Think of all she could accomplish without a man dragging her down. Of how much further a single person could stretch twelve thousand dollars in sunny California.

Maybe—maybe—when she reached the turnoff for KT’s house Kimbra would carry straight on.

But at that moment she noticed something glinting behind an old can of spray paint deep in the back of the shelf.

Because she noticed the glinting thing, Kimbra didn’t hear the faint sound of the door opening wider behind her.

The top shelf was very deep. She balanced carefully on the tips of her sneakers, braced one hand on the lip of the shelf and was just able to grab the little glimmer of green that rested against the far wall.

It was a Bisonette’s singlet, just like the one she was wearing now. Just like the ones she was always misplacing.

Kimbra turned the singlet over. Sure enough, the name LOTT was printed on the back.

How on earth had it wound up here, covered in dust? The singlet had been in a pile near the wall, like it had been tossed atop the shelf and forgotten. But who would have stolen one of her singlets and misplaced it way up here?

Who else had access to this room?

B-B-Benny Garcia stuttered in her head: “I h-heard it was your d-d-dad runs that p-party.”

Kimbra didn’t want to know what this was about. There were some rumors she didn’t want confirmed.

She turned.

She saw the man waiting behind her.

JOEL

His jaw throbbed where Wesley Mores had struck it last night. His head ached in the heat. And, worst of all, the skin of his ankle burned where the knife had been strapped all day. He wondered if it was some kind of allergic reaction, something his sweat had drawn out of the Velcro. Maybe a response to adhesive, just like Jason Ovelle had suffered.

By the time he reached Lott’s Hardware he was still clawing at the skin through his sock. He tugged loose the strap of the knife, just for a moment.

The store, Joel saw, was already closed. Of course. The president of the booster club would leave for the field hours before the start of the game. GO BISON GOOD LUCK EVERS read a handwritten sign in the window. Joel climbed from the car, pressed his hands to the door’s glass, saw a little strip of light way in the back of the store.

South Street was silent. No cars, no music leaking through cracked windows. From the ruined bank came the steady drip of a busted pipe. Joel’s feet made the old wooden boards of the storefront’s porch pop.

He saw light spilling through an open door in the alley. A man emerged from the back of the hardware store, a man whom Joel had no reason to suspect of anything.