“It’s perfect,” Logan lied. “Am I allowed to make changes?” Logan wasn’t sure how long they planned to stay in Snakebite. She needed one of those TV makeover guys—the ones that her fathers referred to as the “bane of reality TV”—to bring her aesthetic to life.
“Of course.”
Quietly, Gracia stepped inside and closed the bedroom door. She peeked through the curtains at Brandon and Alejo, who were only halfway through the unloading process, then turned to face Logan. “I’m so happy you and your dad are finally here. Happy the three of you are together again. I think Brandon has been very … lonely.”
Logan arched a brow.
“He wanders around here all day. He’s always gone at night. I sit there all the time and wonder what he’s doing. People ask me what made him come back here. I tell them I don’t know.”
“Location scouting.” Logan inspected her nailbeds. “For the show.”
“Uh-huh. That’s what he told me. I thought you might know something else.” Gracia smiled, warm and bright. “It doesn’t matter anyway. People might not be happy to see the three of you here, but I—”
Logan squinted. “What do you mean they’re not happy?”
She thought of the crowd at the funeral, gathered like crows at the edge of the hill, silently staring down at her. It’d been so eerie she almost thought she’d imagined it. They’d looked at her like she was trespassing. Like she’d stumbled into their town from outer space.
Gracia waved a hand. “I have been wishing your dad would come home since the day he left.”
Dad. Singular.
Maybe Brandon was a mystery to Gracia, too. If she’d hoped to get the inside scoop, she’d picked the wrong source. Logan had spent years trying to get some kernel of truth out of Brandon. Gracia wasn’t the only one who found it easier to talk to Alejo.
“Can I ask you something?” Logan asked. “I saw a funeral on the way into town.”
“Oh.” Gracia’s voice was sharp. “It’s their service for the Granger boy.”
Logan perked up. When she’d asked Alejo what exactly they were investigating in Snakebite, his answers were vague at best. The usual stuff—dead crops, cold spots, strange noises. A dead kid was the kind of creepy small-town thing he should’ve mentioned. She leaned forward and propped her chin on her fist. “How’d he die?”
“He’s not dead, just missing,” Gracia clarified. “He probably ran away. Anyone you ask around here will tell you he was a good boy. They don’t think he would leave like that. The group he ran with, though … they’re not nice kids. They’re all rotten.”
Logan was silent.
“I hope he’s alive,” Gracia continued, “but a part of me hopes they don’t find him. If they finally lose one of those kids, maybe they’ll stop acting so high and mighty.”
Logan blinked. Gracia’s expression wasn’t warm anymore, but Logan couldn’t figure out what it was. The way the people at the vigil had looked at her like she was arriving by UFO, and now this strange, whispered blood feud. Something was wrong here, and not in the usual small-town way.
Outside, Logan could just make out her fathers’ voices.
“You want my advice? Ease up on the jokes.”
“You always joke with her. Why can’t I?”
Logan turned away from Gracia and peered out the window through the blinds. Alejo pulled a suitcase from the back seat of the minivan and tossed it onto the pile in the parking lot. Brandon stood next to him, fiddling with the latch on one of his bags. His expression was hard to parse—maybe embarrassment, maybe discomfort. He looked more out of place than usual, like the sun and the hills and the wide-open sky somehow disagreed with him.