“Your living situation. Four girls living here right next to all those boys living just over there. They’re your landlords?” We nod. “And how’s that work, exactly?”
“They own the house, we pay them to live here,” I say. “Pretty straightforward.”
“You signed a lease?”
We’re quiet, knowing the boys are probably breaking some kind of city rule by letting us live here. I doubt they have a rental license; we never signed anything or scanned our IDs. Like Lucy had told me that night on the roof, the house probably isn’t even up to code, structurally sound, safe for daily living. We just hand over an envelope of cash every month, under the table, and they fix the things that need to be fixed when they feel like it.
“There’s a power imbalance here that I don’t like,” he says when we don’t respond. “It’s probably a good thing you’re moving soon.”
“Did you find anything?” I ask, jerking my head toward the house, an attempt at changing the subject. They found her phone, I’m sure, among other things.
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
I watch as Detective Frank pokes his head into the shed again before closing the door and walking back toward us.
“We’re worried about her,” Sloane says. “We really think she got spooked and ran.”
“And why would she do that?” he asks. “Why would she run if she has nothing to hide?”
“Because that’s what Lucy does,” I interject, folding my arms. “She ran away from home after high school. It doesn’t mean she did anything wrong.”
“Look, girls.” Detective Frank takes a few more steps in our direction, squatting down. I can’t tell if he’s trying to come across as sympathetic, on our side, or intimidating by making himself eye level with us. Either way, seeing him wobble around on his toes like that, seeing the knees and groin of his pants pull too tight against the tension of his weight, just makes him look a little pathetic. Like an adult using the slang of kids half his age. “I know you know more than you’re letting on.”
Nobody speaks, a heavy silence settling over us except for the occasional click of gravel. Nicole’s still tossing those stones and I wish she would stop. It’s a nervous habit, I think, like Sloane picking at her cuticles. She needs to give her hands something to do.
“I’ve tried to be patient with you, but I’ll be honest, it’s starting to wear thin. So we can do this the easy way, with you cooperating here at home, or we can do it the hard way with you down at the station.”
“You know what? Fine,” Nicole says suddenly, finally directing her attention toward him. She drops the rest of the rocks and stands, wiping the white residue on her shirt. “Maybe Lucy did do something to Levi, okay? Maybe she did.”
“Nicole—”
I watch as she juts out her hand, silencing Sloane, her gaze still on the detective crouched a few feet below her.
“I’m sick of being treated like criminals when we haven’t done anything wrong.”
Sloane and I are quiet, Nicole’s outburst echoing around us, the tension thick and sticky like a gust of hot, humid air. Detective Frank raises his eyebrows, quiet, waiting for her to continue.
“She did say all that stuff—”
“Nicole,” Sloane warns.
“What stuff?” Frank asks, attention unyielding.
“About murder,” she says. “Justifying it.”
“She didn’t mean that,” I say, thinking back to that night at Penny Lanes. To all of us sitting in that circle like a séance, bobbing heads and tired eyes as we murmured to each other about deviance, about death. “We were just messing around.”
“She said everyone would do it,” Nicole continues. “For the right reason—”
“Okay.” Sloane stands up now, too, placing her hand on Nicole’s back. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re going back inside now. We’re all exhausted.”
“Withholding information from an investigation is illegal,” Frank says, watching Sloane as they start to walk away. “We can charge you with obstruction.”
“Can you?” Sloane asks, whipping back around. “Because we’ve already told you everything we know. Lucy talks a lot, okay? But half of what she says is bullshit. We all know better than to believe her.”
Detective Frank is quiet, ignoring her outburst, eyes darting back and forth between Sloane and Nicole standing rigid before him.