Page 107 of Without a Clue

She shoots.

I jump.

The sound of balls rocking against each other as they pound the sides of the expansive pool table rattles me.

Two balls roll into the pocket.

Crystal smiles.

I can’t tell if it’s about her ill-timed “joke” or about the fact that she got some balls in.

Either way, it’s creepy.

For the record, I don’t recall Crystal being this . . . obviously insane is the word I’m hunting for . . . in the past. Forgetful? Absolutely. Immature? Yes. The kind of girl who stumbled into insanely good fortune with career success and yet still manages to forget that adults pay taxes? Yup.

“Can you turn off your phone for this, Crystal?” I say, pointing to the phone video she has propped up on the table recording herself. It’s going to end up as a TikTok in about twelve seconds.

“What’s the magic word?” she says in a singsong voice.

“Please.”

“Can you get your boyfriend to get his foot out the door?”

I grind my teeth. I’m not emotionally equipped yet for her to talk like that about Nash and me. “Yeah. Fine.”

“No,” I hear Nash say, without seeing him. “I’m staying here, Crystal.”

“Is this because of the little incident the other night?” Crystal says, holding her pool stick at her side. “Because, correct me if I’m wrong, but I was almost certain somebody else lit that fire. And I’m awfully convinced it might have been you.”

She shoots me a look.

“Door’s staying open,” Nash says, taking another step toward us.

I don’t dare hold out my phone to take notes with her.

She’s so intense—far more intense than any of the group I’ve interviewed so far. I’m afraid she’d snap her mouth shut. This new, brash Crystal seems like just the type to put her foot in it because she’s too hotheaded and conceited to look where she’s going.

“What was in the room?” I say.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she says, wagging her finger at me. As she hoverboards to the other side of the table, she says, “Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

“Depends. How stupid?”

“Stupid enough that if there was something in my room, and there was not, I’d tell you. All I can say is that I’m disappointed in you, Pip. I thought we were closer than that.”

Yeah.

Tell me about it.

She leans over with her pool stick for another shot. “Of course, some would say life is full of disappointing people. Fathers, for instance.”

“Fathers? What . . . so your father disappointed you?”

She laughs, one of those humorless, heartless laughs.

Takes a shot with the pool stick.

The balls go rolling.