agreed?”
“Of course not. But we couldn’t just leave her there. She got in the backseat with Travis and I was riding up front with Chad. They were both pretty hammered.”
“Oh, God,” she moaned, not wanting to hear more.
“You promised I wouldn’t get in trouble,” he warned.
“I know,” she said, waving her hand. “Just-go on.”
“Well, Travis decided he should be the one to get the… favor from Angel. At first he was just teasing, but then he started getting aggressive.”
“How?”
“Holding her down and trying to kiss her. Stuff like that.”
Shay felt sick to her stomach. “Then what?”
“This whole time Chad was driving really crazy, so everyone was kind of, you know, bouncing around inside the cab-”
“Weren’t you wearing seat belts?” she asked, horrified.
“I took mine off when Travis started messing around with Angel. I finally got a grip on the back of his shirt and pulled him off her. She was kicking him and cursing up a storm in Spanish, which was pretty cool, ‘cuz I’m in Spanish IV now and I understood most of it.”
Shay covered her eyes, trying to block out the mental image.
“Meanwhile, Chad’s trying to drive with one hand and fight me with the other. Travis is yelling at me for interfering, saying she’s just a slut like her mother-”
Shay gasped.
“-and then they said some stuff about Mom.”
“What?” she whispered.
His animated expression fell flat, just like that. “They called her Looney Lilah.”
“Oh, Dylan,” she said, her heart breaking for him. Not knowing what to say or do, she reached out to put her hand on his shoulder.
He held up a palm, warding off her touch. “Chad must have decided Angel was too much trouble because he stopped the car and kicked us both out.”
“That bastard.”
“Yeah.”
“You walked all the way home?”
“We made it to the highway and Angel’s friends picked us up.”
Shay placed a hand over her pounding heart and took a calming breath. Stealing, drinking and driving, sexual assault… She’d had some wild nights in her youth, but nothing like that. She was shocked by the story and concerned for Dylan’s welfare, but she was also proud of him for helping the girl next door.
On top of all that, Shay was ashamed of herself for suspecting her own brother of arson. She studied him from across the cab, wondering what he was thinking. With his dark blond hair and vivid blue eyes, he was the spitting image of their father. She and Dylan had been on their own for most of their lives, but sometimes she didn’t think she knew him at all.
Every day, he drifted a little farther away.
Dylan squirmed under her perusal. “You don’t believe me,” he guessed. Like her, he always assumed the worst.
“I believe you,” she said, saddened by their stunted relationship. “And I think Angel should report Travis.”
“She doesn’t want her father to shoot him.”
“What if Travis attacks another girl? He might not get interrupted next time.”
“I’m pretty sure he learned his lesson.”
“Why’s that?”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “She kicked him really hard in the balls. His mom had to take him to the ER the next morning. I talked to him yesterday.”
“What about Chad? Has he called you?”
“He came by to apologize.”
“What did you say?”
“Fuck off.”
Shay smiled. “What time did you and Angel get home that night?”
“About two.”
“And you didn’t see Yesenia? You didn’t see anyone else at the Graveyard?”
“Just the people I told you about,” he said with a frown. “I guess we’re lucky the lion didn’t kill us instead of her.”
She nodded, thinking Yesenia had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But where, exactly, had she been?
“Go on,” Shay said, gesturing for him to keep driving. By the time they reached Palomar High School, she was plagued by worries. Her brother was acting out in some of the same ways she had as a teenager. Hanging with the bad crowd, living on the edge, taking unnecessary risks.
What a mess she’d been after her mother’s death. Ten years later and she still wasn’t over it. Neither was Dylan, she suspected.
“You won’t fight with Chad?” she asked as he pulled into the parking lot.
He shrugged.
Shay watched with growing panic as he got out of the car and tugged on his backpack. She stepped out also, meeting him in front of the bumper.
“Dylan,” she began, holding on to his arm. Her heart was beating fast again, her pulse racing, throat dry. “You know I love you, right?”
For a second, his eyes widened with surprise, and she saw her own pain reflected there. Then it was gone, shuttered behind the walls he always put up between them. “Whatever you say,” he muttered, and pulled away from her, just like he’d done a thousand times before.
14
Mike Shepherd was waiting for Luke when he came in to work that morning. Luke was late and it was Garrett’s day off, so the sheriff’s office was closed. About a dozen members of the press were camped outside the door anyway.
Mike didn’t look happy.
The warden of San Diego County’s Department of Fish and Game wasn’t one of Luke’s superiors, but he wasn’t someone Luke wanted to piss off, either. Groaning, he weaved through the media vans and parked as close to the building as possible, shouldering past photographers and reporters with a firm “No comment.”
Christ. The autopsy report hadn’t even been released yet.
Fumbling with his keys, he unlocked the front door, letting Mike and himself in before he locked the press out.
“Nice uniform,” Mike said drolly.
“Thanks,” Luke muttered, smoothing his hand down the front of his T-shirt. Both of his summer-weight uniforms were dirty, so he didn’t have much choice about the casual attire; one set smelled like smoke, the other stank of skunk.
“I heard you and Shay ran into some trouble yesterday.”
“From who?”
“Clay Trujillo.”
Luke had met Mike only once before, so he wasn’t sure how much information to reveal about the ongoing investigation. Shepherd was Native American, not Luiseno or Cahuilla, but from one of the many other tribes local to the San Diego area. He was the kind of man Luke had always envied, able to move about freely between both
