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I
t’s Will’s idea to meet in the cabana out behind the garage just after I get back to Joules’s place. It’s late, very late, nearly three in the morning, but he insists. Says that after a depressing day of losing to the Chino Wildcats, after being rudely interrupted in the bushes earlier, that he needs to see me. And that he has something to say to me.

I should go straight back to the bridge. I could have stopped the break-and-enter if I’d made the wish earlier this morning, and I’m crazy with guilt and determined to right everything and everyone I’ve wronged.

But I’m tired after the interrogation. I promise myself to head back there first thing in the morning. Even though Sue and Nigel are still up, I tell Will to come on over.

A girl like Andrea Birch doesn’t get an invitation from Will Sherwood every day. What possible harm can come from waiting a few more hours at this point?

I, of course, have a very short commute from my bedroom window. I go around behind the pool so Nige and Sue won’t see me. They’re in the living room, lying on the couch pretending to watch something on TV. Sue’s hand is up Nigel’s shirt.

What I didn’t count on was the cabana door being locked. I have absolutely no idea where to find a key, and
asking Nigel is not an option. So I sit on the patio, leaning against the door, and wrap my sweater around my knees as I wait for Will.

The moon is huge tonight. Not quite full but in another night or so it will be. It seems hung so low I could reach up and touch it. Pluck it from the sky and use it as a pillow. Aware that I might not be as hidden as I think, I shift farther into the shadows.

He doesn’t take long—he appears from behind a row of cypress trees on the far side of the yard, with a big grin on his face. Without a word, he pulls me to my feet and rattles the cabana door. “Locked?”

I shrug. “I don’t have a key.”

He glances around the backyard and nods toward the pool, which is steaming in the cool night air. “Skinny-dip?”

I point to the window, through which we can see Sue climbing onto Nigel’s lap. “Too risky,” I say. I try the rear door to the garage and it opens. “In here.”

The moonlight pouring in from the garage window is bright enough that we can see fairly well. I pull a tarp off a shelf and spread it on the floor in a darkish corner, crawl across it and wait.

But Will is standing agape in front of the Model T. He runs his hands along the door. “Are you kidding me? Nige has a Flivver?” The window is rolled down and he touches the cracked leather seat the way I wish he would touch me. “This is gorgeous. I mean, seriously great.” He looks over my way. “Have you been in it?”

I nod. “The other night. We took it out to Balboa Island. Also …” It would be too complicated to explain I just had
a ride home in it half an hour ago. “Also another time.”

“Well, tell the old man if he ever needs anyone to wash it, wax it, love it … I am so willing.”

“Good to know.” I lean back on my elbows. “Will, maybe we should … it’s getting pretty late.”

He grins again but doesn’t move. “Come here, Joules. I want to kiss you in the light where I can see you.”

I get up, walk over to him and pause, not sure if I should take him in my arms like I want to, or wait and see what he does. Every fiber of my being wants to get closer to him, to become part of him even, but the Andrea Birch in me makes me hesitate.

He tugs on my crossed arms and pulls me in. “Should we check under the car in case Andrea is about to jump out and climb between us?”

I’m horrified—once I switch back I’ll have to get used to him thinking I’m some kind of insane stalker chick—but smile. “She’s not so bad.”

He nods toward a tarped vehicle. “How freaky would it be if she popped out from beneath that blanket right now?”

“She wouldn’t. Today was weird. I think she wasn’t feeling well or something.”

“What’s under that blanket anyway? Don’t tell me it’s an even nicer antique car.”

I should know what cars we own. A daughter would have to be an idiot not to know. “It’s been a long day. I forget the make.”

He walks across the garage and pulls back the tarp to reveal a huge fat wheel of a truck. Then, with a mighty
heave, he uncovers the entire front end. The dented front end with smashed windshield. It’s not a truck.

It’s an SUV.

Black.

With a damaged front end.

Exactly what the police are looking for.

Will is thinking the same thing. I can see it in his eyes. We both look from the dented bumper to each other. Horrified. Frightened. Stunned stupid.

The truth is pretty hard to ignore, but each of us knows a different version of it. To Will, Nigel Adams is the Disneyland hit-and-run driver. To me, he ran down Michaela’s parents and left a four-year-old girl to weep alone in the street.

Just then there is a grunt from the doorway to the house and the lights flick on overhead.

Nigel himself stands in the doorway. Without saying a word, he crosses the floor and stands between us, arms crossed over his chest as he surveys the damaged vehicle. I watch his eyes travel from the small scrape on the bumper to the larger indentation on the hood to the shattered glass with the distinct impression of a human head at its center.

It’s as if a storm cloud passes over Nigel’s face. Slowly, methodically, as if trying to prevent further destruction, he lowers the tarp back over the front of the SUV and says in a quiet voice, “Go home, Will. And Joules, get inside the house. Now.”

W
ill’s face, as he passes through the garage door, is a mix of disgust for Nigel and concern for me. He pauses, willing, I think, to brave Nigel’s wrath if I ask him to stay; wondering if I’m at all worried for my own safety. And I am, believe me, but I nod toward the backyard to let him know it’s fine for him to leave. He lifts his hand in a half-wave and disappears into the shadows.

Now it’s just me and Nigel.

It’s not a storm The Weather Show can track. Nigel is eerily quiet as he leads me back to the house and locks the door. To be honest, now I’m terrified. I mean, what do I really know about this man? He might wear an apron to protect his rocker jeans while he bakes croissants, and he might do dorky things to prove to his daughter he really is worthy of her love and respect. He might have a great croaker of a cigarette-scarred voice that makes millions of girls swoon all across the globe, and he might have publicists forgetting to go home and feed their parakeets, but I know very little of what to expect here. One thing I know for sure: he fooled me good.

I’d never have thought he was capable of this. Plowing into a pair of tourists and taking off, then burying the evidence beneath a tarp in his garage. I came into this house,
saw the sad father in him surface and formed my opinion of him based on that and his generous nature.

The question is: what else is Nigel Adams capable of?

In the living room he turns to face me. His arms hang by his sides and one fist tightens into a ball. He won’t hit Joules. Surely she’d have warned me if things were bad like that.

I take a step backward. He’s standing between me and the door. I can’t run, I’d never make it past him. Besides, heading back through the yard isn’t an option, he’d catch me before I got the locked door open.

I have Joules’s cellphone. I could lock myself in her room and call 911.

He blinks, and right away I feel like an idiot. This is Nigel. He adores his daughter. There’s no freaking way he would harm her—he lives for her love.

Still, I can’t be in the same house with the man who destroyed Michaela’s life and doesn’t have the guts to face up to it. So I do something I know will absolutely crush him. I brush past, head out the back door and through the neighbor’s shadowy yard, and just keep walking.

The hills aren’t safe at night. In the dark, navigating the twisty, turny, rocky paths would be dangerous, and too scary for a girl like me to attempt. Out here there are probably rattlesnakes and lizards. There are certainly coyotes, and once, a couple of years ago, there were reports of some kind of big cat—a cougar, I think. It had been snacking on neighborhood pets went the story. I don’t
know anyone who actually saw it, but I didn’t venture out much by myself just the same.

But tonight is different. The moon isn’t looming quite as large now but it still has the land lit up as if dawn were about to break. Which, seeing that it’s nearly 4 a.m., I guess it is. I head out on a narrow trail across the grassy slope with plans to cross the oil fields below and, well, I don’t have much of a plan beyond that.

It was stupid, storming out so fast. My T-shirt and jeans are too thin to offer any warmth against the cool night air. If I’d been thinking straight, I’d have at least popped into Joules’s room for the dead soldier coat. It would have served two purposes: keeping out the damp air and offering a sturdy layer between me and the dry grass and weeds I will eventually curl up on if I ever give in to the bone-weariness that has penetrated Joules’s body.

Joules. All this time I thought she was such a spoiled little witch. I thought that I—who’ve known Nigel, what, a couple of days?—with my sensitive upbringing and experience dealing with broken souls, was better able to see his character than his own daughter.

I’ll admit now, it’s possible, likely even, that Joules knows more about her father than I know.

Equally possible and likely is that I know almost nothing about him at all.

I reach into my back pocket and finger the policeman’s card. Officer Carl Beasley. The right thing to do would be to flip open Joules’s phone and make that call. A mother and a father are lying in hospital beds, without their daughter, because of Nigel. It isn’t right that his PR
babes shush this one up as well. Nigel must be made to pay for what he’s done.

Taking hold of a branch from a dead bush, I pick my way down a small, dusty overhang, then stumble at the bottom and sit there a moment, overwhelmed by exhaustion. I need to stop. Stop thinking. Stop feeling. Stop caring. If I had the energy, I would run back to the wall beside the bridge right now and dig up the gloves. If I had the energy, I would wish myself out of this situation and back into the life I would now kill to be part of.

But I don’t have the energy. I’m depleted.

The wind picks up, and everywhere around me leaves and grass rustle. At least I hope it’s the wind. It could be the cougar. The thought of meeting the big cat face to face drives me forward. I walk on.

Naturally, State College is empty when I happen upon it. Who in their right mind would be headed anywhere at four in the morning? I trudge across the road and take the sidewalk to the top of the hill. As if propelled by remote control, I turn right on Mountain Ridge and wind down to the place where I feel safer than any other on earth—my parents’ house.

The side door to the garage is, as usual, unlocked. Even after the break-in no one has thought to bolt it shut at night. There’s no window in this garage, no moonlight to help me find my way around, but I don’t need it. I pull two rolled sleeping bags down from Dad’s tidy shelving unit and spread them out in the corner; the downy fabric isn’t nearly thick enough to protect me from the concrete floor below but I’m too tired to care. I curl in a ball and
cover myself with the second, unzipped bag. I’m home.

Sort of.

Before I drift off, I decide this: I can’t go back for the gloves just yet. Nigel must turn himself in, and his daughter must be the one to encourage it. I cannot trust Joules to enforce a thing like that. And if I call the police as her, Nigel will be devastated. No. He must do the dirty deed himself. It will elevate him in his daughter’s eyes, that he at least had the decency to own up to his crime rather than beg Clara and Sue to get creative.

I’ll go back and insist. I’ll talk about responsibility and atonement and being able to walk about this earth with your head held high. Coming from Joules, the message might penetrate. To please his daughter, he might follow through.

But not now.

Fully aware that Nigel must be inside-out with worry for Joules, feeling guilt but not enough guilt to tempt me off the cement floor and back into his house, I sleep.

I’m awakened by the feel of someone staring down at me. My eyes fly open to see Dad’s face—my dad, Gary’s, face. He’s squatting down beside me with toast wrapped in paper towel and a cup of steaming coffee. Without a word, he holds it out to me.

I sit up and take his offerings. “Thanks.”

“You could have knocked on our door,” he says with a sad wink. “If nothing else, my wife and I know troubled kids.”

“I’m not troubled.”

He nods and hands me a card—Child Services, Lilith Parcelle, the woman who comes by the house to check on the kids. The flowered pants lady. “Just in case you ever are … troubled.” With that, he stands up and heads to the door. Looks back. “I’ll leave the garage unlocked, but if you have real problems you call that number.”

“I don’t. But thanks.”

And he’s gone.

After rolling up the sleeping bags and parking them on the shelf, I take my coffee and toast and head back to Skyline, to what will be the biggest confrontation of Joules’s life.

Or is it mine?

T
he Panel of Undoers awaits me in the kitchen—Sue and her perky sidekick, Clara, Nigel and his agent, plus the Hendridge boys, who may or may not be his managers. From the looks of the wine bottles on the island, the pizza boxes, the empty coffee cups and the state of Nigel’s hair—standing on end—it’s been a long night.

Nigel sees me first. He stands, crosses the room and takes me into his arms, whispering “Jujube” into my hair, kissing the top of my head over and over.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel guilty. Or if I said I thought Nigel was a terrible person. He isn’t. He’s scared and flawed and spoiled and childish. He might understand right from wrong but no one in his inner circle lets him suffer the natural consequences that arise from poor life choices. All he knows is the way out.

“You don’t have to tell me where you were,” he says. “That you’re here now is all I need.”

The way out.

“Dad. We have to talk.”

“Nige has a terrific plan for the two of you today,” Sue says, spreading a few brochures across the island. I look closer to see they’re from car dealerships—fancy car dealerships. “He’s been thinking it might be time for
you to get your own set of wheels, and I’ve booked you appointments at three different dealerships.”

Perky sidekick grins. “I wish
my
dad had surprised
me
with something like this when I was seventeen.”

So this is the plan. Appease me through distraction. A nice, subtle, pearl-black convertible bribe to keep my mouth shut.

I look at Nigel. “Nigel. We can’t just move forward like nothing has happened. It isn’t right. That couple is suffering because … well, because of you and—”

Nigel squeezes my shoulder. “Sweetness, let’s not put a damper on the day. You let us work that out—we’re the adults here.”

No,
I want to say.
You aren’t the adults. Adults don’t try to buy their way out of trouble. Adults avoid it in the first place and confront it with honesty if it happens.
“I just think we need to call and report what—”

A bell goes off and Nigel opens the oven. More croissants. “Let’s have ourselves some breakfast and talk about it in the Model T, okay? Sue here will call the school to report your absence, I’ll hide away in the back, and once we get far enough away from the leeches with the cameras we’ll have a day to ourselves. Drive up the coast or something.”

“No. I’m not going. You need to make the call. If you ever want me to respect you, you need to stop slinking around like this when you mess up, or—here’s a wild thought—stop drinking and driving in the first place! This world isn’t a … a playground for you. It’s not your right to just plow through it without ever once suffering a consequence. Don’t you get that?”

You should see Nigel’s face. It nearly folds over itself with pain. Like I’ve punched him so hard I’ve shattered all the bones that shape it.

Sue stands up. “Now, now, that’s enough.”

I knock her arm off my shoulder. “You have to convince him,” I say to her. “He can’t just go on like this. If he doesn’t do anything about it, I will.”

The manager says, “Let’s settle down, Julie. This is not tenth-grade ethics class, this is real life—”

“It’s Joules,” I spit.
“Joules.
“

It’s as if I haven’t even spoken.

“You can’t just walk into a police station and make some outlandish claim about a man like Nigel Adams because you’re ticked off,” he says. “You need to have proof. It’s a case of ‘he said, she said’, and your dad has a rock-solid alibi for that night.”

I can’t take it any more. I stomp out to the garage and fling the door open. There, where the tarp-covered SUV was just six or seven hours ago, is nothing but a folded piece of canvas. The car is gone.

I stand there a moment, stunned.

A few years back, I had a foster sister for less than ten months. She was this tall girl with bad skin who slumped down to appear the size of everyone else but, of course, failed and wound up looking like a girl who hated her height. It made me crazy, all that hunching. It was as if she wanted to disappear. Tatiana was her name. Thirteen years old but taller than Dad. She was only with us temporarily, she kept saying. Because the aunt who took care of her—nobody knew where her actual mother was—needed surgery. Once her aunt was better, she’d be gone.
But the surgery came and went and the aunt had all these excuses. Eventually Mom found out there was no surgery at all, just a new boyfriend who didn’t want a kid hanging around and an aunt who said she’d done more than her share already.

Nice family.

There’s something about the randomness of who we’re born to. As lousy as things seem when you really examine them, as random as our births all appear, there may be a sense of order I’ve missed.

It’s called love.

People like Lise and Gary Birch are here to make sense of what would otherwise be sheer madness. They’re part of the system, these generous people who open their doors to soothe and care for the ones who haven’t been so lucky. They, and others like them, are here to make sense of all the dreck, even if their influence is only temporary. They’re here to undo the damage inflicted by people who should never have been allowed to have children in the first place.

Their own daughter was too selfish to really see it. And just might have been the luckiest one of all.

I pull Joules’s phone from my pocket. She picks up right away. I can hear the Ks gurgling in the background.

“Meet me at the bridge,” I say. “Now.”