Only If You’re Lucky

We’ve been outside for over an hour, waiting patiently as the police make their way through the house. We’re sitting in the backyard with our legs pretzeled on the ground when Detective Frank finally emerges, a swarm of officers behind him carrying plastic bags of evidence to their cars.

“You’re free to go in,” he says at last, stopping a few feet in front of us. Sloane holds her hand above her eyes, shielding the sun as she stares in his direction, while Nicole keeps playing with a pile of gravel in her palm. The pads of her fingers are chalky as she tosses the little white rocks back onto the driveway, one by one, like skipping stones at the beach.

“What is that?” he asks suddenly, something in the distance catching his attention. I watch as his eyes dart away from us and around the yard, his nose upturned.

“The boys,” I say, already knowing what he’s referring to. “They keep meat in the shed.”

“Meat?”

“They’re making jerky.”

Sloane and I watch as he walks closer, a single stubby finger pushing the door open with a creak. I can feel his grimace from here as that familiar smack of metallic hits our nostrils; watch as he takes in the long, lean strips of deer, rust-red and limp, drying from rows of metal racks. Tufts of pelt heaped in the corners and bloated flies buzzing around the room.

“Is that safe?” he asks. “For … consumption?”

I shrug, twisting back around.

“I don’t know,” I say. “They seem to know what they’re doing.”

Detective Frank looks back at me, at Sloane, then finally at Nicole, still busying herself with those rocks.

“You know, this whole situation seems like it has the potential to get awfully … volatile,” he says at last. “Trouble waiting to happen.”

“And what situation is that?” Sloane asks.

“Your living situation. Four girls living here right next to all those boys living just over there. They’re your landlords?” We nod. “And how’s that work, exactly?”

“They own the house, we pay them to live here,” I say. “Pretty straightforward.”

“You signed a lease?”

We’re quiet, knowing the boys are probably breaking some kind of city rule by letting us live here. I doubt they have a rental license; we never signed anything or scanned our IDs. Like Lucy had told me that night on the roof, the house probably isn’t even up to code, structurally sound, safe for daily living. We just hand over an envelope of cash every month, under the table, and they fix the things that need to be fixed when they feel like it.

“There’s a power imbalance here that I don’t like,” he says when we don’t respond. “It’s probably a good thing you’re moving soon.”

“Did you find anything?” I ask, jerking my head toward the house, an attempt at changing the subject. They found her phone, I’m sure, among other things.

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

I watch as Detective Frank pokes his head into the shed again before closing the door and walking back toward us.

“We’re worried about her,” Sloane says. “We really think she got spooked and ran.”

“And why would she do that?” he asks. “Why would she run if she has nothing to hide?”

“Because that’s what Lucy does,” I interject, folding my arms. “She ran away from home after high school. It doesn’t mean she did anything wrong.”

“Look, girls.” Detective Frank takes a few more steps in our direction, squatting down. I can’t tell if he’s trying to come across as sympathetic, on our side, or intimidating by making himself eye level with us. Either way, seeing him wobble around on his toes like that, seeing the knees and groin of his pants pull too tight against the tension of his weight, just makes him look a little pathetic. Like an adult using the slang of kids half his age. “I know you know more than you’re letting on.”

Nobody speaks, a heavy silence settling over us except for the occasional click of gravel. Nicole’s still tossing those stones and I wish she would stop. It’s a nervous habit, I think, like Sloane picking at her cuticles. She needs to give her hands something to do.

“I’ve tried to be patient with you, but I’ll be honest, it’s starting to wear thin. So we can do this the easy way, with you cooperating here at home, or we can do it the hard way with you down at the station.”

“You know what? Fine,” Nicole says suddenly, finally directing her attention toward him. She drops the rest of the rocks and stands, wiping the white residue on her shirt. “Maybe Lucy did do something to Levi, okay? Maybe she did.”

“Nicole—”

I watch as she juts out her hand, silencing Sloane, her gaze still on the detective crouched a few feet below her.

“I’m sick of being treated like criminals when we haven’t done anything wrong.”

Sloane and I are quiet, Nicole’s outburst echoing around us, the tension thick and sticky like a gust of hot, humid air. Detective Frank raises his eyebrows, quiet, waiting for her to continue.

“She did say all that stuff—”

“Nicole,” Sloane warns.

“What stuff?” Frank asks, attention unyielding.

“About murder,” she says. “Justifying it.”

“She didn’t mean that,” I say, thinking back to that night at Penny Lanes. To all of us sitting in that circle like a séance, bobbing heads and tired eyes as we murmured to each other about deviance, about death. “We were just messing around.”

“She said everyone would do it,” Nicole continues. “For the right reason—”

“Okay.” Sloane stands up now, too, placing her hand on Nicole’s back. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re going back inside now. We’re all exhausted.”

“Withholding information from an investigation is illegal,” Frank says, watching Sloane as they start to walk away. “We can charge you with obstruction.”

“Can you?” Sloane asks, whipping back around. “Because we’ve already told you everything we know. Lucy talks a lot, okay? But half of what she says is bullshit. We all know better than to believe her.”

Detective Frank is quiet, ignoring her outburst, eyes darting back and forth between Sloane and Nicole standing rigid before him.

“Whether or not you want to admit it, your friend is the key to this thing,” he says at last. “She either did something, or she knows something, and there’s a reason she’s gone.”

Sloane stares back at him, continuing to hug Nicole’s fragile frame before the two of them turn back around and walk wordlessly toward the house, the screen door slapping shut behind them.

“I know what goes on in a place like that,” Frank says to me next, his voice dipped low. I turn back toward him and he gestures to the shed. To the boys next door and everything they get away with. “And I know about Eliza. Levi’s old fling and your friend from before.”

He’s trying to play good cop now—trying to extend a hand, offer me a way out—even though I know better than to take it. Even though I know if I reach out, let my fingers curl around his, he’ll just grab my wrist and twist it instead.

“I would understand if something happened,” he continues. “If Lucy needed to protect herself or one of you. If it was self-defense, maybe—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, cutting him off.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “Because it seems like a pretty big coincidence. Your next-door neighbor, your two best friends.”

I continue to stare, silent, before Detective Frank finally sighs and stands up, nodding gently and making his way out front without uttering another word. Then, once he’s gone, I drop my head into my hands, pushing hard on my eyes until I see stars.