* * *

When Juniper comes downstairsa few hours later, messy haired and bleary eyed, I’m several texts deep into a very one-sided conversation with Rocco.

It started when I messaged him after I got off the phone with Rodriguez—who was surprisingly helpful, by the way. All I meant to do was tell Rocco I met his brother, and that he was right about him. He’s a creep.

I didn’t expect our conversation to spiral, but it did, his texts coming in one after the other, questions and warnings and general wishes of ill will on his brother. And maybe I should have expected it; Rocco has somestrongfeelings about Lionel.

But it sends a prickle of fear through me, a chill on the back of my neck that has me shifting in my kitchen chair to look around the kitchen.

No one is here, of course. I’m being stupid. It’s just…what does Rocco know about his brother that we don’t, for him to be warning us so thoroughly?

It’s not something I can really focus on at the moment; not if I want to get any sleep. So I reassure Rocco I’ll be careful. Then I set my phone aside.

I watch Juniper shuffle sleepily over to the refrigerator, where she pulls out a carton of orange juice with her name scrawled across the front. My nose wrinkles as she unscrews the top, puts it to her lips, and drinks straight from the container. Then she sits down at the table across from me, eyeing my half-eaten orange with interest; I stand up and grab her one from the basket on the counter.

“Hungry?” I say, returning to the table and plunking the orange down in front of her.

“Mmm,” she mumbles as she begins to peel it. “I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep.”

“A lot on your mind?” I say vaguely as I watch her. With the way she’s peeling, I think she’s going to demolish that entire piece of fruit in less than one minute.

“Yeah, but also insomnia.”

“Oof,” I say sympathetically.

I watch every single bite she takes. She barely seems to notice me after we’re done talking. And when she trails back up the stairs, looking like she’s headed to bed again, she doesn’t see me smile.

* * *

But the nextmorning takes any pleasant feelings from the day before and stomps all over them. Because when I open the door to go to work, the first thing my eyes land on is something small and fluffy and wrong.

There, lying on the welcome mat, is a chicken—head at a horribly crooked angle, blood matting its brown feathers.

From somewhere behind me, Juniper screams.

20

IN WHICH JUNIPER REFUSES TO LIVE IN FEAR

The buzz of squad cars and the attention of curious neighbors are more than I feel like dealing with, so I scurry up to my room to hide. Aiden is talking with Sheriff Garrity; there’s nothing I can really contribute at this point anyway. I just open my window, keeping my ears tuned for any relevant snippets that might float up toward me.

Mostly it’s just a lot of yelling. Aiden at Garrity—“I told you we saw a body in the woods, Todd, and you’re still not taking this seriously!”—and Garrity at Aiden—“Give me a body if you want me to investigate a murder! We’re working on what we can! We had a report of stolen chickens from Rocco Astor. This is obviously some kind of prank!”

I do not do well with screaming. I can handle snide, sarcastic, argumentative, and downright rude. But something about screaming makes me want to curl up into a little ball.

You know what else makes me want to curl up into a little ball?

Dead poultry on my doorstep.

Who even does that? Is this a mafia movie? Are we threatening the local gangs? What kind of person steals a chicken and then leaves it nice and bloodied and broken on another person’s front porch?

Most of me is outraged about any number of things—the poor dead chicken, the welcome mat that’s now ruined, theaudacity. But there is a little part of me that’s wondering, over and over again on a loop, if we provoked someone enough for them to want to send a message.

There was no note left with it, but there’s not much to misinterpret about a bloody dead animal.

It’s a warning.

I finally sit up, unrolling myself from where I’m curled in the fetal position on my bed. I push myself up just far enough to peek out the window. The yelling has died down, which is good, but it also makes it so I don’t know what’s going on out there anymore.