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“Lydia,” Bristal’s voice is cold and even, holding a warning.

“We found her, Dad,” I say, moving toward him, arms outstretched. “We found Denise Halverson. She’s been out here ever since the long stretch, all along she was—”

“LYDIA!” Bristal yells, her voice deep, the beam of her own flashlight illuminating Dad—and his other hand.

“Dad?” I ask, incredulously. “Why do you have a gun?”

It’s a picture that makes no sense, my father, grim-faced, holding a weapon—and it’s pointing at us.

“Lydia,” he says, very slowly. “Go up to the road and get in the car.”

“What?” I ask, stepping backward instinctively, toward Bristal—and Denise. “No! Dad! You don’t—”

“Just go up to the car,” he says, still advancing. “And tell the Jamison girl to get that light out of my face.”

“Don’t think I will,” Bristal says, her voice just over my shoulder, her hand reaching out to stop me right before I tumble backward into the grave. “You got out here fast,” she says, her voice low as she steps out of the grave, light still trained on him. “How’d you find us?”

“Called your mother to check up on you girls when Lydia didn’t answer her phone. Your cover story of going to dig up a dead body wasn’t a very smart move.”

“But you knew right where to find it, didn’t you?” Bristal growls.

“Dad?” I ask, jerking my eyes to his. “How? How did you know?”

The pages spread out on my bedroom floor splash through my head, the picture of Dad, Dover, and Denise Halverson standing together by the railroad tracks during the Sweet Corn Festival, the round, black O of Denise’s mouth as she exhaled smoke.

“Shit, Dad!” My voice cracks, panic spiking my veins. “Did you kill her?”

“No, Jesus!” His gun hand drops, the light wavering as well. “I didn’t . . .”

Rain sprinkles us all, picking up again, a breeze kicking in from the west as each drop falls, lit by our dual beams.

“She was as good as dead when I got here,” he says, his voice heavy.

“How?” Bristal says, her voice gaining energy and a tone that I know well, one that says she’s about to drill down and not back up. “How could she have been as good as dead when she was screaming all the way from Boggs’s trailer to here?”

“She made it to the road,” Dad says. “She . . . she ran out in front of my car. I think maybe she . . . she thought I was going to help her. But it was too late.” Dad raises his head, eyes meeting mine. “It was too late by then.”

“Why?” I ask. “What did he do to her?”

“It was in her joint,” Dad says. “Dover had been beating Boggs, and Denise was going along with it until the gun came out. She lost it when he shot the old man, tried to run. Dover stopped her, got her calmed down. But she was such a mess, he didn’t trust she could keep her mouth shut. Dover said her hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t even get her cigarettes out of her pocket, which gave him the idea.

“He told her she needed something stronger and offered her a joint. She went out and sat on the front step, said she wanted fresh air. He kept an eye on her while he rolled it, and while she had her back turned her grabbed some d-CON off the floor of the trailer and rolled that in, too.”

“Jesus,” I say. “She smoked rat poison.”

“Yeah.” Dad nods, his face twisting. “It ate her lungs up. She was bleeding from the nose and the mouth by the time I found her up on the county road.”

“He called you?” I say, putting it all together. “She figured out something wasn’t right, and she ran from him, didn’t she?”

“Knew by the first drag, I bet,” Bristal says.

“I didn’t know, Lydia,” Dad says, his eyes searching my face. “I swear. Boggs. Denise. Any of it. I didn’t know. All that Dover said when he called was that he needed me out at Far Cry right now, or else everyone in Henley would know who was driving the car that night we hit the Milhaus family.”

“So you did it,” I say, numb. “You came out here and you found her?”

“She was bleeding so much,” Dad says. “There wasn’t anything I could do for her, Lydia. I swear it. Dover was right behind her, drug her back down to these trees.”

“But she wasn’t dead,” Bristal says. “Not yet. And a car accident might scare a teenager into keeping their mouth shut, but not a grown-ass man. Dover has a hell of a lot more on you than just a fender bender. He made you do it, didn’t he? He made you kill her,” Bristal pushes, the edge of her voice growing harder.