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than our father, and stacks of building debris behind one of his shops—Courtney had fooled around with his son and remembered him saying the stuff had been there for decades. Best case, if he ever did clean up, it would get hauled to the garbage dump for us.
    We drove Dani’s truck, our cargo under some other garbage, and parked near the bottom of his fields, where he brought the tractor through, turning our headlights off and coasting in. We couldn’t get too close—he might hear us up at the house—so we followed the tractor road on foot, each of us carrying an armload, the moon lighting our way. Courtney tripped and dropped her load with a thump.
    We all froze, waiting to hear if anyone had noticed. The night was still.
    We spread the garbage among the plywood, drywall, and scrap metal, carefully placing the sheets of linoleum between everything, trying to make sure it was at the back of the piles. It was hard work because we had to move some of the scrap, which was heavy, and we were trying to be quiet so we had to move slowly, our muscles screaming with tension. We didn’t know what to do with the bag of rags. Courtney and Dani argued in hushed whispers—Courtney thought we should just bury them, but Dani said an animal might be attracted to the blood and dig them back up. Finally we shoved them into an oil drum, then ran down the tractor road to the truck, my sister’s bodies dark shadows in front of me.
    *   *   *
    Back at home, we lit the last of Dad’s cigarettes and talked about what we should do.
    “We could get jobs,” Courtney said.
    “Doing what?” I said. “And who would hire us?”
    There weren’t many opportunities in this town for three teenage girls, just farm work and maybe waitressing or working at the grocery store.
    “You guys are missing the point,” Dani said. “They won’t let us stay here without Dad—people, his boss and his friends, are going to start looking for him. If we say he skipped out on us again, they’ll put us in foster care.”
    “You’re almost eighteen, maybe they’ll let you keep us,” I said.
    “I’d have to show that I could support you.”
    “Walter and Ingrid might let us stay if we kept working on the ranch.”
    “It’s not enough money and Dad’s already behind,” Dani said.
    “We could go on welfare,” I said. “Or maybe Corey’s parents would let us stay there?” Dani was pretty close to her boyfriend’s family and they were nice.
    “They don’t have room,” she said. “And we can’t stay anyway. We don’t know if Dad stopped somewhere before he came home. Someone might’ve seen him in town.”
    “Should we leave tonight?” Courtney said.
    “No,” Dani said. “It’ll look like we didn’t give him a chance to come home, like we know something.” The way she said it told me she’d been thinking about this for a while. “In a few days we have to say that he’s taken off again, and we’re going to stay with family.”
    “If no one sees him for years, won’t they suspect something?” I said.
    Dani took a long drag of her smoke. “Yeah, so we need to buy ourselves enough time to get out of here and settle somewhere else, then we’ll have to get fake ID. If anyone finds the truck or catches on, we’ll be long gone.” She looked at Courtney. “What about that married man Dad said you were messing around with? Is he going to be a problem?”
    “Who was it anyway?” I said.
    “Ben Miller,” Courtney said. “I broke it off last night, just told him I didn’t want my dad catching on.”
    “Ben Miller ?” I said. “He’s, like, thirty.” He owned one of the construction companies in town and had a wife and a couple of kids. I didn’t know how Courtney had hooked up with him, but no wonder Dad had freaked out.
    “Doesn’t matter now,” she said, her face flushed. “It’s over.”
    “What about Corey?” I said. He’d come by once since Dad had come home, pulled his truck up with some friends and