Chapter 8

I was an idiot.

That was the conclusion I came to after a long, miserable night.

I was an idiot.

I was the world's biggest idiot.

I was so stupid that I'd be doing the gene pool a favor if I just swam out to sea.

Except it was an ocean, not a sea. (See? Stupid.)

And even if I tried it, I'd probably mess it up somehow.

And Bobby would come rescue me.

And then I'd have to—I don't know. Maybe I could find one of those places where they do face-swapping surgeries, and I could look like Nicholas Cage for the rest of my life.

I was so stupid I didn't even know if Nicholas Cage was actually in that movie.

What I wanted to know—what I desperately wanted to know, in a way that made me sick to my stomach, made me twist and turn in bed, made me flush with humiliation even alone, in the dark of my bedroom—was what was wrong with me.

I'd never been good at dating. (SURPRISE!) But I'd never been this bad at it before, either. I mean, I'm a writer. I already told you I'm a student of human behavior, observer, watchful, etc. Not in a stalkerish way. I mean, not in a way that would meet any legal definition of a stalker.

But last night, all that student of human behavior BS had gone out the window. As soon as Bobby touched my hand, it was like someone kicked in the back of my head and absconded with my brains. I still didn't know how I'd managed to say anything. I'd been so disoriented, so…so afraid, that it was like I'd gone on autopilot. And what had come out of my mouth? Literally the stupidest nonsense anyone has ever said out loud.

Some people are meant to be single .

I like being single .

I'll never have to be in a relationship again .

Unlimited tacos .

Groan. I mean, honestly: what. was. wrong with me?

Now, after eight hours of nonstop beating myself up, I could see that the pressure of the moment had taken my rational brain offline. That was basic biology. I knew about that. Heck, my mom had written a whole book about a nanny—I think she was a nanny; maybe she was a dogsitter?—who had gotten away with murder because she used the old trauma-and-the-brain defense. But it was one thing to know about it, and it was another to find yourself buried under the weight of your own panic, watching this other you gleefully striking matches as he burned your world down around you.

The worst moments, during that long night, were when I remembered the hurt on Bobby's face, and the awful smile that had come after. Almost as bad, though, was the nonstop back-and-forth, the questioning, the uncertainty.

Had he been flirting with me? Last night, I'd been convinced that if I reciprocated in any way, I'd instantly discover that I'd been wrong. I'd have humiliated myself. I'd have put Bobby in a situation where he had to respond, one way or another—and no matter how gently he let me down, it would have ruined our friendship. Worst of all, I would have revealed how much I liked Bobby.

Would that really have been so bad?

Yes, I told that stupid voice in my brain. It would have been terrible. Like, a churning cyclone of razor blades in my gut. That kind of terrible.

And if he had been flirting with me—well, that was almost worse. Because that meant Bobby was putting me in a position where I'd have to respond. And I knew how I'd respond: I'd fall even more in love with him than I already was, and then, in the not-too-distant future, I'd screw it all up, or Bobby would realize what a nut job I was, or someone better would come along, because everybody knew after a serious relationship, every guy needed a rebound—

Groan. Moan. A little bit of screaming.

I tried to get up the next morning, but I couldn't. By the time sleep finally came for me, I was too tired to fight it, and so I slept. And slept. And slept. Later, a bleary-eyed glance at the clock told me it was three in the afternoon, and I decided I had to get up, or some enterprising young firefighter would chop down my door.

I dragged myself out of bed and showered. Indira had left cinnamon rolls on the kitchen counter. Here's a trick: warm them up for about ten seconds in the microwave until they're warm and soft and gooey again. Then eat twelve of them. Then feel sick because you drank that one glass of milk, and it was definitely the milk that made you sick, not the cinnamon rolls.

I tried to work on my story, but I quickly realized that I might have been poisoned.

As I recovered—on the sofa, with my eyes closed—my genius plan from the night before didn't seem quite so genius. I did need to talk to Lyndsey, there was no question about that. But what was I going to say? Excuse me, ma'am, I can't help but notice you're not dead. Do you mind telling me about that?

Eventually, though, the toxic milk worked its way out of my system, and I could think more clearly. I decided that I'd approach the conversation with Lyndsey the way I'd dealt with Dagan, trying to discover if anything unusual was going on, if she had enemies, if someone wanted to shut down the park, etc. I considered having one more cinnamon roll before I left —I needed to keep my strength up—but then I decided that willpower was going to be my watchword of the day. Plus I remembered those turkey legs wrapped in bacon at Shipwreck Shores.

On my way, I called Tony, who let me talk to Chester. The poor guy sounded wary until he realized I wasn't going to spring a date on him.

"She drives an Escalade," he said. "I don't know the plate, but it's this awful lime-green color."

"And Dagan?"

"Black Mercedes. Sorry, I don't know his plate either."

"No problem. This is great, thanks."

"You're welcome." He hesitated. "You know how in old movies, parents used to eavesdrop by picking up the phone in another part of the house?"

"I do."

"Yeah, that's kind of happening right now."

A laugh slipped out of me; it surprised me, and even more surprising was how good it felt after the horrible night I'd had. "How? I thought this was your dad's cell phone."

"It is. He's standing at the top of the stairs so he can hear me."

Tony's voice came from a distance: "Keep your pants on, Chester. I'm just looking for something." And then, in what must have been meant to be a more discreet volume: "Tell him you like him."

Chester groaned.

"He kind of spoiled it at the end, didn't he?" I asked.

Chester's laugh surprised both of us, I think—rich, full, and genuinely happy.

"You know what you should do?" I said. "Say something like ‘That sounds great! See you tonight!' And then tonight, go treat yourself to a nice dinner, or go for a drive or something. Don't tell him anything. It'll drive him crazy."

"Oh my God," Chester said.

"I know. Genius, right?"

"It's evil."

"But genius."

"I actually do have plans."

"Even better."

Chester laughed again, and in a louder voice, he said, "All right, sounds good. See you tonight."

"Let him catch you humming something," I said. "Maybe take extra time getting ready before you go out."

"You're the devil," he whispered. "I thought you were supposed to be sweet; Dad thinks you walk on water."

This time, I was the one who laughed. "Bye, Chester. Thanks again."

All things considered, I felt remarkably better as I disconnected. It didn't last long, of course. The memory of last night's disastrously botched conversation loomed up again almost immediately. And while my rational side knew that it had been easy to goof around with Chester because I wasn't interested in him (even if he was gorgeous), I felt a flicker of…resentment, I guess, that my friendship with Bobby, which had at one point been as easy and uncomplicated as joking around with Chester, had now become such a snarl.

Armed with my new knowledge, I headed out.

I found Dagan and Lyndsey's house easily enough—it was, as Fox had said, on the same property as the park, although not inside the park itself. A peek inside the garage revealed a black Mercedes, but there was no sign of a lime-green Escalade. I considered a quick prowl around outside, but I didn't even make it to the side of the house. Through the front window, I caught a glimpse of Dagan sitting on the sofa, watching something on TV. Before he could spot me, I hurried to the Jeep and skedaddled.

My next stop was Shipwreck Shores. At this rate, I decided I should probably buy a season pass—although, to be fair, there were only a few more days until the park closed again. Once that happened, I was sure that any chance of discovering the victim—and, for that matter, the killer—would vanish. I paid the admission and went inside.

The park's magic started to work on me as soon as I stepped through the gates. The lights, the music, the perfume of funnel cakes. At some point, the afternoon's gray had cleared up, and the bowl of the sky had been wiped clean, a blue darkening to purple in the east. The sun was already low on the horizon—dark came early this time of year; another hour, maybe less—but I could feel my body trying to churn out as much vitamin D as it could, like an even more prosaic version of make hay while the sun shines, I guess. I loved Hastings Rock, but I could have used a few more days of clear skies and sun.

I made my way through the thickening crowds. If anything, it looked like even more people had turned out today for the Sweethearts Festival, filling the midway with bodies and noise. A bell clamored at the duck pond game, and a boy started to scream with excitement, holding the little plastic duck he'd plucked from the pond upside down to show everyone in the vicinity the lucky number. At the cotton candy stand, a thirtysomething mom was laughing as she tried to help a little girl (her daughter, I guessed) clean her hands of the sticky, sugary fibers. A guy in a crab mascot costume was serenading a cute little hetero couple—they looked like they were all of twenty years old, and the guy was staring at the girl like he'd gotten clonked on the head with the Feats of Strength mallet. As I watched, the girl kissed him on the cheek, and a huge smile ran across his face.

I guess I should say that I felt like the Grinch, and watching that expression of true love (young love) made my bitter, jaded heart grow three sizes. I guess I should say I had a flash of insight into my own, uh, stupidity, and that everything suddenly made sense to me, and I knew exactly what to do to fix things. I guess I should have said I was happy for them. But I wasn't happy for them. And I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that I was a mess. And right then, the only thing I wanted was to find the whack-a-mole game and really whack some moles. (And that is not a euphemism.)

When I got to the park office, I wasn't quite ready to walk inside—I had a vivid memory of my encounter with Tyler, the security guy. Instead, I crept past the juniper hedge and nosed up to one of the windows. Inside, I could see the reception area. The desk was unoccupied and the doors to Dagan's and Lyndsey's offices were shut. Both rooms looked dark, and when I scooted around to the side of the building, the blinds were down in both windows, and the lights were definitely off. If Lyndsey was in her office, then she was taking a nap. Maybe she had a Murphy bed in there, I thought. Which, actually, would be an amazing life hack and definitely something to consider adding to the den. It wasn't clear to me why Nathaniel Blackwood—the lunatic who had designed Hemlock House, and who had insisted on adding a gazillion secret doors and rooms and passageways—hadn't installed a single secret bed. I mean, even crazy timber barons needed the occasional power nap, right?

Before I could get too deep into my idea of tearing out the bookshelves in the den, a light moved on the other side of the blinds. It only took me a moment to identify the beam of a flashlight. It swept across the window again, moving closer. I scurried backward. As I began to wiggle my way through the privacy hedge, the window to Lyndsey's office opened. A moment later, legs in a familiar pair of canvas pants emerged, followed by a torso in a work coat, and then a head with short blue hair: Jessica. She glanced around, slid the window shut, and scurried toward the back of the park office.

I started after her, but then I heard the whine of a golf cart drawing toward me. I scrunched down in the bushes again, trying to hide as best I could. Through the tangle of branches, I caught a glimpse of Tyler. He didn't look happy as he hurried inside the park office.

I stayed where I was and counted to ten. I wish I could say I counted slowly, but you try counting slowly when you've just stumbled across another potential murderer. Because that's what Jessica was—I was sure of it. I didn't know what she wanted from Lyndsey, but she wanted it badly enough to break into her office.

After briefly considering taking a look at Lyndsey's office myself, I gave up the idea. Not with Tyler in the same building. Besides, I didn't know what I'd be looking for, and for all I knew, Jessica had already found it and taken it (whatever it was). I squirmed clear of the juniper bushes, picking up a few scratches for my efforts, and high-tailed it away from the park office. The music of the calliope drifted over from the midway. A pair of teenage boys "demonstrated" "parkour" for each other (notice the use of quotation marks), which mostly involved running toward one of the park benches and then pushing off it with one foot. They whooped with triumph every time and, of course, looked over to where a group of girls huddled in a circle, talking and playing on their phones and pretending to ignore the boys. A pirate buzzed overhead on one of the ziplines, calling out another bloodcurdling, "Ahoy!"

Eventually—no thanks to the pirate—my pulse began to slow. There was no sign of Tyler, hot in pursuit. Park security didn't rush up and grab me (in my mind, they were a cross between police in riot gear and Imperial Stormtroopers). I ended up at the Kraken's Den. Several of the food court options had seating areas, but I preferred a quick, no-nonsense service window for your on-the-go park guest who didn't have time to eat his turkey leg sitting down.

As I waited in line (I mean, I needed protein), I tried to focus on the investigation. A normal murder investigation—and this was something I knew from long, heartwarming family discussions around the dinner table—usually proceeded in a few different ways. The scene of the crime was always the first place to start, with the hope that physical evidence and eyewitnesses would provide some clue as to what happened. If it weren't an open-and-shut case at that point (which, kind of surprisingly, many of them were), police would try to learn more about the victim.

The problem, of course, was that in my case, I didn't have any of that. I didn't have a crime scene. I was the only eyewitness. I didn't even have a victim. The closest thing I had to a victim was Lyndsey, who looked like the woman I'd seen in the fun house, but quite frankly, that put Lyndsey higher in the killer column than anyone else. And since I couldn't seem to track Lyndsey down, and I couldn't burgle her house, and I couldn't snoop through her office—well, it was time for Plan B. Or C. Or D. Or whatever letter we were on.

I wanted to talk to Jessica. Her conversation with Dagan the day before had set my little detective radar pinging, as had Dagan's eagerness afterward to throw Jessica under the proverbial bus. Added to that was the fact I'd just seen her rifling Lyndsey's office. But the question was how to find her. And how to get her to talk to me.

Turkey leg (plus bacon) in hand, I decided to put one of my less admirable skills to work. If you've ever seen the show Avatar: The Last Airbender (and if you haven't, you need to, because it's amazing), you know that one of the premises is that there are all these people who can use magic to control the elements—air benders, fire benders, earth benders, etc. Well, like most writers, my magical ability was that I was a truth bender. And it was time to bend the truth a little.

I finished my turkey leg (it was amazing, by the way—crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, and have you ever had bacon?) and stopped the first park employee I could find. This happened to be a young woman in a baby shark mascot costume (which looked like it was right on the edge of a copyright infringement).

"Sorry to bother you," I said, "but Tyler sent me to find Jessica, and I have no idea where she is."

I couldn't see the girl's face on the other side of the enormous mascot head, but I thought I sensed a puzzled stare.

"Jessica," I said again and held my hand out to indicate her height. "Blue hair? Fixes things?"

"Emily," the baby shark called to another girl, who was passing us in a park uniform. "Tyler told him to find Jessica."

The girl in the uniform said, "Jeez, he can't call her himself?" But before I had to answer—more truth bending—she plucked the walkie from her belt and said, "Jessica, go to four." She did something on the walkie; it crackled, and then a familiar voice said, "What?"

"Tyler wants you."

"I'm busy."

The girl in the uniform looked at me and shrugged.

"He said right now," I said. "Something about closing down the fun house again."

The girl squinted at me. "Who are you?"

"Uh, an intern?"

(Master of Truth Bending, everyone.)

"You should change your major," the girl said. "I'm doing Home Ec."

"I thought they didn't call it—"

But the girl spoke over me into the radio: "Tyler says they're going to close the fun house if you don't get over there right now."

Jessica said a few things that were definitely not approved by the Sweethearts Festival, and then she said, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thanks," I said.

"You know what you should be?" the girl told me. "An airplane driver. You've already got the hair."

I honestly didn't know what to say to that, so I mumbled thanks and hurried toward the fun house.

Yes, I did check my hair—it didn't seem to be any worse (or better?) than usual.

Also, was an airplane driver a pilot? Or was this more of a tugboat situation?

And where had this girl been when I'd been in high school and I took a career aptitude test and I broke it? Literally, by the way. It said I'd changed my answers too many times, and then it shut down, and nothing Mrs. Helgarson could do would make it work again.

I was still considering these important life questions when I got to Davy Jones' Locker. It was almost a shock to see the fun house in full operation: lights mysteriously changing colors in the windows, music ramping up and then fading again, fog snaking out over the steps.

Jessica showed up fifteen minutes later, scowling as she cut across traffic (an elderly man in a scooter narrowly missed her; he didn't even slow down!). She headed toward the fun house, so I moved into her path, smiled, and said, "Hi—"

"Excuse me, sir," she said and brushed past me.

"No, wait. I'm the one who called you over here."

She considered me. And then she said, "I know you."

"Uh, yeah. We met the other day when Dagan was showing me around."

"You're the one that said somebody got killed."

I couldn't help making a tiny face about that. "Well, somebody did get killed, but that's neither here nor there. I guess actually it was here , you know. But not—"

"What do you want?" Jessica asked. She adjusted a bag on her shoulder that I hadn't noticed until now, and metal clanked. "I already lost half an hour because some jagweed decided to take some of my tools, and then that girl's hair got stuck in the carousel because she was trying to take a selfie, and I swear to God, if one more teenager tries to get inside the lobster tank in the Kraken's Den, I'm going to open it myself and push them in there."

"How big is the tank?"

Her scowl intensified, and she hoisted the bag up her shoulder again and turned toward the path.

"No, please don't go." I planted myself in her path. "I need some help, and…and I don't know who to talk to. Dagan is acting super strange, and I know he's not telling me the truth. And Tyler is acting even stranger—it's scary. I can't track down Lyndsey, and she's the one I need to talk to because she's supposed to be dead." Part of me could hear how…insane that all sounded, so I took a deep breath and managed, in a more level voice, "You said something to Dagan about knowing where the bodies are buried. I thought, um…"

"I was being literal?" Jessica asked. It was hard to tell with the scowl, but I thought under the grumpiness, there was the faintest hint of amusement.

"I like to think of myself as an optimist."

Her tools jangled as she shifted the bag again.

"Okay, full disclosure," I said, "and I'm only saying this because I don't want to start our relationship on a lie. Well, on a second lie. But I'm not an optimist at all."

She let out a slow breath, still examining me. And then she said, "You got dropped a lot as a child, didn't you?"

"I think I've got the world record."

The scowl eased—although it didn't go away completely. Her stance relaxed. "All right," Jessica said. "What do you want to know? And before you ask, no, I don't know anything about anybody getting killed." She was unable to keep the curiosity out of her voice when she asked, " Did you see somebody get killed?"

"I didn't see them get killed," I said, "but I saw the victim. And she looked a lot like Lyndsey."

"Really?"

I nodded. "Does that mean anything to you?"

Jessica shook her head. "I saw her today. She's not dead, if that's what you're asking."

"I don't know what I'm asking. I guess, first, I wanted to know what you meant when you said that to Dagan."

"I already told you—"

"I know, I know. You don't literally know about bodies being buried. But he definitely didn't like it when you said that."

Jessica was silent. The fun house music started over again, building toward its tinny crescendo, and the flash and shadow of the turbo lights played across her face. "They cut a lot of corners around here. It could mean trouble for them if it got out. Lawsuits."

"Like, people getting hurt?" I asked. "That was one of the things I was trying to figure out: if somebody had a reason to want the park to be closed. Have there been any major injuries? Or even deaths? I mean, accidental, of course, because of the rides—"

"Nobody's gotten hurt," Jessica said. It was almost a shout, really—and the grumpiness flared up into red-hot anger. "And nobody's gotten killed. I make sure the rides are safe, understand?"

"Okay—"

"Nobody! We haven't had a single death in this park, and we never will!"

A mom and kids who'd been passing us on the path stopped to stare at us. Then she grabbed the children by the shoulders and steered them away.

"Got it," I said. "No accidents. I understand."

Jessica wiped one palm on her canvas work pants. It was hard to tell in the thickening shadows, but it looked like her hand was shaking.

"And I guess you can't think of anyone who might want to do something like this?"

"Do what?" The words came out sharp, and Jessica made a face. In a more controlled voice, she asked, "I don't even know what somebody did. They didn't find a body, did they?"

"No, but there was one. I saw that woman. I touched her."

Jessica was silent for a long time. Finally, she said, "I don't know what you want from me." But then, almost immediately, she said, "You say she looked like Lyndsey?"

I nodded. "Does that mean something? Is there somebody with a grudge against Lyndsey? Somebody who might want to hurt her?"

"How about most of the park? She's a terror. She doesn't even like the place, you know? The only time she's in that office is when she's trying to make a point—or trying to figure out how to squeeze more money out of this place. That's all she cares about. She didn't want anything to do with the park while her dad was alive—couldn't bother to learn anything about it. It wasn't until after he died that she came back, and that was only because she ran out of money."

That partially tracked with what Fox had told me the night before: Lyndsey's troubled relationship with her father, her pattern of acting out, the fact that she hadn't come back for her father's funeral. But the rest of it was a surprise—where was the girl who loved the theater and church mission trips, I wanted to know. She'd grown up, I guessed. And, like so many people, she'd found that the theater and mission trips didn't pay the bills.

"That was before my time," Jessica said, "but the way people tell it, the park was doing way better with Tyler running it; everything's gone to pot since Lyndsey and Dagan moved back here and took over."

"Tyler was in charge?" I asked. "And he stayed? Why? I mean, he was the boss. I bet that was hard to swallow."

Jessica opened her mouth to respond. Then she grimaced and took out her phone. She answered, listened, and said, "Because someone told me you wanted me at Davy Jones'."

"Tyler?" I whispered.

She flicked me an annoyed look and turned away. "He did what ? I told him not to run train five. Are you kidding me?" Tyler must have tried to say something because she spoke over him. "I don't care what he said; it's my responsibility. How's he going to feel when they fly off the tracks?"

She still had the phone pressed to her ear as she jogged off, and the sound of her frustrated replies faded as she moved away.

Which left me, all alone, outside Davy Jones' Locker. I hadn't gotten to ask her about her own relationship with Dagan. I hadn't learned why she'd broken into Lyndsey's office. But I knew more than I had before—including a few things I hadn't expected.

I thought maybe I should go home, regroup with everyone, see what they'd learned. It was possible that they'd had a more successful day than me. But then I thought about having to face Bobby again, and that was enough to make me consider other options (like running away to Bali, maybe).

Instead, I gave Davy Jones' Locker another look. It really did look like Hemlock House—the fa?ade, especially, and the jagged roofline. Eerie lights flickered in the windows, and, on a timer, a crash of thunder reverberated through the fun house. And, as it had on my first visit, it looked abandoned. No park guests seemed interested in it—and why would they, when there were so many other things to do here? I waited a few more minutes, hoping some rebellious teenagers would come along and go inside (so I wouldn't have to go alone). But rebellious teenagers are never around when you need them. I sighed and decided that yes, one more time, I was going inside.

It was how I remembered it: the darkened entry hall, the circus music, the air faintly slick against my skin and sweet from the glycerin of the fog machine. Again, I was alone, and as I moved deeper into the fun house, the sounds of the park faded. I stumbled on the gravity-tilt floor even though I knew it was coming. And when the animatronic parrot swooped out of the dark, I had to bite back a few words I'd picked up in the boys' bathroom. I made my way carefully down the sloping corridor with the spinning walls. This time, at least, I was prepared for the glow-in-the-dark skeleton that lurched out at me.

Then I had to go up the mechanized stairs. They rattled and buzzed as I dragged myself up them. At the top, the mirrors met me—all the twisted versions of myself: taller, fatter, rippling snakelike reflections. Maybe one of these guys, I thought as I passed them, would have handled last night better. Maybe one of them had a clue about how to talk to boys.

I stopped when I reached the bedroom where I'd found the body. From the doorway, I considered again all the similarities to Hemlock House: the canopy bed, the damask wallpaper (definitely imitation), the cavernous fireplace. Through the blacked-out windows filtered in the sounds of voices and laughter and the park's vast machinery in motion. Real people living real lives out in the real world—or as close to the real world as you could get inside Shipwreck Shores.

But this, in here, wasn't real. This room wasn't real. It was fake. The bed wasn't a real bed. It was just a prop. Everything in this house was a prop—everything meant to set the scene that you'd wandered into a crazy house or a fun house or, around Halloween, a haunted house. Everything part of a performance. Like a stage.

The thought slowed me. Was it a stage? Had someone wanted me to find that body here? Had it been a performance for my benefit? Not me personally, obviously. But whoever had killed that woman—had they wanted a witness?

The frustrating part was that I'd already considered those questions. And now here I was, and I was considering them again—and coming up with the same lack of answers. In a mystery novel, you couldn't use a fun house setting without it being significant to the plot. I couldn't think of any examples, but I knew how mystery novels worked. Any time you had something different, something out of the ordinary, something that would catch the reader's attention—for example, a fun house—then it had to be significant to the plot. The low-hanging fruit, I thought, would be the mirrors. Maybe the detective sees something in the mirrors that he's not supposed to see. Another easy one would be all the animatronic characters. Kind of like hiding a body in a wax museum—maybe the killer would place his victim in with all the other animatronic figures, and that's how he'd keep people from finding the body. Although that seemed like a stretch—I'd read a short story once about a killer who hid the body inside a prop statue for a movie, and I'd had the same doubts about the feasibility of that "ingenious" solution. (Also, that story was super long. I mean, you could have cut it in half and not lost anything.)

Since I hadn't seen anything—revealing or otherwise—in the mirrors, and since I was sure the deputies would have noticed if one of the animatronic figures was a recently deceased woman instead of, um, a robot (were they robots? I had the distinct feeling Bobby and Keme would both be disappointed if I asked that question out loud), this was apparently another case where my abundance of knowledge about mystery novels was not going to prove useful.

I took out the flashlight on my phone, knelt, and began inspecting the floor. Sure, the deputies had come through the house. And yes, they would have noticed something obvious like a pool of blood. But they hadn't treated this space like a crime scene—because, of course, as far as they could tell, there was no crime. Maybe if I could find something—a speck of blood would be ideal—I could get the sheriff to come back with a warrant and a bucket of luminol. At least then maybe they'd believe me that someone was killed here.

My search was agonizingly slow, but nobody interrupted me. That was the benefit of committing your homicides in the park's least popular attraction—nobody was going to bother you. I started in the spot where I'd seen the woman, with my nose practically buried in the carpet, trying to see by the weak light of my phone's tiny flashlight. This was, I was sure, a terrible idea. If I really thought I was going to find something, I should go home, I should get a decent flashlight, I should get a magnifying glass, I should get a deerstalker cap—no, wrong book.

Do you ever get a flash of inspiration when you're bored out of your mind? Or when you're doing something totally brainless —washing the dishes, or playing Xbox, or taking a shower? When you stop trying to force a solution, and all of a sudden, the answer just comes to you?

(Side note: I tried to explain this to Bobby once, and he—rudely—said, I guess that means you should stop sneaking off when it's your turn to do the dishes .)

I was trying to squeeze myself under the canopy bed (no comments, please) when the idea came to me. I tried to stand up. I hit my head. I said, "Fudge flip gosh dang darn shoot."

Kind of.

Rubbing my bruised scalp, I squirmed out from under the bed and stared at the fireplace.

This whole place was modeled on Hemlock House, right?

So, that meant…

I mean, right?

And if not, what was the worst thing that could happen? I'd be wrong? I was wrong all the time. I was catastrophically wrong on a regular basis. Exhibit A in the case of the people versus Dashiell Dawson Dane on the charge of being a total walking disaster: every single interaction, ever, with Bobby.

I moved toward the fireplace. It wasn't real masonry, of course. The hearth was painted plywood, and the fireplace itself was foam bricks. I crawled into the opening, and I had a vivid memory of early in my time at Hemlock House, when Bobby—who, back then, had been Deputy Bobby—had found me in the fireplace in the den. But Bobby wouldn't find me here tonight. I didn't even know where Bobby was.

When I pressed on the back of the fireplace, the foam bricks compressed under my hand slightly, and then the panel behind them shifted. That was my answer—a faint seam that showed where the secret door opened. I spent a few wild seconds wondering who had designed this place and how they'd known about the secret passage at Hemlock House in the first place, but that didn't matter. What mattered was figuring out how to open it.

I tried the usual places—pressing the bricks in the corners, testing the hearth for a loose board, etc. I was about to scoot out of the fireplace and start inspecting the wall sconces when I reached up, more for the sake of completion than anything else, and found a handle overhead. I turned it, and the back of the fireplace swung open.

The space beyond was as poorly lit as the rest of the fun house—I could only make out unfinished flooring and a ladder fixed to the far wall. It went up, presumably toward an attic space (which made me consider that I'd never been in Hemlock House's attic), and down, presumably to the ground floor. Boxes were stacked on either side of the ladder, leaving only a small space to stand. If there were hallways that led off to other areas of the fun house, I couldn't see them—behind the boxes, maybe.

As I began to crawl forward, a sound came from somewhere else in the house. I couldn't name it. I wasn't even a hundred percent sure I heard it, with the circus music playing on a loop and the grinding and rumbling of the fun house's machinery making a constantly changing background noise. I stayed still, listening, but nothing came again. Maybe someone had finally gotten bored with the Sea Snake and the magnetron and the turkey legs wrapped in bacon and decided to visit Davy Jones' Locker. But I still heard nothing. I dried my hands on my pants. I wiped my face with my sleeve. More of that yawning, white-hiss static of nothing—just the blood surging in my ears as I strained to hear. Maybe, whatever that sound was, I'd imagined it.

I wondered if the dead woman I'd found had thought the same thing.

A giggle—nerves, not humor—tried to work its way free. I clamped down on it and crawled through the opening at the back of the fireplace. When I got to my feet on the other side, the circus music was quieter, but the thump and hum of the machinery was much louder. I gave a quick look at the open shaft where the ladder ran. A few pallid work lights gave enough illumination for me to make out the ladder itself, but they left everything else in darkness, and I couldn't tell where the ladder might take me. I rocked one of the boxes back and forth to test it. It was lighter than I'd expected—very light, in fact. I shimmied it toward me, worked open the flaps at the top, and came face to face with a lobstrosity.

(That's a Stephen King word, and a fresh nightmare if you needed one.)

I barely stifled a shout. And then I whacked the box, partly because of the surge of adrenaline, and partly out of relief. The giant lobster mascot head was cartoonish now that I got a better look at it, but at first glance, there had been something terrifying about the surprise.

I set the box aside, reached for the next, and stopped.

Because on the other side of the wall of boxes was a dead woman.

My first thought was more frustrated than afraid: Not again.

I directed the weak light from my phone at her. It was Lyndsey; there was no doubt. I recognized the bob of chocolate-brown hair, recognized her face, recognized that hint of an overbite. She was dressed in a coat and sweater and jeans. It was hard to tell in the dark, but her clothes didn't look hard used or worn out, the way the other woman's had.

My hands were starting to shake. I brought my phone back toward me—the next thing was to call the sheriff's office. As the angle of the phone's flashlight changed, shadows rushed in. I turned back toward the secret passage; right then, the only thing I wanted was to get out of that cramped space.

Too late, I heard something move behind me.

I tried to get a look, but I was too slow. There was only the rush of displaced air, and then a hand connected with my back, and I stumbled.

Straight into the shaft where the ladder ran.

My foot came down on nothing. My weight pitched me forward. And I fell.