Lies Like Wildfire

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez is the author of two middle grade fantasy series,The Guardian Herd and Riders of the Realm, and she holds a degree in English from UC Berkeley. She lives in Sonoma County, California and consulted with the Sonoma County Fire District Deputy Chief and a detective at the San Francisco District Attorney's office in relation to this novel. You can follow her on Instagram @jennifer_lynn_alvarez or Twitter @Jenniferdiaries. Visit her online at jenniferlynnalvarez.com.

1
August 11
Time: 11:10 a.m.
I m not dressed to find a body. I m wearing cutoffs and a thin white tank top. The mosquitoes are going to suck me dry, and my new Vans are going to get trashed. I m dressed for summer, not for crawling around in the woods, searching for one of my best friends with a bunch of overcaffeinated volunteers.
I hope we don t find her. I want Violet to be alive. We just graduated high school, and we re going to college soon. Getting kidnapped or murdered or committing suicide, or whatever happened to her, was not scheduled for today. What was scheduled was shopping for bedding and other dorm supplies.
So no, I m not dressed or prepared to find Violet Sandoval s dead body. Besides that, I believe she was murdered, and I d like to let that sleeping dog lie. Why? Well, why would anyone want a dead girl to stay missing? Because they don t like her? Maybe (but not in this case). Because they want a shot at her boyfriend? Perhaps. Or because they helped kill her? Now that s a reason. I just got out of the hospital, and I don t know what happened to Violet and I don t want to know.
Only one thing is certain: it all began with a flame.

2
July 7
Time: 12:15 p.m.
Five weeks earlier . . .
As I reach into my Jeep, I hear quick footsteps and feel the back of my bikini top snap against my skin. I whip around to see the gleeful face of Nathaniel James Drummer, my main best friend out of my four best friends, smiling at me from my driveway. I aim a kick at him. What are you, twelve?
He dances out of my striking range, cloaked as usual in faded jeans and a too-­tight T-shirt. Grizzled, spiny trees surround us, rearing toward the sky, and a hot summer wind gusts off the Sierra Nevada mountains. What s in the bag? he asks. And you better not say homework.
It s summer, idiot. I snatch my backpack and sling it over my shoulder. I did make the long drive to the library to check out books on criminology, nothing wrong with getting a head start, but it isn t technically homework ­not until I leave for college.
Drummer eyeballs the heavy pack, and his smile deflates. Come on, Han, don t waste the time we have left reading.
I laugh. That s exactly why I m going to college and you re not. But when I meet his gaze, my stomach lightens. Drummer has no idea I fell in love with him in the sixth grade. It happened fast, like sliding off a cliff. One moment he was my sharp-­kneed, slightly smelly best friend, and the next he was golden-­skinned and handsome and a million miles out of my league. I cross my arms so he can t see the gigantic Drummer-­shaped hole in my chest. The thing about love is, unless your best friend falls too, you fall alone.
Drummer hooks his finger around a loop in my jeans and tugs me closer, his deep voice making my eardrums vibrate: I came to get you. Everyone s meeting up at the Gap for a swim. Want to go?
Everyone?
Yep, all the monsters. And Mo s bringing beer.
Our group ­Mo (short for Maureen), Luke, Violet, Drummer, and me, Hannah ­are the kids he s referring to when he talks about the monsters, a nickname we received when we were seven years old.
It was at the community center. Our parents had signed us up for a low-­budget daycare-­in-­disguise summer production of Where the Wild Things Are. The director asked who wanted to be a wild thing, and since none of us wanted to play the human, our hands shot into the air. After that, she called us simply the monsters, a