Page 85 of The Dysfunctional Family's Guide to Murder

Dylan swears.

“Yeah.”

“No, I mean—” And he swears again but he also nods over my shoulder, and I turn to see a familiar-looking truck coming up the driveway.

This timeIswear.

“Exactly.”

“Doesn’t anyone ever call first in this town?”

“No reception.”

“It was a joke. What do we do?”

“Hide?” Dylan says, looking around the room.

“Why?”

“He’ll think nobody’s home and go away?”

“He doesn’t know we know anything.”

“How do you know that?”

I take a massive slug of my tea. “Or maybe we do the opposite of hide.”

“What’s the opposite of hide? Expose ourselves?” Dylan makes a face.

“We invite him in.” I drain the rest of the cup. The tea is too hot and burns my throat, but I don’t care. I’m too busy pulling Dylan’s phone out of his pocket. “What’s your code?” He tells me, not asking why, and I have to enter it twice because my fingers have gone shaky and useless. “We put this up here.” I tap the screen a few times and lean it back against the kitchen backsplash so it’s facing Dylan but mostly concealed by a stack of cookbooks (all Christmas and birthday presents from Mum and Dad to GG, and all pristine). “We talk to him.”

“Ruth,no.”

“When are we going to get a chance like this?”

“A chance to be murdered? Hopefully never.” He stands up. “I’ll get rid of him.” We both hear the slam of the truck door.

“Don’t be dramatic. Has anyone evenbeenmurdered?”

“You don’t think—”

“That’s only a theory.”

“You seemed pretty confident last night,” he says. “Let’s just leave it up to the police.”

“The police don’t have any evidence.”

“Ruth, no.”

“Dylan, yes.”

There’s a knock at the door, and Dylan and I look at each other. We can each see what the other is thinking. Dylan doesn’t want to do this. I do want to do this. I know that I shouldn’t do this and that wanting to solve a puzzle isn’t worth the risk. But, also, how long can it take to discharge a man from the hospital? Dad and the others can’t be far away.

“Okay,” Dylan says, standing up. “But let’s at least try to leave Rob out of it.” I don’t agree to this, but maybe he takes my silence as assent because he says: “I’ll get the door; you put on a bra.”

I’m touched he noticed.

When I come down, Dylan and Sasha are drinking coffee at the kitchen table. Dylan gives me a little nod, which I interpret asWe’ve got this.(Do we, though? Do wegot this?) The plan that seemed reasonable five minutes ago now seems childish and ridiculously dangerous, like the time I was ten and tried to buy a wireless spy camera over the internet using Dad’s credit card. Okay, I was twelve, but I got cold feet and told on myself.