“That’s my cue,” Gollum said, hauling Richie onto one hip. She was surprisingly strong for someone so thin. Dea guessed it came from working on a farm. “I’m going to head back before we get to emotional Armageddon. Say bye, Richie. Say bye, Mack.”

Mack shadowboxed Connor in response. Richie buried his face in Gollum’s shoulder and let out another wail. With an eye roll, Gollum disappeared into the crowd.

Leaving Dea and Connor together. Alone.

On a date. Dea quickly forced away the thought.

A group of guys wearing football jackets from a rival high school, obviously drunk, wove through the crowd, jostling one another, competing over who could be loudest. Two girls with thick black eyeliner and boobs practically to their chins smoked cigarettes by the fence, and waited to get hit on.

The sun reached up a final arm before drowning behind the horizon. While Connor went to buy more tickets, Dea waited just outside the small bumper car rink, watching the random collision of vehicles, thinking about Toby escaping and how she might never have met Connor if he hadn’t. Thinking life was like that: random collisions.

“Hey.”

Dea turned around and was shocked to see Morgan Devoe and Hailey Madison, who had never spoken to her once, who had never acknowledged her at all except to throw empty cans of soda at her head from the window of Tucker Wallace’s truck. Hailey was chewing on a straw, watching Dea curiously, like she was an ancient artifact whose use Hailey was trying to determine.

“What do you want?” Dea said. She wasn’t stupid. She knew they didn’t want to chat, and she wanted them to leave before Connor came back.

Morgan Devoe was supposedly the prettiest girl in school. Dea had never understood it. She had a wide face, blank as a dinner plate, and the dull eyes of a pig pumped full of tranquilizers. She always looked bored.

“You should be careful,” Morgan said, which wasn’t what Dea had expected her to say. She leaned up against the fence next to Dea. She smelled like butterscotch and menthol cigarettes and alcohol. She was holding a cup. Dea wondered what was in it.

“What?” Dea said.

“Connor,” Hailey said, like it was obvious, which was how Hailey said everything.

“What about Connor?” Dea said. She felt like she’d stepped into a rehearsed act. Dea was the only one who didn’t know her lines.

Morgan leaned closer. She was drunker than she’d first seemed. She put a sweaty hand on Dea’s arm. “Aren’t you worried he might go crazy again? Slit your throat when you’re not paying attention?”

“What—what are you talking about?” Dea said.

Morgan gaped at her. “You don’t know?” she said. She made a face at Hailey.

“She don’t know,” Hailey drawled, and giggled, working her straw between her teeth.

“Everybody knows.” Morgan turned back to Dea. She smiled big, so Dea could see the gum in her mouth. “He killed his mom. His brother, too. Beat his mom’s brains out, then shot his brother in the head the day before Christmas. He was, like, seven.”

“That’s not true.” Dea wrenched her arm away from Morgan’s grip. “That’s—that’s insane.”

“Cooked up some bullshit story about some men who busted in and did it. It doesn’t make sense though, does it?” Morgan’s teeth were very white. “Nothing was stolen. What kind of robbery is that?”

Dea’s stomach tightened. She was suddenly too hot. And nauseous.

“He was too young to go to trial,” Heather said. Her nails were painted hot pink, and had tiny decals of Playboy bunnies on them. “But everybody knows he did it. Some woman’s even writing a book about it. Bet she’ll call you soon, ’specially when she finds out Connor’s your boyfriend. She’s calling everybody.”

“Connor’s not my boyfriend,” Dea said automatically, and then wished she hadn’t. It made her sound ashamed of him. She remembered the message she’d heard on Connor’s answering machine the first day she’d gone over to his house. Someone calling from a university . . . a school for criminal justice . . .

“Will Briggs says Connor was jealous of the baby. Just lost it one day and . . . bam.”

“Shut up.” Dea squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. The girls were still there; still staring at her, swallowing back their fat, stupid smiles, sucking in their cheeks, waiting to burst out laughing the second she turned around. And she was on the verge of tears. She wouldn’t cry in front of them. “It’s not true. You’re making it all up.”

“We’re just looking out for you, Odea,” Morgan said, fake-nice. And before Dea could stop her or move or react, she’d licked a thumb and reached out and swiped Dea’s cheek with her saliva. “That’s for good luck,” she said, leaning close, breathing hot on Dea’s face. “You’re going to need it.”

Then they were gone—asses bumping right to left, the smell of booze trailing them—and Morgan’s spit was drying on Odea’s cheek, and Dea was fighting the urge to cry. She wiped her face with a sleeve and took three deep breaths.

“I’m back.” Connor was fighting his way through the crowd, holding a fistful of tickets in the air. He faltered when he saw her face. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” It was stupid to let Morgan and Hailey get to her. They’d probably made the whole thing up. Connor hadn’t killed anyone. Of course he hadn’t. But she kept thinking of the faceless men and their black-hole mouths and the screaming. “Just not sure I’m up for bumper cars after all.”

“Chickening out, huh? I’ll take it easy on you. I promise.” Connor reached out and touched her shoulder with two fingers, like he was afraid she’d break. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure,” she said. She had a sudden memory of Connor’s face, narrow and angry, appearing at the window. His mom stringing up ornaments behind him. Was there a baby crying somewhere in the apartment? How often did Connor dream about his family dying?

“Okay, no bumper cars,” Connor said. “But you can’t punk out on the Ferris wheel. Especially now that we know it’s a metaphor. You promised,” he added, before she could protest.

“All right,” she said. But evening had come and the magic of the day had been shattered.

Maybe, she thought, a move wasn’t such a bad idea. She could get a clean start.

Then she realized that a teeny tiny part of her believed what Morgan and Hailey had told her—that Connor had murdered his family. She felt an immediate rush of guilt. Connor was the nicest guy she’d ever met.

He was more than nice. He was amazing.

The Ferris wheel was old and the seats were narrow. Connor’s thighs pressed against Dea’s when they sat down; their elbows bumped when he looped his arms over the guardrail. She hadn’t been on a Ferris wheel in ages and was surprised by the sudden lifting in her chest, the swooping sense of happiness and fear, as the seat began to rise, stopping every six feet while the operators collected tickets and admitted more passengers onto the ride.

Up and up, until Dea’s swinging feet looked like a giant’s, as if she could squash the small smudgy people on the ground. Until the whole scene looked like a child’s toy, and she imagined Morgan and Hailey were just toys, too, little plastic models instead of people.

They were stopped at the very top of the Ferris wheel. The view made her breathless. Connor swung his feet, making the whole seat sway. He turned to face her. “You scared?”

“No,” she said, which was true. Funny how leaving the ground could change everything, make the whole world feel remote and small and insignificant. No wonder birds made the best harbingers. Even in dreams, they couldn’t be contained.

“I’m glad I met you, Dea.” He was smiling. In the darkness, up here, she couldn’t see the color of his eyes. “You’re . . .”

“What?” They were close again. He had twisted around to face her.

“I don’t know. Different.” Something changed in his face—a nuance she couldn’t have described, a definite switch.