I remember the boom. It was the sort of sound you heard with your bones rather than your ears, a great silent heave in the atmosphere. Jasper slept through it, but I sat up for hours, watching the sickly orange of the sky above the plant and wondering how many funerals it meant （four）。
Ashley is leaning even closer, dark and eager. “And after all the fire trucks and EMTs cleared off, and it was just Dan in the parking lot again, he went looking for the Chevy. It was gone, but there was a trail of blood leading up to where it was, and a whole pool where it sat. Dan said it gave him a chill.” A small silence, then: “And he said there were blackbirds everywhere, lined up on the light poles and power lines, watching him, dead silent.” I bet they weren’t blackbirds; I bet if you saw them in the light their feathers would have a queer iridescence, like used motor oil.
“It was a defect in the turbine.” My lips feel stiff, strangely cold. “There was a whole report.”
Ashley rubs a palm across the gold cross, smoothing it. “Dan saw what he saw. He reported it to the constable, but by the time they went asking around, both those Starlings were dead.”
I’ve spent more time than is strictly rational studying the portraits in the yellow parlor of Starling House. Arthur’s mother: hard-faced, strong, her knuckles scarred and swollen just like her son’s. His father: long-lashed and over-tall, like a bashful greyhound standing on his hind legs. Neither of them struck me as ecoterrorists or mass murderers, but what do I really know about them? What do I really know about Arthur, with his cold silences and secrets?
Ashley is watching me with an awful compassion in her face. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Opal. I wouldn’t trust a one of them. That young man—Alexander?—is likely just as bad as his parents, and twice as ugly, if you ask—”
“I’ll wait in the truck.” I walk back down the drive, berating myself. Why should I give a single lukewarm damn what anyone says about Arthur Starling? So he gave me a coat. So I’m driving his father’s truck, which he cleaned up just for me, which he touched as if it were a poorly healed scar, still tender. He can’t even bring himself to say good night.
Jasper slides into the passenger seat three minutes later, slamming the door hard enough to send paint chips skittering down the windshield. “Since when,” he says, with frankly dangerous calm, “do we have a truck.”
“Got it off the Rowe boys,” I lie, blandly.
He looks pointedly at the broken handle of the glove box, the sun-faded dashboard, the seams of the bench seat, which are splitting to reveal crustaceous layers of yellow foam, lightly fuzzed with mold. “You got ripped off.”
I turn the key in the ignition, already concerningly fond of the bronchial cough of the exhaust. “You don’t even know how much I paid.”
“You paid for this? Like, legal tender?” He cuts me off before I can make a case in the truck’s defense. “Is there some kind of emergency? Did your appendix burst? Because I can’t think why else you would see fit to drag me away from the dinner table—”
“I wanted pizza.”
A small nuclear reaction occurs in my peripheral vision. “Mr. Caldwell made chili—”
I slide a twenty out of my back pocket. “Real pizza.” Both of us are aware that this is a blatant and heartless bribe, that I am relying on his adolescent metabolism and the fact that Dan Caldwell uses bell peppers in his chili so it doesn’t get “too spicy.”
A moment of taut silence. Then, skeptically, “With wings?”
My phone buzzes halfway through the second box of pepperoni.
It’s that faraway number again. Please send interior photos of building to [email protected] by 8:00pm on Friday. We look forward to working with you.
Jasper is watching me when I look up. He’d thawed somewhat beneath the sheer weight of calories, but his face is closed and tense again. “Who was that?”
I do a masterfully casual shrug. “Lacey. That guy asked for her number again at work and I told her to give him Bev’s instead.”
Jasper doesn’t even pretend to smile. He nods at the grease spots on his paper plate. “Okay.” He shoves the plate in the trash and slouches into the bathroom. A minute later I hear the petulant white noise of the shower.
I steal his laptop and waste a few minutes conducting a series of ineffective searches （“elizabeth baine isc,” “isc group,” “innovative solutions consulting”）。 All I get is a series of stock photos and corporate pages so devoid of actual information it feels like an elaborate joke. The ISC Group is committed to finding solutions to every problem. Our consultants have a long history of bold strategies and innovative techniques.