The Dead and the Dark(22)

Logan cleared her throat. “Do people think my dads hurt someone?”

“I don’t know who put that on—”

“I’m not saying you know anything,” Logan said, hands raised in surrender. “I’m asking about what it said. Do people think my dads hurt that guy, or is this how you guys greet all gays?”

Ashley blinked, briefly staggered by how casually Logan said it. “I don’t really have an opinion.”

“Oh my god. I’m not asking your opinion. I’m asking if everyone in this town thinks my dads killed someone.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

Logan exhaled. “Why?”

“Tristan went missing in January. A week after your dad got here.” Ashley cleared her throat. “You have to admit, it’s kinda…”

“I don’t have to admit anything,” Logan said. “Where did people see him last?”

Ashley closed her eyes. “I was the last one who saw him. He was over at my place. And then he disappeared.”

“Oh.” Logan’s eyes widened. “Were you two—”

“Dating. Yeah.”

“Yikes.”

It was the most inappropriate reaction to the disappearance that Ashley had heard so far. And somehow, it was the most refreshing. Logan bundled her arms into her sweater sleeves and crossed her arms. “You’ve been looking for him?”

“Yeah,” Ashley said. “It’s weird, but it’s like I still feel him here. I have these flashes of him, like he’s right next to me. And then last night…”

Logan pressed her fingers to her lips, considering. Warm wind buffeted along the highway, warmer than it should be this early in the morning. Beads of sweat pricked at the back of Ashley’s neck. After a moment, Logan exhaled.

“You want help finding him?”

Ashley paused. “Why would you help me?”

“Because if we find him, he’s not dead. And everyone will know my dads didn’t do anything.”

Ashley nodded. “That makes sense.”

“It doesn’t have to be a whole thing,” Logan said. “Let’s just go to where you saw him last night.”

Ashley’s eyes widened. “Now?”

“Why not?” Logan asked. Her half-smile was unsettlingly amused. “I help you, you help me. And once we find your boyfriend, my dads can finish the show and leave.”

Ashley extended a hand. She wasn’t sure if this was the kind of arrangement where you shook hands, but it felt right. The wind that slipped between them was soft as a whisper.

Logan took her hand and shook.

“Temporary partners,” Logan said.

Ashley smiled. “Sounds good to me.”





11


The Piano-String Woods


Logan sat in the passenger’s seat of Ashley’s truck in the gravel driveway of Barton Ranch.

Sunlight glinted from the perfectly square windows of the ranch house, framed by pristine white siding and gray trim. The walkway to the black front door was lined with hedges, each one packed with blooming white flowers. Beyond the house were stretches of pasture that looked as if they went on forever. The horizon was a patchwork of green and gold. It looked like the kind of place she’d see on HGTV, pretty and sprawling and nondescript. At least there was no picket fence.

She tried to shake off the weight of her night. The last few hours were a blur—the nightmare, the slur on her fathers’ door, the police station, and now this. Now she was waiting for Princess Snakebite herself to emerge from her quaint ranch house in clean clothes so they could investigate her missing boyfriend.

Logan couldn’t make it up if she’d tried.

Finally, Ashley stepped out of the house in a baseball cap and a faded yellow T-shirt that read BARTON LUMBER. She looked a thousand times more awake than the girl Logan had met in the police station an hour ago, but shadows still circled her bright blue eyes. She was putting on a happy face, but there was only so much it could cover.

Ashley climbed into the driver’s seat. “Ready?”

Logan threw on her sunglasses. “Is this your dad’s truck?”

“Nope,” Ashley chimed. “She’s all mine.”

“This is the car that you drive?”

Ashley scoffed. “Tell me the last time you hauled something in a Tesla.” Her voice was more rural when she said Tesla, like the word itself was a rusty tool she’d pulled from her belt for the first time in years.

“You’re so full of shit. I’d never drive a Tesla.”

“Should you tell your dads where we’re going?” Ashley asked.

“They won’t care.” Logan eyed the ranch house. “Did you tell your parents where we’re going?”

Ashley grimaced.

“Cool. A secret mission.” Logan smiled. “Let’s do it.”

They pulled away from Barton Ranch and followed the dusty highway until the single-story houses of Snakebite fell away and only golden hills and divots of gravel remained. The landscape was miles from Logan’s visions of the northwest. She’d spent years imagining emerald forests and misty mountain ranges and lonely, tree-tunneled roads. Instead, she got hills that looked like clenched knuckles, rolling one after the other into nowhere.