“LikefuckI do.”
“Shut up!”
I snapped my mouth shut. Artemis had actual tears in her eyes. The others stood behind her, looking just as stunned as I felt. “Youdolove this town! You wouldn’t go around fixing porch lights and pruning mums in the middle of the night if you didn’t! You care about what happened here, and you carewhether tourists trash the place. You care about your mom and what she started. Your whole family came from here. You grew up here. I’m sorry about what I said before. I don’t think you’re a thief or a liar or a bad person, and I’m really sorry I was horrible to you. Idobelieve you. You don’t need to set anything on fire. You need to sit down. You probably need sleep and real food, and you definitely need a shower and new clothes. You look terrible.”
She paused, panting.
“You always say I look terrible,” I muttered.
She finally released me. “No, normally I say you look like a raccoon that got into garbage. This time I mean... ugh, Zora, really. Look at yourself. You’ve got bruises and cuts all over the place, your clothes are torn, you’re covered in soot and dirt. And Mads said you ran all the way here. You’re a mess. Mom, can you—?”
She turned to Greta. Greta, who had been watching silently with that unforgiving look in her eye and that hard set of her lips.
“Who knows that you’re here?” she said.
“Buster and the others,” I replied. “And you all.”
Now they’d heard my ranting. Did it matter anymore? Did it matter who knew and who didn’t?
“Have you called your dad or your sister?” Greta asked.
“No. My phone’s dead. I was coming back for the charger.”
“Mom,” Artemis said, “can they stay with us? Can she—”
Greta was nodding before she finished, fishing her phone out of her pocket. “The two of you get in the car; we’re going home.” She put the phone to her ear. After a moment, she said, “Lazarus, where are you now?”
Artemis towed me toward the car.
“Wait.” It was Lorelei who grabbed my sleeve. A ghost of a touch. Mads and Hal flanked her. “We know you didn’t set the fire at the motel,” she said, voice quivering. “Did Tad do it?”
That question made everything seem so simple. But the truth was anything but simple. “You wouldn’t believe the story if I told you.”
“We’re willing to listen, though.” Mads stepped up. Her black hair was in tangles now, but she didn’t stop to fix it. “Whatever’s going on, we know you aren’t doing it, and we want to help you prove it.”
Lorelei nodded vigorously, the most determination I had ever seen in her.
“You sure you don’t feel guilty because your dad pushed my house off a cliff?” I asked her.
“Of course I feel guilty,” she said. “But I want to help because it’s the right thing to do. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
I looked at Hal. He was still bandaged up and moving stiffly. “And you?” I said. “You were already in the crossfires ofthis thing one time. You really want to go again?”
“Are we going to take out the motherfucker who set me on fire?”
“Ideally.”
Hal considered for a moment, then tipped his head back. “Then you have the services of Hal Haynes III, local legend.”
“The story can wait,” Artemis said. “It’s too late tonight.”
“And I almost fell off a cliff,” I added.
“And it’s, like, twenty-five degrees too cold,” Hal finished.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll explain tomorrow.”
They agreed and retreated to their own cars. Artemis opened the back door of Greta’s Lexus. As I climbed in, I caught my foot on the doorframe and nearly collapsed on the seat. Sometimes you don’t realize how badly you need to sit until you’re crumpled on the cushions. I rested the axe carefully on the floor. My legs and arms shook hard, my muscles going haywire.
