“I’m not just talking about the water jug,” I said. “I’m talking about Finny.”

Trevor cocked his head in a faux-quizzical way that was so actorly — Whatever do you mean? — it almost made me laugh.

“We talked about Finny last night,” I said. “Do you remember?”

“I don’t remember a whole hell of a lot from last night,” said Trevor, sitting back down at the table as if ready to resume eating.

“Bullshit,” I said.

Trevor put down his fork and spread his arms in exasperation. “Why is everyone ganging up on me today? I thought we were all gonna have a nice dinner!”

“You’re trying to change the subject,” I said.

“Actually, you’re the one who’s trying to change the subject,” said Trevor. “The subject is how badly you been fucking things up ever since you got here. Your mum had this place running like a well-oiled machine, meanwhile you can barely keep it together.”

“How have I not kept it together?”

Trevor snorted. “Oh sure, you did a great job. So good, Adult Protection has to come busting in.”

He picked up his fork and started eating again, calmly, as if confident his final point had ended the conversation once and for all.

“You called Adult Protection,” I said. I hadn’t even known I was going to say it. Or that I did, in fact, believe it to be true. Not until that moment.

Trevor looked up from his plate. “If I did,” he said, “you can’t very well blame me, can you? Beaner gettin sick every other day. You selling off the goddamn place, your sister’s home, piece by piece, in front her eyes? No wonder she got sick! Did you even think for five minutes how that would affect her? No, you didn’t. Because you don’t think of anyone except yourself. If you needed a good swift kick in the arse to come to your senses, maybe that’s what had to happen.”

I was on to my feet before I could think about it. Anger had shot me out of my chair like a boulder from the guts of a volcano. It would have flung me across the table at him — to slap, or throttle, god knows what disastrous idiocy I would have performed, and how he might have felt justified in retaliating — if fear hadn’t caught up and kept me rigid.

“Sit down,” said Trevor, “and eat your supper. It’s in the past now.”

“And Finny had to happen?” I said. “Terrorizing Kelli in the parking lot?”

“Enough with this Finny bullshit,” said Trevor, waving a hand.

“And you got him to cook the books with Gorsebrook too, so we’d think they lost Jeremy. So I’d be too spooked to send Kelli there.”

“Enough,” said Trevor, his temples flexing. He was clenching his jaw again. But I couldn’t shut myself up.

“What else did you do? Because this is insane. Do you even know how fucking psycho this whole thing —”