“Dad?” she said. “Mom? What’s going on?”

“Your sister is in trouble,” Eddie said. “I’m headed to the police station. You go back to bed, please.”

“What kind of trouble?” Hope asked. The police station wasn’t good, but it was better than the hospital. “Is she hurt?”

“Not yet,” Eddie said. “At least not until I get a hold of her.”

Oh boy, Hope thought.

Grace said, “You’re such a good girl, sweetheart. But your sister…”

Hope didn’t want to hear it. She retreated to the safety of her bedroom and closed the door before Grace could finish her sentence.

Hope was such a good girl, but Allegra was… not. Nope, not at all. She and Ian Coburn had been caught out in Ram’s Pasture, sitting on the hood of Ian’s Camaro in just their underwear, drinking Wild Turkey and smoking weed. Further search of the car by police turned up a quarter ounce of cocaine, enough to arrest Ian, who was nineteen.

The police officer who found them was Curren Brancato, although it had been the chief of police who had called the house, as a courtesy to Eddie.

More interesting than what happened to Allegra was how Hope found out about it. At five thirty in the morning, she was awoken (with a funky mouth and the stench of vomit in her room) by a text from Brick Llewellyn.

It said: I saw the photo. Your sister was cheating and you knew and you didn’t tell me.

And Hope thought: What photo?

Hope responded: ??????????

Brick texted: Hollis sent me a photo of Allegra and Ian in their underwear sitting on Ian’s Camaro. They got caught smoking dope and drinking by our friend Officer Brancato. Ian = cocaine dealer = going to jail.

As Hope was processing this, there was a knock on her door.

“Come in,” Hope croaked.

Allegra tiptoed in, closing and locking the door behind her. She slipped into bed next to Hope.

“Whoa,” Hope said. This kind of physical proximity to her sister was extremely unexpected. Allegra and Hope used to do things like snuggle in bed together and flip each other over in cheerleading moves, but it had been years and years since Allegra had voluntarily touched Hope. Hope thought she might welcome Allegra’s return to the bubble of their twinhood, but she merely felt disgusted.

A second text came into Hope’s phone, and as Allegra shook and wept into Hope’s pillow, Hope checked it. There was the picture of Allegra and Ian. Ian was in just a pair of navy-blue boxer briefs, with a bottle of Wild Turkey between his legs. Allegra was in her pale-pink bra and panties—for a second Hope thought she was nude—and she was pinching a joint at her lips. Her eyes were closed on the inhale. This photographic evidence was so damning that Hope immediately deleted it, even while realizing that this didn’t make the picture go away. Who had taken it? Hope wondered. Then, she realized, it must have been Officer Brancato. With his own personal phone. And he texted it to Hollis. This must have been some kind of professional breach of ethics, right? It hardly mattered, because, as the old adage went, a picture was worth a thousand words, and all thousand of these words said that Allegra was doing drugs, drinking, and cheating.

For the first time in years and years, Hope felt bad for her sister. She patted Allegra’s hair and rubbed her back in circles.

“Sorry I don’t smell that good,” Hope said. “I puked.”

“I don’t care,” Allegra said. “I probably don’t smell like flowers either.”

True, Hope thought. Marijuana, booze, cigarettes—or, as Mrs. Aguiar in the rectory office would say, the odors of hell and damnation.

“What are you the most upset about?” Hope asked.

This question was met with an extended bout of tears. Hope continued to rub her sister’s bony back. Allegra barely ate; possibly, she was still holding out for that modeling contract. Or she was so thin because she snorted cocaine with Ian Coburn off the dashboard of the red Camaro. Nothing, at this point, was beyond the realm of possibility.

“Ian going to jail?” Allegra said. “Brick hating my guts? Hollis telling everyone I’m a slut? Curren Brancato busted us. He took a picture. I thought he would be cool about it. I thought he would just let us go. But he was out to prove himself, or whatever. Big man on the Nantucket police force. As soon as he got back to his squad car, he texted the picture to Hollis. And Hollis, my own best friend, my soul sister, texted it to the rest of the universe.”

Hope tried to think up some words of comfort. Hollis had sent the picture out. She and the rest of Allegra’s friends were a gang of backstabbing opportunists.

“Mom and Dad are pissed,” Allegra said. “Dad grounded me.”

“Wow,” Hope said. Eddie never grounded Allegra, but apparently being called in the middle of the night by the chief of police had done the trick.

“And he took my phone,” Allegra said.

“Oh boy,” Hope said.

“Can I use yours, please?” Allegra asked. “I need to text Brick.”

“Just call him from the landline,” Hope said.

“Let me use your phone.”

“No,” Hope said. “I’m not comfortable with that.”

“Not comfortable?” Allegra said.

“Sorry,” Hope said.

Allegra’s face took on an expression that Hope thought of as Standard Operating Bitch, but then, perhaps realizing that wouldn’t get her what she wanted, she dissolved into tears. “What should I do, Hope?”