“Connor,” she said suddenly, and she had not been planning to ask but she did, before she could stop herself. “What happened to your mom and little brother?”

He stopped swinging his feet. He stared at her. All the lightness in his face fell away—it was like watching a plaster model disintegrate.

And it was only then, when he turned away, that she realized with a sinking feeling that he’d been about to kiss her.

“Why are you asking me that?” He wouldn’t look at her. His hands tightened on the safety bar.

He’d been about to kiss her. They’d crested the highest point of the circle and were descending now, into the bones of the scaffolding, under the shadow of other couples. “I just . . . I don’t know. I was curious.”

“Did Patinsky get to you, too?” As they skimmed over the ground again, the noise of the carnival rushed at them like a physical force. “She’s writing a book, you know. She says she just wants the truth. But she doesn’t. No one does. No one gives a shit.” Connor’s face passed temporarily into the light. “Did she tell you how I went psycho when I was a kid and bashed my mom’s head in with a lamp? How I splattered her brains across the pillow?”

They were rising again and Dea’s stomach was lurching. The shrieks from below were transforming into the screams from Connor’s dream. “Connor—”

“No, no. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Then I took my dad’s gun and put a bullet in my brother’s brain. Just held it up to his little head. Bam. Who else could have done it, right? Who else knew where the gun was kept?”

“Connor.” Dea’s throat was so tight she could barely get out his name. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He still wouldn’t look at her. “Nobody . . . nobody got to me. I mean, I haven’t spoken to anyone about you. I wouldn’t.”

“Fuck you,” he said, but instead of sounding angry, he just sounded tired.

They sat in silence. Although their thighs were still touching, Dea felt as if he were a thousand miles away. She fumbled desperately for something to say.

“I’m leaving,” was what came out. “Moving again. My mom told me this morning.” He didn’t say anything. They glided over the highest point of the Ferris wheel. Somewhere, out in the darkness, her mom was probably sweeping up the cat food, refolding her clothing. “I don’t want to go. I’m sick of it—all the moving. How I never have a choice. But mostly I don’t want to go because of you.” She hadn’t been sure she’d be brave enough to say the last words, so she said them all in a rush, pushing them out on one long breath. “I . . . like you. A lot.”

For a minute, he didn’t say anything. The ride stalled suddenly; they sat swinging over empty air.

He rubbed his forehead, like it hurt. “I don’t want you to go either,” he said. Just like that, the curtain between them had opened again. She felt a surge of relief so strong it was like joy. She put a hand on his arm.

“About what I said—what I asked—I’m so sorry—I never believed—”

“I was seven,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. As they plummeted again, his face was swallowed in darkness. “My dad was away. He was away a lot back then. Business. It was just me and my mom and my brother for Christmas.” His words came haltingly, as if this wasn’t a story he had told very often. But he must have—in court, in therapy, maybe even on the news. “Jacob was only one year old. He’d been the worst baby. He had colic. Do you know what that is?” He didn’t wait for her to shake her head. “He cried all the time. All the time. It drove my dad berserk. Mom, too. But then at six months he just . . . stopped crying. It was like he was all cried out. Then he was always smiling.”

She held her breath, afraid she might say or do the wrong thing again.

“It was Christmas Eve.” His voice had gotten so quiet she had to lean in to hear him. Now their shoulders were touching, too. “I went to bed early. I was so excited. You know how kids are about Christmas.” His hands were balled into fists in his lap. “It was the shot that woke me. The first shot didn’t kill her. It wasn’t meant to kill her.”

Dea shivered.

“There were men—I heard voices. Everything was so confusing. I heard my mom say please and no. I was so scared I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even hide. I was so scared I peed. I hadn’t peed the bed since I was two.” He glanced at her just for a second, as if to verify she wasn’t going to make fun of him. “Then I heard . . . a crack. We found out later that it was her skull. He took the lamp from the bedside table and just hammered her head in. Jacob was still screaming.” He closed his eyes. “I could have saved him.”

Dea found her hand in his lap. Connor squeezed it, hard. “You could have died,” she said.

He opened his eyes again. He interlaced his fingers with hers, and stared down at their hands. “They shot Jake in the middle of the forehead. Execution-style.” His voice hitched. “Do you know how small a one-year-old baby is? So small. With hands like little flowers.” He looked away and she saw his jaw working back and forth. She knew he was trying not to cry. “The cops said afterward that Jacob wasn’t really a target. They probably shot him just to shut him up, you know? So they’d have time to escape.”

Dea thought of the two faceless men she’d seen in Connor’s nightmare.

“I’m so sorry, Connor.” The words sounded stupid, even to her—insubstantial, narrow. Sorry was what you said when you accidentally bumped into someone in the supermarket, or forgot to do your homework. Where were the words for tragedies like this one?

“Thanks.” He coughed. They were on their last rotation now, coasting slowly through the air, stopping again every few seconds as passengers disembarked. The carnival felt like it was a million miles away. Silence expanded between them. She thought he was done talking, but then he said, “I saw them. Just before they left, I saw them. I crawled to the door. They had to go past my room to get to the front door, you know. I was practically shitting myself, I was so scared. But I cracked open my door, just an inch, so I would see them as they passed.”

“But the cops never caught them?” Dea asked.

He shook his head. “I—I couldn’t see their faces.” His voice was strangled, as if the words were choking him.

The ride was over. They touched ground, and two teenage kids with faces full of pimples stepped forward to disengage the safety bar. Dea was unsteady when she stood. She was suddenly disoriented by the whirring of arcade games and the smells of popcorn and hot dogs, the rapid-fire shouts, like jungle calls.

Connor didn’t let go of her hand. Something had changed between them, but she didn’t know whether it was a good or bad thing.

It started to rain just as they got back to his car. He put on the heat and she sat with the hot blast of air stirring the hair from her neck, tickling her throat, wishing there was something more she could say or do. She was tired, and frightened; she didn’t want to go home. Now she knew they couldn’t move—she couldn’t leave Connor. Somehow, he had become hers to care about and worry about and protect.

Halfway back to Fielding, the rain got so bad it sliced the headlights into thousands of fragments, pummeled the roof and windows, and turned the windshield into a solid sheet of water. The wind knocked the car back and forth across the road, and she could feel the wheels hydroplaning on the road. That’s how storms came in Indiana: quickly, without any warning.

It was too dangerous to keep driving. They could barely see the semis on the road until the trucks were on top of them, whooshing past them in a gush of wind, leaning on their horns. Connor found a McDonald’s off the highway and parked the car in a dark spot between streetlamps. Before Dea could stop him, he’d pushed out into the rain. He sprinted toward the entrance, arms up over his head, water kicking beneath his shoes. When he returned, he was carrying his jacket like a baby in his arms. As soon as he opened the door, Dea smelled fat and meat and delicious fried things, a smell that always reminded her of childhood. She hadn’t realized how long it had been since they’d eaten. She was starving.