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like a tropical jungle, like I was leaving reality behind for someplace warm and magical, removed from all of life’s ugly realities. Maybe it was just the weather, but this time felt different, like I was swimming into an underwater cave, hoping for an exit on the other side but knowing deep down I would be met with a wall of rock.
    The bus slowly emptied out as we climbed the winding roads. By the time we stopped at the Town Center, the bus’s last stop before heading back to Torrance, I was the only one left. I wasn’t surprised. Who took the bus to Playa Hermosa? The people who lived here had multiple vehicles in their driveways, usually expensive European sports cars, luxury sedans, and high-end SUVs, plenty to go around for the parents and their kids, gifted with brand-new models on their sixteenth birthdays.
    I got off the bus and immediately started walking, making a point to avoid Mike’s. Other than the Cove, it was the most likely spot for Logan and the others to hang out. School didn’t let out for an hour, but it was the end of senior year for most of them, and I couldn’t be sure they were all on a normal schedule. I imagined them there, clustered around the big red booth in the back, laughing and eating cheese fries. Rachel would be playing tic-tac-toe on the back of a menu with Harper while Liam entertained everyone with his latest exploits in the water. Would Logan be there, too? Or did his carefree days with the group end the night we took his father’s gold?
    I pushed the thought away. I couldn’t do anything aboutthat. I was here for Parker. He was the one I could still help, the one who was counting on me. I didn’t know if I could live with the damage I’d done to Logan and his family, but for now I would live for Parker. I would put one foot in front of the other to right the only wrong I had any control over. I would have to figure out what I could and couldn’t live with later, after Parker was free.
    I turned off the main road as soon as I could. Playa Hermosa’s residential neighborhoods were connected to the rest of the South Bay by one main artery, and I didn’t want to be seen by anyone who might be driving by. I knew I looked different on the outside, but it was hard to believe my crime wasn’t emblazoned on my face, visible to everyone.
    Above the Town Center, Playa Hermosa was nothing but a series of twisty, steeply inclined roads. My legs burned as I climbed, and I was suddenly grateful for the cloud cover that kept the sun from burning too hot on my head. I felt the tug of melancholy as I walked, the breeze salty and familiar, the smell of wild jasmine permeating the air. Bougainvillea climbed across stone walls and trellises, over fences and up the sides of houses. Somewhere in the trees I heard the caw of the wild parrots that made their home here. It made me think of the man who had lived next door on Camino Jardin, the old music he liked to hum, his voice calling out to the birds in the trees.
    I wondered how the peacocks were faring, if the residents of Playa Hermosa had won their battle to have them removed because of the noise and their penchant for standing in themiddle of the road. I thought with a pang of sadness of the one Cormac had run over after the Fairchild con. Another casualty of all our lies.
    It took me twenty minutes to reach Selena’s neighborhood and another fifteen to find a good place to hide. The street was fronted by houses on both sides, the road clear except for an empty blue Range Rover at the curb. Not exactly overflowing with possibilities. I finally tucked myself into the nook created by a small arbor in front of the house across the street from Selena’s. It didn’t have a garage—a lot of the older houses in Playa Hermosa didn’t—and there were no cars in the driveway. I guessed it was empty, and I felt relatively certain the bougainvillea growing up the sides of the arbor would