“I am going to make a call,” Bear said. I felt like I was choking. “And then we’re going to leave.”

“Where is she?” I asked, frantic.

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. It felt like frost coming from his lips.

“How am I supposed to know that you didn’t do this?”

“Shannon,” he said. “I was with you.” He took my face. “I was with you,” he said again. “Say it. I was with you. You were with me.”

I swallowed hard and saw a flash of light behind my eyes from the pain. “I have to get Birdie,” I said.

“Listen to me,” Bear said, his voice so calm it felt blue to me, like a blue light, shining through dark water.

“She can’t be in there with that. She can’t be alone,” I said.

His look had changed. It was hard, searching. “She’s not there,” he said.

“She’s probably in the closet,” I yelped. “That’s where my mother puts her.” My mind raced, and my body was sore, from retching, from tension. I looked at my hands, my own skin, for freckles of blood. I didn’t know who to trust.

“She puts her in the closet?” Bear asked. I thought: I am insane. This has made me insane.

“Give me your phone.”

He looked afraid. For the first time ever, I looked at his face and thought he looked scared. Not of everything that was happening, but like he was scared of me. What I might do. Like he might be next. It filled me with enough rage that I thought he might be justified. I noticed the toes of his boots were soaked in blood.

“No,” he said, when I held my hand out, and tucked the phone away.

“So I can use the flashlight,” I yelled.

I pointed at the hose on the side of the house.

“What?” he said.

I made him hose off his boots, pink water running off the soles.

“Come on,” I said, when the water finally ran clear.

Outside the Land Rover, I made him take off his boots.

“I washed them,” he said.

“Give them to me,” I said.

He seemed alarmed at my directness. He bent and unlaced the boots, took them off, and then I said, “Socks too,” and he did as he was told.

“What are you doing?” he said.

I walked them over to the dumpster behind the pavilion and threw them in. I took mine off and did the same. He stood there barefoot in the parking lot.

“Those are five-hundred-dollar boots.”

“So?” I said. “You don’t have another five hundred dollars? You want to get into your car with my mother’s blood on your boots?” I asked. “Are you crazy? Trash comes tomorrow,” I said.

He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?” he asked, like I’d been scheming.

“I live here,” I shouted. I gripped and released my hands, trying to remember anything.

I got into the car barefoot, and Buddy jumped into the back seat. The dog leaned over my shoulder and panted, his nose wet and his breath hot. I felt like I’d been hit over the head and stunned. My body ached. My throat was sore. I watched Bear, pacing in the grass, phone cupped in his hand. I watched his shoulders hunch while he bent at the waist, yelling something I couldn’t make out.