Page 18 of Furious

“Where to?” Dad asks automatically.

“Um, to hang out with JoJo.”

Mom looks up from her plate. “Who?”

“Just a girl. She joined volunteering club, and I want her to feel, you know, welcome or whatever.” None of this is a lie, except for maybe the “just” part.

“New in town?”

“Yeah, but you already know her family. She’s Jolene Boyd’s granddaughter.”

Mom frowns, and I start to panic, because that last part might not help my case. Mom has kind of a weird thing about Jolene, who saw so much of Max in the year and a half she was home when my parents saw so little.

Anticipating trouble, I rush to say, “We probably won’t get to hang out much outside of the club meetings, since she has a job like me. Did I tell you I picked up an extra shift on Monday? Also, Dad, do you think you could look at the latest draft of my application essay? I know it’s not due for months, but I thought since you’re in the medical field, you could—”

“Okay, Eliana.” Mom cuts me off with a tight smile, but her voice is soft as she adds, “You know it’s not that we don’t trust you, right?”

Possibly she kicks Dad under the table, because a second later, he echoes, “It’s not that we don’t trust you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“We see how hard you’re working,” says Dad.

“We know you’re not … you’ve never given us a reason not to trust you,” says Mom.

Mission accomplished, then, and it should feel good, even if I have to ignore the almost-spoken We know you’re not your sister, all while I hide the evidence of my plans to follow in Max’s footsteps beneath the dinner table.

The Piney Bend Apartments haven’t changed since my last track day with Max. Same cluster of squat, plain brick buildings on the corner across from the 7-Eleven, with stained AC units hanging out the windows. Same thin strip of dirt and crabgrass around each unit. But I swear I would’ve noticed this green abomination in the parking lot if it had been here back then.

“Target fucking acquired.” JoJo grins at me.

“I don’t know.” I eye the truck, two spots up from us, while keeping low behind the steering wheel of the Oatmobile. There’s a covered bike beside it, a thick chain snaking under the tarp and winding around a NO PARKING signpost. “That could be anybody’s, not just Riley’s. And we don’t even know if Bad Beard is Riley.”

“But whoever that truck belongs to, they definitely know Max, right?”

“Right.” Deep breath. “Now what? We could … What if we throw a rock at the truck? Not at the windshield, you know, just at a wheel or something, and it sets off a car alarm. Then we run back here to watch who comes out of what door when they hear the—”

“Oh my God, criminal mastermind. What if we knocked on doors instead of getting ourselves jumped in a parking lot?” JoJo asks, aghast. “Look, just pull up those pictures, and we’ll check for the apartment number.”

I didn’t think she’d be the voice of reason today, but yeah, that makes more sense.

I have to scroll past some text notifications from Zaynah to get to Instagram; I’ll answer when we’re not on a stakeout. In one of ShellybeanXOX’s photos, a shot of the truck-bed crowd sitting on a stairwell with Max in Bad Beard’s lap, there’s an apartment 26B in the background, the party spilling out through the open door. I tip the screen toward JoJo, and when she leans across the console to look, the AC vent blows a strand of pink, citrus-smelling hair into my face. How does she work in a garage all day yet smell much better than me?

For the fiftieth time this morning, I doubt myself. I’m staking out the apartment of a stranger, somebody Jolene said was the worst, with another somebody who, as of a few days ago, was a total stranger to me. Maybe back in Charleston, JoJo was considered the worst. What do I really know about her? Aside from her family’s horrible tragedy, and her hopes and dreams, and the smell of her hair …

Well, I know she hasn’t once judged my sister, no matter what I’ve said about her, or judged me for wanting to bring her home. And I know I feel a little braver just sitting beside somebody fearless, the same way I used to on the back of the R1, fully believing that Max was strong enough to steer us around any hairpin turn no matter how scary it looked peering out from behind her shoulder. I guess that’s enough for me.

Climbing out of the minivan, we cross the heat-hazed parking lot and follow the signs to apartments 15–30 in the second building back from the road. 26B is up a three-flight staircase. We stand on the familiar landing to face the peeling green door.

“Ready?” JoJo asks.

I’m not, but I knock anyway.

When a full minute goes by, I knock again.

At last, we hear low muttering behind the door, and the rattle of various chain locks. When it opens, a guy in frayed pajama pants leans against the frame, blinking in the daylight. No wonder. The living room behind him is still dark, the dingy-looking vertical blinds drawn, even though we got off to a later start leaving Dell’s Hollow than we’d planned. Squinting into the gloom, I see bare walls, a collection of mismatched beanbags and chairs, and a shallow sea of trash—mostly fast-food containers, and an overfull cereal bowl being used as an ashtray. A skinny cat picks its way through the debris, poor thing.

“Help you?” the guy asks, not sounding all that eager to help.