It falls to me to handle Willa. To recruit her for the mission. To make certain that she isn’t contemplating throwing more suspicion in our direction to escape it herself. I’m in Dad’s car and he’s taking me home. He huffs into the rush of wind from his wide-open window. He’s indignant. He can’t grasp how anyone with half a brain would dare to suggest that his precious, bright, well-behaved daughter had anything to do with such a sordid business as Maggie Lewis, dead or alive. “To think,” Dad says, “I heard what people said about that girl, and I know most of that gossip was small-town-mindedness, because she was a girl who apparently enjoyed dating a lot of boys before Ben, and remember, I let her date my stepson and welcomed her into our home, but for God’s sake, you are my sweet little Bumblebee and that girl took your big brother from you, and you still tried to save her life.” Blood-warm shame washes over me. Indignation too that Dad says Bumblebee like I’m a doll he’s kept in her box, all neat and innocent.
