I studied her, surprised. “Do you have a thing for Oat Willimena?” I started to sing the song of childhood torment. “Emmylou and Oat Dub sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S—”
“I do not.” Emmylou sniffed, turning away to put the eggs in the fridge. “Though I have seen enough flaccid man parts to last a lifetime.”
“Ow!” Alice cried, her face contorted in pain.
“What is it?” I said.
“She bit me!” Alice held out her forearm for inspection. I didn’t see any teeth marks.
“It was an accident!” Phoebe said.
I leaned down and looked Phoebe in the eye. “We do not bite other people. Those teeth are for chewing carrots, chicken nuggets, apples. Not for chomping your sister.”
She nodded slowly, eyes huge and remorseful.
Emmylou cocked an eyebrow at me. “You want to nip that in the bud before it becomes a thing.”
I swallowed my irritation. “We’ll talk about it more later, okay, Phoebs? You all right, Alice?” They both nodded, and Phoebe tried to distract me from her bad behavior by shaking a maraca and singing a song she’d made up called “Sad Mother Goes to Sexy Dance Class.”
Fifteen minutes later, I slid into the blessedly warm Porsche with its buttery leather seats. Layna’s locks had grown seven inches overnight.
“Nice hair,” I said.
“Thanks, babe. Five hours in the chair for this mane.” She gunned the engine and the car shot forward like a Hot Wheel out of the racing gate. “I’m hoping I can get a man tangled up in it. Remember that co-op cashier, Magnus?”
“I do not,” I said.
“Well, he’s cute and he told me he has a yoga-coaching business. Next time he checks me out—pun intended—do you think it’s too forward to hire him?”
“He’d be lucky to get to advise you on your downward dog.”
“Thanks! I just want to learn how to line men up and knock them down like bowling pins, you know?”
“Are you even going to ask?” I said.
“About the mansicle?”
“Yes, about that,” I said. Centrifugal force threw the back of my cranium into the head rest as she accelerated to pass a Bronco. I told her what the dead guy’s neck tattoo signified.
“That’s disgusting!” she cried.
“Yep. It’s slang mostly used by a hate group called Imperial Dominion in Obliterating Tyranny.”
“A white power group with the acronym IDIOT?” A derisive snort escaped her. “That’s too rich.”
“Exactly,” I said. “But they call themselves either ‘ID’ or ‘the Dominion.’ According to the internet, they’re a Pacific Northwest splinter gang that broke from the Aryan Brotherhood, because the AB prioritizes making money over racism. They’re into dark shit. Arms trafficking, drug trafficking, extortion, murder for hire.”
Layna’s phone dinged and, as she braked hard for a stop sign, she glanced at it. “It’s Gucci. She sent me Cheyenne’s Insta handle. It’s @cheyennethegoddess.”
While I didn’t expect Cheyenne to have posted any major clues about committing murder, I couldn’t help feeling hopeful. “Looking it up now,” I said. With her pink hair, Cheyenne’s profile pic was unmistakable. “This is her!”
In Cheyenne’s most recent post, from the day before, she was clustered with relatives in a hospital waiting room. I read the text caption outloud. “‘When I found out my dear Grammy had a stroke, I left my shift early and raced to the hospital. I’ve been here with my fam since ten last night. We’re praying Grammy pulls through.’”
“If she left Huckleberry’s and went straight to the hospital, she wasn’t hanging around murdering an IDIOT and stuffing him in your trunk,” Layna said.
My stomach sank like my phone that time Alice dropped it in the deep end of the YMCA pool. “Oh my god,” I said. “Was anyone even there when he died? What if everyone has an alibi but me?” Even coming out of my own mouth, the wordalibisounded official and terrifying. But I needed one.
“As soon as we get to Pole Kisses, you can talk to Shade,” Layna said. “He’ll know where you two went.”
