KT lay curled in the grass, a hand over his face. He didn’t move.

“Was it your idea to frame me?” Jamal said.

KT trembled, bracing for another blow, but Jamal only adjusted his jacket. What did it matter?

“Get up.”

After a long pause, KT dragged himself to his feet.

Jamal said, “They took her out there, didn’t they? It’s the best place to hurt someone if you want to hide it. I bet it was dumb luck Dylan’s body was ever found. What do you want to bet they’d get luckier next time?”

KT scowled at him, rubbed his cheek. If he was going to tell Jamal anything else, he wasn’t going to do it now. All he said was, “Where’s your car?”

Jamal stopped. “What happened to yours?”

“It’s impounded. Up in Dallas.”

“What about your sister’s?”

“Mom totaled it.”

“You’re telling me you ain’t got a car here?”

KT picked up his chair. He shrugged. “Life’s a bitch. You wanna sleep here tonight?”

Jamal couldn’t think of anything to say. He watched KT lower himself into the chair, felt his heart slowing. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.

And then a brilliant pair of headlights washed over the street out front. A truck rumbled to a stop at the curb. Jamal jogged around the side of the house to see Whiskey Brazos and T-Bay Baskin starting up the walk to the house. They gawped at him.

“You’re out,” T-Bay said.

“It’s a long story.”

Whiskey cleared his throat. “Are you here about Joel Whitley?”

“Joel?” Jamal looked between the two of them. “We’re looking for Kimbra.”

A second truck pulled to a stop behind the first and Jamal fought a violent urge to flee at the sight of the woman behind the wheel. It passed when he saw the way Officer Clark regarded him with nothing more than a cool interest.

“She’s with us,” T-Bay said. “We’re going to that place.”

Officer Clark rolled down her window and said, “Where’s KT?”

Jamal heard something. He slipped back into the yard just in time to pull KT down from atop the fence over which he was trying to escape. Jamal marched the shaking boy to the front of the house, a hand clamped over the back of KT’s neck.

“Right here. And he’s going to take us.”

LUKE

Luke heard the sound of a few trucks pulling up in the dirt, heard boys leaping out of them with a whoop only to go quiet—reverent—as they drew near. He swallowed. The new boys took their place in the circle that Luke felt around him. He’d lost count of how many people had arrived since Mitchell had slipped a blindfold on him a few minutes before.

What Luke did not hear in any of the cleared throats or muted chatter was the sound of a single girl.

At some signal, the low murmur of voices died. Silence tightened the air, finally broken by the squeak of a foot across a wooden board. From ahead and above him, Luke heard a man’s voice, gleeful and unabashedly smug, shout down to say, “This is a beautiful night, ain’t it, boys?”