“Then,” he said, glancing behind him as he switched lanes, “I tell them we do everything from picking up mail to walking dogs to getting your dry-cleaning to frosting cupcakes for your kid’s school party.”

I considered this. “Doesn’t sound as good.”

“I know. Hence the rule.”

I sat back in my seat, looking out the window at the buildings and cars blurring past. Okay, fine. So he wasn’t terrible company. Still, I wasn’t here to make friends.

“So look,” he said, “about earlier, and that joke I made.”

“It’s fine,” I told him. “Don’t worry about it.”

He glanced over at me. “What were you doing, though? I mean, on the fence. If you don’t mind my asking.”

I did mind. I was also pretty much at his mercy at this point, so I said, “Wasn’t it obvious?”

“Yeah, I suppose it was,” he said. “I think I was just, you know, surprised.”

“At what?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Just seems like most people would be trying to break into that house, not escape it. Considering how cool Cora and Jamie are, I mean.”

“Well,” I said. “I guess I’m not most people.”

I felt him look at me as I turned my head, looking out the window again. My knowledge of this part of town was fairly limited, but from what I could tell, we were getting close to Wildflower Ridge, Jamie and Cora’s neighborhood, which meant it was time to change the subject. “So anyway, ” I said, shooting for casual, “I do appreciate the ride.”

“No problem,” he said. “It’s not like we aren’t going to the same place.”

“Actually . . .” I paused, then waited for him to look over at me. When he did, I said, “If you could just drop me off by a bus stop, that’d be great.”

“Bus stop?” he said. “Where are you going?”

“Oh, just to a friend’s house. I have to pick something up.”

We were coming up to a big intersection now. Nate slowed, easing up behind a VW bug with a flower appliqué on the back bumper. “Well,” he said, “where is it?”

“Oh, it’s kind of far,” I said quickly. “Believe me, you don’t want to have to go there.”

The light changed, and traffic started moving forward. This is it, I thought. Either he takes the bait, or he doesn’t. It was four fifteen.

“Yeah, but the bus will take you ages,” he said after a moment.

“Look, I’ll be fine,” I said, shaking my head. “Just drop me off up here, by the mall.”

The thing about negotiations, not to mention manipulation, is you can’t go too far in any direction. Refusing once is good, twice usually okay, but a third is risky. You never know when the other person will just stop playing and you end up with nothing.

I felt him glance over at me again, and I made a point of acting like I didn’t notice, couldn’t see him wavering. Come on, I thought. Come on.

“Really, it’s cool,” he said finally, as the entrance to the highway appeared over the next hill. “Just tell me where to go.”

“Man,” Nate said as he bumped up the driveway to the yellow house, avoiding holes and a sizable stack of water-logged newspapers. Up ahead, I could already see my mom’s Subaru, parked just where I’d left it, gas needle on empty, that last day Peyton had picked me up for school. “Who lives here again?”

“Just this girl I know,” I said.

As far as I was concerned, this entire endeavor would be quick and painless. Get in, get what I needed, and get out, hopefully with as little explanation as necessary. Then Nate would take me back to Cora’s, and this would all be over. Simple as that.

But then, just as we passed the bedroom window, I saw the curtain move.

It was very quick, so quick I wondered if I’d seen anything at all—just a shift of the fabric an inch to the left, then back again. The exact way it would have to for someone to peer out and yet still not be seen.

I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting to find here. Maybe the Honeycutts, in the midst of some project. Or the house empty, cleaned out as if we’d never been here at all. This possibility, though, had never crossed my mind.

Which was why Nate hadn’t even finished parking when I pushed open my door and got out. “Hey. Do you want—? ” I heard him call after me, but I ignored him, instead taking the steps two at time and arriving at the front door breathless, my fingers already fumbling for the key around my neck. Once I put it in the lock, the knob, familiar in my hand, turned with a soft click. And then I was in.

"Mom? ” I called out, my voice bouncing off all the hard surfaces back at me. I walked into the kitchen, where I could see the clothesline was still strung from one wall to the other, my jeans and shirts now stiff and mildewy as I pushed past them. “Hello?”

In the living room, there was a row of beer bottles on the coffee table, and the blanket we usually kept folded over one arm of the sofa was instead balled into one corner. I felt my heart jump. I would have folded it back. Wouldn’t I?

I kept moving, pushing open my bedroom door and flicking on the single bulb overhead. This did look just like I’d left it, save for my closet door being left open, I assumed by whoever packed up the clothes that had been brought to me at Poplar House. I turned, crossing back into the living room and walking over to the other bedroom door, which was shut. Then I put my hand on the knob and closed my eyes.