The brakes screech again, this time much closer. Two car doors slam shut.
I scooch until my back is up against one of the workbenchlegs. Ripley immediately tries to sit on my lap. I push her off in case we have to run again but keep my arm around her so she can’t wander.
People are talking. Yelling, really. The yelling gets closer.
Ripley squirms. I tighten my hold.
“—whole thing has been a disaster! I said it would be. No one listens to me. No one cares what I’ve got to say about anything!”
“Calm down,Greg. You don’t need to yell.”
“Calm down? Are you for real? This is not a ‘calm down’ situation!”
Ripley’s ears twitch like tiny satellite dishes. She tries to move away again. I dig a treat out of my pocket and hold it in front of her snout. She noses at my fist, suitably distracted, and I thank my compulsive habit of stuffing dog treats in my pockets.
“The sheriff isdead; there’s another dead guy on the lawn; and we have no idea where she is! I will not be calm,Leah!”
Greg says her name with disdain that can only exist with familiarity, then keeps yelling.
“We need to figure out our next steps. We can’t be split up like this. It’s not smart! Why is everyone so stupid. We have to stick together and find her.”
There’s a drawn-out, pointed silence. Greg asks,“What?”
“Can I FT you?”
“Now? Seriously?” A pause. “Fine.”
“Thank you.” Leah does not sound like she’s thankful at all. “It’s not your role to question the plan. It’s your role to support it, and to trust that what happens is what issupposed to happen. You’re choosing to have a stressful experience. Choose something different.”
“Okay… harsh. I’m not questioning it. I just think—”
“Stop thinking.”
“I just—”
“If you keep on this path,” Leah says, voice hard, “I’m going to have to bring it up in a session. For your own good. Emotional parasites need to be purged and, frankly, you clearly have a big one.”
It’s quiet again.
“You don’t need to do that.” Greg sounds small. Maybe even scared. “I trust the plan. I do. I apologize.”
“No apologies—”
“—only change. Yeah.” Greg clears his throat. “Can we check out the house? Being next to the woods gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“It’s perfectly safe.” Suddenly, Leah’s voice is much closer. “Let’s open the shed first. I want more people with us when we go through the house.”
I scramble toward the handle. I get to it barely a second before it turns. Maybe from her side, it feels like it’s locked or jammed.
There’s a moment of charged silence.
“There’s—”
I throw myself into the door and collide with the two people who are standing on the other side. We all go down in a sprawling pile.
Leah’s on her back, gasping, the air knocked from her lungs. She’s white and older than me, possibly in her latetwenties, early thirties. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by her appearance, but I am.
I guess I was expecting a version of the sheriff. White, older, angry, radiating internalized misogyny. Not a millennial wearing Chaco sandals and a shirt with a pride rainbow on the chest pocket.
