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soften my contact toward me, and a pan I ruined.” Jane leaned back against the sink and looked at her mess.
    “Well, at least you didn’t let it catch fire.” Jake jumped onto the counter and sat like it was a stool. “How do you clean a mess like this, Jane Adler, professional housecleaner?”
    Gemma leaned on her elbows next to Jake. “Yeah, how do you clean that?” She sipped her smoothie. “Yumm. Thanks.”
    “Someone appreciates me around here.”
    Gemma bumped his elbow with hers.
    Jake jumped off the counter again. “You’re running out of time, Janey. I’ll clean that mess up, and you can change into something less toxic.”
    Jane looked from the mess to Jake and back again. He was right—a thing she was getting a little sick of—she didn’t have time to clean up the chunks of chicken, and rice, and soup, and everything else, and still make it to the Henry house for her first-ever intentional investigation.
    Ten minutes later—how had the soupy mix gotten into her hair?—she was ready to go. Bleachy rags and tuition fees hadn’t been good to her wardrobe, but she had a button-down shirt that still had all of its buttons and a pair of jeans with only two bleach splatters down by the ankle. She looked, if not professional, at least tidy.
    The kitchen was spotless, and so was Jake. She didn’t want to get caught up in one of his lengthy, rambling conversations, so she just waved as she left.
    He followed her.
    “Safety in numbers, Jane. I don’t want to hear a word against it.”
    Jane didn’t speak. She let herself into her car and smacked the lock button so he couldn’t join her.
    He knocked on the window. “Plus,” he exaggerated the shape of his words though she could hear him just fine, “you told her you wanted to help us all come to terms with what happened. Doesn’t make sense for you to go alone.” He lifted his eyebrow.
    She turned the key. Her engine growled into life.
    “And, if you back out, you’ll run over my foot.” He pointed down.
    Apparently he had stuck his foot under her front wheel. She was tempted to drive anyway.
    “If the Henrys slit your throat and toss you in the Willamette, I could never forgive myself.”
    Jane counted to ten. Again, he had a point. Not that she didn’t trust the mom of a Facebook friend she had never met, but knew because someone else knew them in real life…but there were freaks in the world. After all, she was headed there to investigate the murder of this woman’s friend.
    Jane drummed her fingers on her steering wheel. This woman had brought Michelle White to the party. Someone had been standing near enough to White to stab her without making her question why the person was standing so close. Sasha Henry wasn’t just a source. She was a murder suspect.
    Jane made a fist and hit the door lock button again. “Get in.”
    Jake slid across the hood of the car, popped open the passenger door, and climbed in. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

6
    According to the radio, there was a crash on the Terwilliger curves, which meant the hour she had given herself to get across town was just enough.
    “Sorry I let the side down,” Jake said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “My curse. Traffic-stopping curves.”
    “Huh?” Jane’s eyes were trained on the cars ahead of her, and her mind on the questions she wanted to ask Sasha.
    “Jacob Terwilliger Crawford?”
    “Your middle name is Terwilliger? Like Sideshow Bob?”
    “And the deadly curves on the highway.”
    “Family name, I assume?”
    “But of course.”
    Jane inched her way into the lane she needed. She had Jake all to herself for an hour, at least. Now was as good a time as any to address the Gemma situation. Her heart pounded. She hated to do it, but if he couldn’t tell what he was doing to poor Gemma, he had to be told. “So, about Gemma.”
    “Good kid.”
    “Yeah, she’s twenty-five. I don’t think she thinks of herself as a kid.”
    “Right-oh.”
    “Be serious for a