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“If you dangle, the drop will only be eight or nine feet. Your driveway has a slight downward angle. Put your car in reverse, but don’t start the engine and don’t turn the lights on. Make sure you cover the dome light with your hand when you get in. You’ll roll all the way down to the road, where you can fire it up and come find me out at Far Cry.”

“It’s kind of alarming that you already had that figured,” I tell her. “But why can’t you just come pick me up at the end of the driveway?”

“This is for your own good, Chass,” Bristal says. “Be a rebel. Sneak out.”

“Fine,” I say as I throw myself across my bed. “You’ve got it. I’ll spend the afternoon with my good, nice, kind friend MacKenzie, and then I’ll sneak out after dark to a murder location to meet my other friend—you.”

“You hanging out with Kenzie tomorrow?” Bristal asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “She thinks I almost died and is just about losing her mind.”

“Cool,” Bristal says. “Tell her to say hi to her mom for me.”

“What?” I ask.

“She’ll know.”

Twenty-Five

I glance up as MacKenzie flops onto my bed the next afternoon.

“Bristal told me to say hi to your mom for her,” I dutifully relay the message.

“Yeah, she’s Bristal’s probation officer,” MacKenzie says.

“Ohhhhh,” I say, putting two and two together—a little slow, I might add. Last night’s events might have had more effect than I realize—the fires both inside and out of the house. I’d found a chance to apologize to Mom, but she’d only shaken her head, given me a hug, and told me she did want something better for me than what she had—that’s what all parents want. It was the perfect apology acceptance, in that it actually made me feel even more guilty.

“Oh my God, I mean really, are you okay, Lydia?” MacKenzie asks. “That was some no-joke, straight-up fire in your yard last night.”

“Yeah, six of them,” I tell her, tossing my phone aside.

“It was all over social media,” she tells me. “Liz Dayforth did not waste a second getting her pics up.”

“I know,” I say. “She had her phone out and was taking video before she even checked to see if we were okay. The firefighters had to ask her to move twice.”

“Nice neighbor,” MacKenzie says, rubbing her arms as goose bumps pop up. It got down to twenty by the middle of the night last night, and Dad says there’s no point running the heater with the living room standing wide open and facing north. The tarp Dad taped over the gaping hole sucks and pulls with the draft every time anybody opens a door.

“So, really, you’re okay? Like, everything’s fine? You sure you don’t want to come stay with us for a little while? Mom said you could,” MacKenzie says.

“I know, Dad said you guys offered—and thank you, but no. I’m not going to be chased out of my own house.”

“I figured you’d say that.” MacKenzie sighs and gets off the bed, pulling aside the curtain on the balcony door. I know what she sees without joining her: crime scene tape draped from tree to tree circling the front yard, six burned stop signs, dark circles of singed grass surrounding them.

“Why aren’t they gone yet?” MacKenzie asks, letting the curtain fall closed. “I mean, sorry, but they’re kinda creepy.”

“They’re doing an investigation,” I say. “The cops don’t want anybody touching the signs or whatever. I guess they’re bringing in an arson guy from upstate.”

“Can fingerprints survive fire?” MacKenzie asks.

“I seriously doubt it,” I tell her. “But they can probably identify the accelerant, and that could help lead to whoever did this.”

MacKenzie takes a deep breath and gives me a hard stare.

“What?” I ask.

“I’m going to say something you’re not going to like,” she says.

“Is this about Hamilton again? Because you’ve never even listened—”