“Scratching an itch.”

“Deputy,” Mayfield said, leaning over in his seat to hold her eye. “We inherited this town. We all did. That don’t mean we have to love everything about it. I hope you can remember that.”

“I’ve got police work to do,” she said, and set off toward the school.

JOEL

Fifteen minutes later and Joel was behind the wheel of the convertible, already wondering how he could keep his absurd promise to his mother. He didn’t know the first thing about investigating a murder. He was hopeless at everything beyond reading Excel spreadsheets and fighting hangovers and executing dead lifts.

All this grief and anger—it was a little pathetic, wasn’t it? He’d barely paid Dylan a thought in a decade. Upon learning last Sunday that his little brother had problems, an inner life of any kind, Joel had secretly delighted in how noble it would be to save him, how easily he could make a permanent friend of Dylan with just a little lazy largesse.

And now? Now Joel craved one of his signature Manhattan benders. He wanted bottle service, hard drugs, a handgun in his mouth. He wanted anything that would take his mind off the fact that beneath his cultivated body and his boutique T-shirts Joel Whitley was nothing more than a scrawny fag who’d been too weak to protect the one person in his life who had ever needed him.

He settled for Adderall, and motion.

As Joel drove he dialed Wesley Mores, the Baptist Church’s youth minister. Joel remembered something Wesley had mentioned Sunday night: how KT Staler had gotten into trouble over the summer and Dylan had been concerned about it.

The phone rang and rang. The voice of Darren, Paulette’s boyfriend, flitted now through Joel’s head: “I put in two thousand of my own money.”

Joel thought about the expensive Sonos soundbar he’d noticed on Dylan’s dresser, the pricey watch Joel had found in Dylan’s nightstand drawer, right alongside a bottle of painkillers (POTENTIAL FOR RECREATION/ABUSE: HIGH). Paulette had told Joel that the soundbar and the watch were gifts from Bethany Tanner. Joel couldn’t quite believe this.

Investigator Mayfield had asked Joel if KT Staler had given Dylan “any trouble.” KT’s sister, Joel remembered, had been arrested for concealing meth in the shells of hollowed-out Nokia phones. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine that KT might have gotten involved in some shady business through her. Perhaps Dylan had gotten sucked in as well.

And now, apparently, KT Staler had gone missing. Joel wondered if Wesley Mores might have any theories why.

The call went to voice mail.

Fine.

He drove to the bank to inquire about his brother’s account and was told that it contained two thousand dollars, not four. “I put in two thousand of my own money,” Darren had said. So where had the other two thousand gone? Despite his best efforts, the girl behind the counter at the bank would tell Joel nothing more.

Joel stopped when he reached an empty spot in front of Lott’s Hardware. Inside, gnomish Mr. Lott, a man Joel had hoped to speak to since his return on Friday, gave him a sad little wave through the store’s front window.