Page 25 of The Bright Lands

“You know what kind of forensics you get off a wet corpse?”

She knew that well enough. Zero.

Stepping back to the ATV, Clark asked Mr. Spearson, “You said all this here is Evers property?”

“Everything on this side of the creek, ma’am.”

She turned to the sun climbing over the open Flats. “And what about out there?”

“Out there?” Spearson lowered his head like he was afraid to look at it. “There ain’t nothing out there to own.”

KIMBRA

Kimbra Lott was not the richest of the Bisonette cheerleaders, nor the tallest, nor the prettiest. Despite her best efforts, she had the sort of chunky thighs that were made to hold up pyramids and catch the glamorous girls, holes in her jeans that weren’t there when she bought them, acne along the crest of her brow.

She wasn’t pretty, but she was smart—the cleverest girl in her class—and so when Alisha Stinson, one of the lithe fliers who stood on Kimbra’s shoulders at the games, texted the Bisonette’s group chat to say thatDylan isn’t at practice this morning wtf, Kimbra knew that something this past weekend had gone awry.

Bethany Tanner, the girls’ captain and the pyramid’s peak—not to mention Dylan’s bae—responded to the message in a matter of seconds:

Jasmine have you heard about this?

Jasmine Lopez, another middle-runger like Alisha, was the sheriff’s daughter and their surest source of solid news. She texted the group a minute later:

dad got a call super early. he’s been gone all morning.

what the fuck?wrote Nivea Poler. Aside from throwing people in the air, Nivea wasn’t good for very much.

Alisha wrote:

bethany are you feeling any better btw?

what the fuck??Nivea wrote.

Bethany texted:

Kimbra, what time did KT get back from the coast last night?

Kimbra wiped her burning eyes—for the third night in a row she’d hardly slept, beset again by a dream which she refused now to even consider. Bethany, Kimbra noted with some interest, hadn’t answered Alisha’s question.

Kimbra typed a long response and deleted it. She realized that she might soon be asked to tell some very complicated lies. In the end she texted only,idk. late.

Where’s Dylan’s brother?asked Jasmine.

the gay one?wrote Alisha.

I saw him downtown on Sunday!!wrote April Sparks, one of Kimbra’s friends. April wore black nail polish that she buffed off every Friday afternoon to replace with glittery green, right around the same time she slipped off her nose ring and contoured her cheeks and replaced her grungy self, for a few hours, with a dazzling little Bisonette. April’s family, like Kimbra’s, always lived a tenuous step above broke. She asked:

Joel was at the hardware store wasn’t he K??

Thanks, April.Kimbra typed fast.

He just wanted to know when the guys would be back.

And then, to keep the conversation from lingering somewhere she couldn’t afford it to, Kimbra wrote:

Has anyone heard from Jamal Reynolds?

She exited the chat, opened the thread she shared with her boyfriend.Call me, she wrote to KT Staler.Now.