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“What do you mean?” I ask, bristling.

“If you asked anybody in Henley which one of us is dangerous, they’d say me, every time,” Bristal explains. “I’m a powder keg with a short fuse that’s already lit.”

“True,” I say, my eyes returning to the scabs on her knuckles.

“Meanwhile you’re walking around wearing button-downs and singing in the choir, but you’ve got the nuclear codes,” she says, tapping her temple. “You played Bailey Foxglove, backing off right when you needed to, then pushing for that journal—and she has no idea why you want it.”

“Which is why I’ll get it,” I say, flipping up the visor. “It’s just a matter of when.”

“She’ll go home and look right now,” Bristal says.

“I made her feel special by seeking her out,” I agree. “She wants to hold on to that feeling.”

“Or,” Bristal counters, “she wants to keep you happy because you’ve got her on record accusing somebody of domestic violence. Either way, you get what you want—which is something I think you’re accustomed to. And you’ll get it, by kicking guys in the nuts at recess, or holding something over the head of a housewife.”

“Regardless—” I begin, but Bristal cuts me off.

“People can see me coming a mile away: scars, bruises, black eyes, the Jamison name and a bad mouth attached to it. But you? You sneak up on them. Your teeth might be professionally whitened, but they’re sharp as hell behind that smile.”

“We should set up a time to record an episode,” I say, choosing to sidestep her less-than-flattering character sketch of me. “And plan everything else out. I need to get my episode about the Civil War monument up, but I want to hear about how all your research into Boggs is going.”

I say the last part carefully, trying not to make it super obvious that I’m deeply invested in her putting the screws to Cousin Larry. While I might have blown off Kenzie when she suggested that I might solve our one and only murder, the ember in my chest had been fanned into a flame when Bristal mentioned that her cousin had been Boggs’s neighbor and might have previously unknown information.

But as usual, Bristal seems to know what I want and is dedicated to not giving it to me. “Civil War monument?” Bristal asks. “That sounds super sexy.”

“I know,” I admit, leaning back in my seat. “I’ve been thinking how to make it interesting, put some emotion into it. You know how Bailey got upset remembering how she had to tell the woman that her daughter and granddaughter were dead?”

“Yeah, that sucked,” Bristal says. “What about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about grief, and how the passage of time makes it easier, dulls the edges,” I say. “Bailey got upset thinking about the peripherals. It wasn’t the mom and baby dying that choked her up, it was telling the grandmother. I was thinking that if I can tie each soldier to a living person—”

“BLAH,” Bristal blurts out. “I admire your vagina-to-the-wall attitude, but you could toss up anything and Henley High is going to give us a pass. They’re the ones that screwed the pooch, not us.”

“I know,” I admit. “But—”

“But Ivy Leagues,” Bristal says.

“Not just that,” I say. “I mean, yes, I want to do a good job because I need to pad my résumé, but I also just want to do a good job because I . . .” I lift my hands, trying to encapsulate the nature of my drive to perform.

“Because you love work,” Bristal finishes for me. “Most people love fun, but Lydia Chass loves work.”

I shrug. “You say potato . . .”

“I say—who wants a fucking potato when French fries exist?”

Ten

“Bristal! Come in!” Mom says on Saturday afternoon, the absolute joy at finding a Jamison girl on her front porch indistinguishable from the real thing.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say, brushing past her before she can take Bristal on a well-meant but painfully awkward tour of the house. I manage to dodge the mom-clutches but even if that does do away with such phrases as a breakfast nook or the three-seasons room and the summer kitchen, I can’t hide every inch of the house from Bristal. Of course, she latches on to the most obvious before we’re even halfway up the staircase.

“Is that an honest-to-God, actual, real-life hunting mural?” she asks, head craned to the right as we ascend the stairs, the poor fox who has been evading predators since before my time dodging into what I can only hope is a lifesaving bush.

“Yes,” I say, mentally admonishing myself for not bringing her up by the back staircase and then becoming embarrassed all over again that we even have one. I lead her past the guest bedrooms—all of them painstakingly decorated by Mom and awaiting guests. One even has a silver tea tray and set arranged at the foot of the bed, hoping someone might pop in for a bite. I jerk the door shut as we slip past, praying Bristal didn’t spot it.

There’s no hiding the fact that I have a balcony attached to my room, but Bristal is mercifully silent, simply throwing herself across my made bed along with her backpack, which sports a bead lizard with a cigarette glued onto its mouth and a patch that reads, “In My Defense, I Was Left Unsupervised.”

“So,” she says, her face buried in a mountain of pink and purple throw pillows. “What’s first?”