“Get back here!” he shouted at their backs. “I’m calling the police!”
Adrenaline-fueled laughter bubbled out of Caela, and she caught Eliza’s eye as they whipped around another building and sprinted toward the side street where the Jeep was parked.
“Go, go, go!”
“Dad! I’m home!”
Caela stepped through the door of their apartment a little after seven, skin tingling from a fresh sunburn. The lights in theliving room were out, and the place didn’t yet smell of Thai food, so he must not have made it back yet.
She kicked off her combat boots and flopped down on the couch to watch the footage she’d taken on her new camera. She’d have to do some editing to keep any identifying features out of it, and she’d need to wait until things had blown over at the theater to post it online—anonymously, of course—but she already had ideas for how she’d make it look spectacular. Maybe she really would get Grady’s art to go viral.
When half an hour had passed, she sent her dad a text, teasing him for being late to her birthday dinner. She assumed he’d gotten caught up at the store, so she stretched out on the couch with some trashy reality show on the TV.
Caela didn’t know she’d fallen asleep until the sound of someone at the door sent her bolting upright.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Polite knocking might as well have been gunshots for as loud as it seemed to her sleep-addled mind. She rubbed her eyes and glanced around. The apartment was still dark, and the sun had set outside the window. No sign of her dad, either. The clock on her phone told her it was after nine, long past when her dad should have arrived with dinner.
Therewas another knock, a bit more insistent this time. Caela wondered if he’d forgotten his keys and accidentally locked himself out.
“Hello?” she called out as she shuffled over to the door.
“Police,” a man’s voice—not her dad’s—replied.
Her heart pounded in her chest. Were they here about the graffiti? Would she be in trouble, even though she hadn’t done the painting? Caela had never dealt with the police before. Never even spoken to a real cop, outside of the one who came to her elementary school to talk to her class about not doing drugs.
But sure enough, when she stood on tiptoe to look through the peephole, she saw a burly man in a blue uniform standing in the hallway.
Panic swirled in her stomach. She was going to be in trouble. Maybe even be arrested. Worse, her dad would be so mad at her.
This wasn’t how she’d expected her birthday to end.
The cop knocked again and, seeing no other option, Caela opened the door. She tried to remember how people talked to police in the movies. “Um … Can I help you, Officer?”
The man looked down at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place. His eyes were soft. Softer than she’d expect for someone coming to take her to juvie.
“Isyour mom home?” he asked.
Caela shook her head.
“Are there any adults I can speak to?”
“Um, not right now. It’s just me and my dad, and he’s not home yet.”
At the moment, she was a little relieved by that fact. Maybe he wouldn’t have to see her get arrested for being an accessory to vandalism. Though it was odd that he was more than two hours late.
The officer lowered his head a little, and Caela thought his expression seemed to go from soft to outright sad. “Is Jonah Conroy your father?”
That seemed like an odd question to ask before arresting her.
“Yeah?”
The man reached out and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “I am so sorry. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
IRIS
Shecomes to us in late autumn, when frost clings to the branches of gnarled trees, chilly wind slips between the cracks in the cabin’s walls, and the sun disappears behind the misty blue mountains long before the day’s chores are done. She doesn’t even have a coat. The only things protecting her from the biting cold are a cardinal-red hoodie, which looks to have been made for someone nearly three times her size, and Lily’s arm, wrapped around her shoulders as she guides her up the dirt path.
