“That’s a nice trick,” he says, dropping my chin. “But it doesn’t make you less of a criminal. It doesn’t prove anything to me. Put your eye back in and get up.”

Bunny will be so disappointed if she has to bail me out of jail. Criminal. Will I lose my scholarship? Will I lose her?

That’s when Odette rescues me.

“I think I have something that will,” I say. “Prove something to you.”

48

Tender, resilient, strong, resourceful, kind, empathetic.

Finn is reading to me again, this time at the kitchen table. My backpack is between us. He’s fingering the soft piece of paper I pulled from a hidden pocket.

Light falls through its cracks from all the times Odette and I have unfolded and folded it. The taped corner where someone ripped it out of my hands. The wrinkled spot that I always imagined was made by Odette’s tears.

“That was a gift from Odette.” I’m begging him. “Words her father wrote to remind her who she was.”

“I know exactly what this is. She always carried it with her. Called it a good luck charm. Was superstitious about it. She helped a lot of girls. But you must have been something special for her to give this to you.”

They seem like generous words. But I’m not so sure. Is there resentment that I had her piece of luck with me when she died? Suspicion that she didn’t give away this piece of paper willingly? I feel like I have to convince him.

“She gave this to me on the day she disappeared,” I whisper. “Maybe her last day on earth. I can’t forget that. It makes me think … she knew something was about to happen to her. I keep trying to remember every word she said. I promise I didn’t steal this from her.”

“That’s not what I think,” he says stiffly. “This piece of paper has no value unless it was a gift. What’s really your game plan here, Angelica?”

I have a list of suspects I want to meet. And you’re on it. That’s my game plan.

“I wanted to see this town for myself,” I say slowly. “I felt I owed it to Odette. That maybe I could learn something. Surprise a few people.” I slap on my most sincere Oklahoma girl smile. He doesn’t buy it.

“You’re barely an adult. I have more than ten years on you and I’m a lawyer. So trust me when I say that the ‘surprising people’ strategy is an excellent path to trouble. I appreciate your motivation, your dedication to my wife’s memory, but the best way you can honor her is by continuing to stay alive. Go home. That’s what she would want.”

He slides the piece of paper back across the table. I don’t move to pick it up. I’m holding back fury, not just at Finn, but at every adult involved who hasn’t bothered to find the answers. Odette might as well be buried under a one-ton rock on an invisible planet in another galaxy and Trumanell floating a million light years past her.

“I have been ‘barely an adult’ ever since I can remember.” My voice is shaking. “There was a reason fate brought us together. Odette told me she believed that. She thought it was so she could save me. But I think she was wrong. I think I was supposed to save her.”

Finn doesn’t speak for a long time. He reaches across and taps the piece of paper. “There’s a word missing on here for both you and Odette. Stubborn. It’s what got her killed.” He doesn’t say crazy, which is a word I’ve almost scribbled on there myself.

He’s taking in my face like it’s a whole thing, no darting around or awkwardness about where to look. How he must have looked at Odette the first time, too, because otherwise she never would have married him.

“She was so brilliant,” he is saying quietly. “And she was so stupid.” His eyes blink. This big man in a tie is either trying not to cry in front of me or he’s a terrific pretender.

And then he lays a possessive hand on one of the straps of my backpack. “Do you have a license for that gun?”

I nod. “It’s in my car.”

“Your driver’s license says you’re eighteen. You had to purchase it through a private sale at that age in Texas to be legal. Did you?”

I nod again. Both nods are lies. I want his hand off my backpack. I’m not about to tell him the truth—that I took the gun from the bottom of the toolbox in the garage where Bunny kept it. That I’ve practiced shooting at Coke cans for six months but I’m still a little off. A lot off, really.

“I tell you what,” he says. “Let’s use each other. I’ll let you stay here for several days. In return, you can clean out closets and drawers. Pack some stuff in boxes for Goodwill. Or trash it. Maybe this will move the process along for both of us.”

“You don’t want to do that yourself?” I spurt out. “You aren’t worried I’ll steal something? Overlook something you want? Don’t you want to know more about me? I will be a biochem major at the University of Texas in the fall. I can curse in Spanish. I’m a champion Texas Mathlete. What else do you want to know?” Rambling, rambling, rambling.

“What did you think of the statue?” he asks abruptly.

“The one in the cemetery? It’s like a vampire mated with Queen Elizabeth.”

He laughs. “I get why Odette liked you. She was a girl with an edge, too. As for this house, I’ve always hated it. I want everything in it to go away. As for who you are, I’ve got your driver’s license number, and I’m going to find out a few things. Invading your privacy seems like a fair trade for you invading mine. To be clear, I don’t live here anymore. But I think you know that. I think you know a lot of things.”

I do. I know he keeps a new toothbrush and his wedding ring in the medicine cabinet. I know that a gun of his was hidden in the toilet tank when I looked a little while ago, which is plain amateur for a man who calls himself Odette’s husband. I know that gun is probably the same one I just saw tucked in the back of his pants, in case I turned out to be a problem.

I know that at least one tabloid speculated that his high-rise Dallas apartment was courtesy of Odette’s life insurance policy. I know that several Greenville Avenue bartenders have been quoted saying he has a drinking problem.

I know there is a first edition of Huckleberry Finn signed Samuel Clemens in his bedside table, with an old birthday card from Odette tucked in the middle. I know I will not let him throw that book away.

Finn stands up, glancing at his watch. “I have an appointment in ten minutes. I’ll be in touch.” He’s already across the room, hand resting on the kitchen doorknob. “Where did you learn to pick locks?”

“That’s a crap lock,” I say. “A third-grader could pick it. One more thing. A little favor, which I have no right to ask, considering. Nobody knows I’m here but you. Will you please not tell anyone? Not even … Maggie?”

“You know Maggie? Odette’s cousin?” Surprise.

“Odette took me to her house … after I was found. Just for a couple of days. I do plan to see her before I go. And Lola. Just not immediately.”

“Maggie and her husband never mentioned you.”

“I wrote to her from the group home and asked her to keep it a secret. There was a good reason. Personal. Things were crazy there at the end … with Odette missing. Maggie felt guilty for dropping me off with a social worker. Sticking me in the system.” So guilty. Lola, sobbing.

I don’t mention Wyatt Branson and a field of dandelions.

Or explain that my father is a murderer. Finn will find out about that soon enough. I mean, he’s a lawyer. He has my driver’s license number.

“Are you afraid of something else you’re not telling me?” he asks quietly.

I open my mouth to lie. Change my mind. “Maybe,” I say. “Yes. Always. I just can’t talk about it.”

He considers that for a few seconds. “I won’t mention your presence here as long as you don’t do anything that would require my professional services. Deal?”

“If the neighbors notice and ask why I’m here?”

“Tell them you rented from me on Airbnb. Tell them to give me a call.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t disappoint me. The empty boxes are in the garage. The house keys are taped under the silverware box in the drawer.” He walks over and scratches some numbers on the chalkboard, under the stick figure. “My cell. Use it. About the house. About any noises in the night.”

I shut and lock the kitchen door behind him. He is as magnetic and attractive as Wyatt Branson, just in a very different way. What Bunny would call erudite, although she pronounces it like Aphrodite. I can understand the tug and pull that all the tabloids said Odette had going on between her husband and old boyfriend.

I’m struck with something that feels a little like joy. I have a guilt-free place to stay. An official order to go through Odette’s things.

Day two, and I’m making progress.

Certainly, I’m bothering people on my list.

Finn’s car revs outside the window. I lean across the sink and peek out the pineapple curtains. Blue convertible. Creamy white leather. He backs out like a man who never doubts himself turning the wheel of anything, a car or a game of roulette.

I feel the joy fading. There has to be another reason Finn is allowing a strange girl like me to stay in his house. Maybe keeping me a secret, controlled, where he can find me, is exactly what he wants.