Hit by Delilah S. Dawson

deliveries. I guess there’s no explanation for the dog trotting at my heels like she’s always been there.
    As we come around in front of Ashley’s house, the kid on his front porch turns to watch us. He looks like he’s just out of high school, or maybe a dropout. Quite frankly, he doesn’t look like the sharpest hammer in the drawer.
    â€œWhat y’all doing with Matty?” he asks, scratching a thin and hairy neck.
    â€œIs that her name?” I say, putting emphasis on the Southern accent I usually try to cover up. “That ol’ dog’s been following me all up and down the street. Get on, dog.”
    My heart’s not in it, and Matty knows it, but hopefully the kid’s dumber than the dog. Wyatt gets in the passenger seat, and I roll up the back door and motion Matilda—Matty—inside just as the kid starts walking down the sidewalk toward us, his head to the side like he’s thinking so hard he might overheat and blow a gasket.
    â€œDid y’all hear a gunshot a few minutes ago?” he asks.
    â€œWanna go for a ride, girl?” I whisper.
    At the word “ride,” Matty yips and jumps in the back of the truck, and I crawl in behind her and roll the door shut and lock it. Just as I hoped he would, Wyatt shifts into the seat behind the steering wheel and turns the key he’s been holding all along.
    â€œNaw, man. That was just the truck backfiring,” he says, whipping out his own accent.
    â€œMy friend Ash ain’t answering his door,” the kid says. “Hey, where’d Matty go?”
    â€œDumbass dog,” Wyatt says. “Probably diggin’ up somebody’s yard.”
    And I stroke Matty’s head in the back of the truck and murmur, “He doesn’t mean that, sugar.” She thumps her tail and licks mywrist like she doesn’t mind that I just killed her owner. My uncle. Like she was supposed to be with me all along.
    Wyatt pulls away, the truck jerking as he gets used to the clunky steering.
    â€œHey, come back!” the kid yells, and I imagine him chasing a few feet before stopping in the middle of the cracked road, scratching his neck like he accidentally misplaced his trachea.
    I can’t help wondering how many days he’ll stand in front of Ash’s front door, ringing the doorbell and hollering about squirrels. How long before he breaks down that door or tries the unlocked sliding glass door in back? How long before he calls the police and can’t get anybody on the phone?
    Not until Wyatt pulls back onto the highway do I realize that we left my fake fruit basket on my uncle Ashley’s nicotine-yellow carpet.

4.
    Kelsey Mackey
    â€œThat was close,” Wyatt says, and it sounds so much like a TV sitcom that I laugh.
    â€œWe woulda got away with it, too, if not for that redneck yokel,” I say, and Matty leans her bulk against me and thumps her tail on the floor like she thinks it’s a good joke. It occurs to me that I now have my first dog. And my first inheritance from a family I’ve never met.
    And then it occurs to me that since I was wearing my Postal Service shirt when I killed Ashley Cannon, whoever’s on the other side of that button heard me freak out and now knows a lot more about me than I’d like them to. Of course, from what I’ve seen so far, they knew more than enough about me already. I pull down the list on the wall.
    Out of three victims, one was the jerkass who fired my mom, one was dying of the same thing as my mom, and the other one was my uncle? I cross out the first three names and trace number four with my bitten-up fingertip before sticking it back on the wall.
    Kelsey Mackey.
    So a girl then, probably not too old. And I don’t know her—that I know of. There’s a name I do know on my list, much lower down, but I’m doing my best to forget about that one. Like with Wyatt’s brother, I don’t want to count my