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“Wow, talk about privilege.”

“Besides, I’d rather get information from a source that actually knew Denise, like when we talk to your uncle. Picking through online arguments and trying to infer who is blowing steam and who actually knows something valuable feels a little pointless if we can just straight-up ask Dover.”

I don’t mention that the interview is going to go a lot deeper—and get a lot darker—than that.

“Okay, I’ll let it slide for now,” Bristal says, resting her phone on her leg as she takes another drag from her vape pen. “But if Dover’s a dud, I’m revisiting the subject. So tomorrow is a go?”

“Yeah,” I tell her, trying to take another drink of beer, but misjudging the distance to my mouth and dumping some on my chin instead. “I talked MacKenzie into picking me up and claiming we’re going shopping. We’ll meet up with you and go on to the prison.”

“That’s a good friend.” Bristal nods.

“Mostly she’s convinced you’re going to kill me,” I admit.

“Even better friend, then, if she’s willing to take the risk on your behalf,” Bristal says. “How’s the tornado episode coming along?”

“Okay.” I sigh, rolling down my window all the way and hanging one wrist limply out of it. “There’s just a ton of material, and I’ve got to sift through it all. Talking to Dover is the last thing on my list. We’ve got that video of him from the day after the tornado, and I think it’s a good way to start the conversation with him, move on to Denise from there.”

“Yeah, the ‘at least I didn’t get hurt’ video,” she says, still clearly impressed by her uncle’s nonchalance about his own injuries. Given the line of purple x’s marching down her calf right now, I can see that the apple doesn’t fall far from that particular family tree.

“Which reminds me . . .” She reaches into the back again, pulling her backpack up to the front. “Despite the steel-bear-trap, crystal clear clarity of my memory, I did actually take notes when I talked to everyone out here on Far Cry about Randall Boggs. When I told them we were working on a podcast about the long stretch, they all wanted to share their tornado story.”

“Of course they did,” I say, leaning my head back against the head rest, which promptly falls off and lands in the back seat. “I think I broke your car.”

“My car’s fine,” Bristal says, waving it off as she digs in her backpack, producing a yellow legal pad. The first four pages are filled with her writing, precise and neat, running margin to margin. She hands it over to me, and I flip through. The dates, times, and locations of the people she’d spoken to are all recorded, along with some direct quotes.

“Nice work,” I tell her, impressed.

“I know everybody’s got a tornado story,” Bristal goes on. “But the people out here on Far Cry have a different perspective. They weren’t actually in it, but they watched it go through town, had people’s stuff falling out of the sky and landing in their yards. Every single person out here wanted to tell me about their dogs, too.”

“Their dogs?” I ask, looking up from the paper.

“Yeah, you know how they say animals know when a storm is coming? They act funny, or whatever?”

“I’ve heard stories like that,” I say. “Something like they can feel the barometer pressure more keenly than humans can.”

“It’s definitely a thing,” Bristal says. “But people in town had a more immediate experience of the tornado. What they remember is buildings coming down, cars flying through the air, toppled poles and lost people. Out here, they didn’t get that, so the smaller details stand out.”

She reaches out and taps the yellow pages of the legal pad. “Every single one of these people out here on Far Cry wanted to tell me about their dogs losing their damn minds right before the tornado came through.”

“Huh,” I say, lifting the pages to scan them. “That could be interesting.”

“I thought so, maybe,” Bristal says, pulling off her vape pen again. “Different angle.”

“Hey, can I try that?” I ask, eyeing her pen.

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “Shit’s expensive. And all the gas stations got it locked up tight, so I can’t lift it. Just bum some cigs off your mom.”

“For the last time,” I say, letting the pages fan back into place. “My mom doesn’t smoke.”

“Uh-huh,” Bristal says, picking up her phone.

Mine vibrates, and I reach for it only to see a text from Bristal—the picture of my mom smoking.

“Whatever,” I say, about to rattle off a nasty reply when I stop, my unfocused eyes seeing something for the first time.

“Bristal,” I say, my voice tremulous and wavy, the cool air of the night slipping into the car and raising goose bumps on my skin, “my mom doesn’t smoke,” I say.

“You do stick to your guns, I’ll give you—”