Page 39 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder

“And in your mind our parents are doing what, exactly, while we’re ransacking Gertie’s room?”

“I never saidwe?”

Dylan blushes (ha). Just a little. Unfortunately, he recovers quickly. “Like I’m not coming with you.”

“We’ll wait until they go to bed.”

“Okay.” He nods. “I can’t exactly sneak out of this room once Mum and Shippy are in for the night. But if I turn off the light and close the door, Mum probably won’t even come to check on me.”

“One request,” I say quickly.

“Yeah?”

“Can we please do the thing where you put clothes under the covers so it looks like a person?”

“Seriously?”

“They always do it in the movies. It looks fun.”

“Have I told you you’re my favorite weirdo?”

“Not today.”

We stuff a few clothes under the duvet to create a Dylan-like shape, just in case, then turn off the lights so it’s pitch black in the room.

“You sleep like this?”

He shrugs. “It’s okay.”

It feels the way I imagine sleeping in a coffin would, but I don’t say that and just scoot on out with Dylan. The real challenge is getting Dylan upstairs without running into the adults, but even this isn’t as hard as you’d think: They’re all still in the living room, arguing as the movie credits roll about whether the wedding industry is inherently patriarchal. (I’m not makingthis up—that’s almost a direct quote from Aunty Vinka.) I get away with a “good night!” shouted through the door beforeI trot upstairs with Dylan.

“Do I hide under the bed or something?” he asks, crouching down to look underneath it. “Is that mouse poo?”

“I think you can just hide behind the door when Dad comes in.” I point. “If he thinks I’m asleep he’ll just stick his head in and go.”

“Okay.” Dylan flops onto my bed. “Tell me about the box while we wait. Then at least I’ll know what I’m looking for.”

“It’s cardboard.”

“Acardboardbox, you say? I was assuming steel, but there you go.”

I ignore him. “It’s like one of those storage boxes IKEA sells.” I make a motion with my arms that is supposed to be me turning a flat-pack bunch of cardboard into a convenient storage box, but Dylan looks at me like I’m having a seizure. “About this big.” I move my hands apart. “And it had ‘for M’ or maybe ‘to M’ or something like that written in marker on one side of the box.”

“What’s in it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Washing-machine receipts, maybe.”

“Or, what about this: money. Or maybe not cash but, I don’t know, gold bars? Jewelry?”

“Gold bars?”

“I’m not saying GG was a pirate—”

“It sounds a bit like you are.”

“—but if she was taking out half-a-million-dollar life-insurance policies, maybe she had money we never knew about. Where did all that money go?”