I wasn’t sure what he meant, but thought he was embarrassed by the small portions and his mother’s talk of overtime. “Dude, it was great. Your mom’s as cool as they come.”

“So. Your brother.” Chance turned a chair backward, and sat. “We’re only talking, right? If I come up with the perfect plan, you won’t go off and do something stupid?”

“We’re just spitballing.”

“Purely hypothetical.”

I put a hand on my heart, another lie. I felt bad about the deception, but Chance was the smartest person I knew, and likely to see things I’d missed. That said, he was his mother’s entire world, and I didn’t know how far this thing would go. What I knew was that Jason needed help, and there was no middle ground. He didn’t kill Tyra, end of story. I just needed to prove it.

So we brainstormed like we did on Saturday mornings with nothing to do, only the questions were more life-and-death than what movie to see or whether hoops in the driveway made more sense than sandlot ball with the Miller kids down the street. I told Chance everything I knew about Tyra and Jason, beginning with our day at the lake, and ending with a prison bus on a stretch of empty road, and Tyra falling drunk from the car at her condo on the rich side of downtown. He listened without interruption, then asked me to repeat the story.

“To be clear,” he said. “You’re saying she was naked in the Mustang?”

“Topless,” I replied. “She was naked at the lake. Can we focus now?”

“A grown woman, though. Come on…”

In other circumstances, I might agree. This was not the time.

“Did she have a job?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Family in town? Other friends?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“We should ask Sara.”

“Definitely.”

“She really screwed your brother right in front of you?”

“In the flowers, dude. Deep in the flowers.”

“What about enemies?” Chance asked, serious again.

“Probably a few. The lady had a streak.”

“What do you mean? How so?”

“A streak, man, this unpredictable wildness, like she could be playful one minute, and nasty the next. We know she dragged Jason into a bar fight, and I told you about the prison bus. She was shameless. Maybe she flirted with the wrong guy at the wrong place, or said the wrong thing at the wrong time. She was capable of anything. She crashed a car. She pulled a gun…”

“So she’s crazy.”

“Also selfish, provocative, and stupid drunk.”

Chance shook his head, unhappy. “I don’t see how any of this helps. It’s vague. There’s barely a place to start.”

“Somewhere, she met the wrong person.” I said it with a little heat. “At the Carriage Room, or at work. Maybe somewhere with Sara…”

“Maybe Jason didn’t like a gun shoved in his face.”