Chapter 7

I wasn’t really sure how I made it home. It must have been a fugue state; I remembered bits and pieces of my flight down the stairs—missing steps, catching myself on an old iron rail pitted with rust—and then struggling up the beach, the sand sucking at my steps. I had a vague impression of reaching the Jeep. Of that sense of enervation—as though something vital had been drained out of me, and what had been left behind was marshmallow fluff. And after that, nothing—a big blank until I found myself in the relative darkness of the coach house, still clutching that stupid folder, my face puffy and hot as I listened to the sound of my shallow, rapid breaths in the stillness.

I dragged myself in through the back door. The servants’ dining room was warm, and it smelled like freshly baked bread and hot oil and onions that had been cooked just right. I made it to the table, dropped into a seat, and couldn’t go any farther.

The sound of my arrival must have been loud enough to reach the kitchen because a moment later, Indira emerged. She was dressed in a wine-colored blouse and patterned trousers, and she looked a hundred percent put together the way she always did, and her witch-white streak of hair stood out like a blaze. Emotions flitted across her face in succession before, in a surprisingly controlled voice, she asked, “Are you all right? What happened?”

I told her.

Indira was silent as she stared at the photos. Then she closed the folder and looked into the middle distance, her expression blank—and terrible in its blankness.

“We went swimming—” I began.

“I know.” She pushed the folder toward me. “I thought this might happen.”

“You thought this might happen?”

Something in my voice must have roused her because she lifted her eyes to focus on me again. “Not with you, Dash. That’s not what I meant. I thought this might happen—to me, actually. Something like this. I’m old enough to know that people are eager to believe the worst. When Keme started spending more time here, I knew it could be a problem. It was a problem, in fact. Vivienne didn’t want him around. But then Vivienne left, and you and Keme got along so well—”

I snorted.

A smile lit up Indira’s face, and she continued, “And I hoped—well, I didn’t even hope. I let myself stop thinking about it.”

Now that she reminded me, I remembered how, when I had first come to Hemlock House, she’d been quick to explain the situation with Keme. Because, just like she’d said, I’d been quick to assume the worst.

“I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I’m happy he’s dead. Blackmail is an ugly, sordid thing.” She hesitated. “Had he contacted you? Did you know what he wanted?”

“That’s the weird thing. He did talk to me about buying Hemlock House, but it’s not like—I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like he made a serious offer and I rejected it outright.”

Indira made a small sound of acknowledgement. “But he might have been laying the groundwork for it. And if his plan was to force you to sell, probably at significantly less than what the property is worth, then it seems likely he’s done this before. You said there were other files.”

“I know. I guess that’s the next step.” I frowned, trying to wrap my head around the investigation. “If this were a mystery novel, you know what would happen? It would all have to do with Halloween. Or it would look like it all had to do with Halloween. Like, the wrong person would be killed because they were wearing a costume. Or the killer would switch costumes. Or they’d dress the body up in a costume like Weekend at Bernie’s . But it’s not any of those things. We know who was at that party. And we know plenty of them didn’t like him.”

“They disliked him enough to kill him?” Indira asked.

“It’s hard to say. Maybe. Jen, the woman who runs the surf camp, argued with him about his plans for the camp, and she was seriously angry. You saw Nate Hampton attack him at the beach, and he was skulking around the party.” The image of Damian’s face floated into view. Reluctantly, I added, “There was a guy there, one of the surfers. I caught a glimpse of him when he was looking at Gerry, and he was definitely feeling…ragey. And those are just the ones I know. There are probably more—I mean, he didn’t seem like a lovable guy.”

“Clearly.”

“The problem, though, is that the only thing we have is motive. That’s the only way to approach this. Opportunity is out—we already know these people were at the party, and in the chaos after the fight, anybody could have snuck off and followed Gerry. And in terms of means—well, it doesn’t take anything special to shove somebody off a cliff.”

“Which leaves the blackmail,” Indira said in a thoughtful voice.

“Until we get something more solid. What I’d really like is a connection—something that puts someone out on that cliff with Gerry. Since I don’t think we’re going to get that, I’d settle for a lie. A nice, big whopper that tells me someone has something to hide.” I scratched one eyebrow. “This would be a pain in the patoot to write, you know. Unless you conveniently dropped some evidence later in the book, you’d basically have to engineer a confession.”

Indira nodded, but that thoughtful look hadn’t left her face. In that same thoughtful voice, she asked, “Dash, are you sure it’ll be all right? With you and Keme, I mean.”

I nodded. “Since Gerry’s dead, I don’t think we have much to worry about. It still—well, it freaked me out, I guess. That’s every gay guy’s nightmare.” I tried to inject some good humor into my voice as I added, “The truancy, on the other hand, is definitely a problem. Keme’s not going to graduate if he keeps this up.”

Some of the strain in her face eased. “You try talking to him about it. I say one word, and he bites my head off. He disappeared for two days last time, and it’s getting too cold for him to be sleeping in the timber yard.”

There was so much to unpack in that sentence. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Keme not only could talk, but that he did talk—apparently, at length—to just about everyone except me. The fact that he slept rough when he wasn’t sleeping in the coach house was news to me; one of the first things I’d learned about Keme was that he had a bad home life, but maybe that had been assuming too much. I was starting to think Keme didn’t have a home.

“I might say something, actually,” I said. “I have the slight advantage that he won’t actually scream at me, since he doesn’t talk to me in general. And I’d like him to graduate high school, preferably so he can go to college somewhere far, far away from here.”

“Good luck,” Indira said.

“He might get angry, sure. But someone needs to tell him.”

“Better you than me.”

“I mean, we’re friends. What’s he going to do? Beat me up? Silently?”

Indira patted my hand. Somehow, that made it so much worse.

“Maybe Deputy Bobby can tell him,” I said. “Maybe he can say it, and then he can get in his car and drive away. Although then Keme might run after him and hang onto the car, Terminator style. Of course, that won’t work because Deputy Bobby probably won’t ever talk to me again.”

Indira patted my hand again.

So, of course, I told her what I’d left out before: the fight with Deputy Bobby.

“And he was just such a—such a man about it,” I said when I finished. “It makes me want to scream.”

Indira looked like she was trying not to smile.

“I know,” I said sourly. “I’m aware of the irony.”

“I’m sure you are, dear.”

“It was totally out of line. And inappropriate. And probably illegal. And he has no right to be snooping into my personal life, or trying to control what I do, or judging me for who I want to date.”

“Do you want to date this Damian fellow?”

“I don’t know. No, probably not. He seems like he’d want to get high and listen to Jack Johnson and go to parties all the time. It would be horrible.”

Indira made a small, polite noise that might have meant anything.

“But you know what? It’s nice to have someone be interested in me and not have that person be a murder suspect, or a murder victim, or—or living in their mom’s basement and trying to convince me that ‘online gamer’ is a real job.”

“And he looked like quite the stone fox.”

I blinked.

“Millie sent me a picture,” Indira said.

“What kind of life am I living? How did I end up in this micro-dystopia? Don’t answer that.”

“Are you going to text him? He might not be boyfriend material, but sometimes, Dash, I think you’re lonely. And it can be nice to feel appreciated.”

“I don’t know. I mean, it is kind of—it was for sexual assault, you know? The arrest. Maybe that’s not fair to him, but it does kind of worry me.”

Indira made that same small noise again.

“Oh no,” I said. “No way. Deputy Bobby was still way out of line.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

I stared at her. There was nothing I could read on her face. “Why couldn’t he have, you know, pretended to ask for permission first? Or he could have lied. He could have told me it came up when they were investigating Gerry’s death.”

“Because Bobby isn’t a liar.”

In the distance, waves broke against the sea cliffs.

“He knew what he was doing,” I finally said. “And he knew it was wrong.”

With a nod, Indira sat forward and said, “That should tell you something about Bobby. Let me ask you a question: would you be this angry if it had been someone else?”

“What?”

“If someone else had brought you this information. If Millie had known Damian’s reputation because, as usual, Millie knew everything about this town. Or if Fox had figured it out—probably from rewatching another season of Law & Order . Or if I’d recognized him from somewhere else. Or if Keme had known because all the surfers talked about him.”

It took me too long to say, “But it wasn’t any of those things. And Deputy Bobby didn’t just know. He had to go looking for it. Because he thinks I can’t take care of myself. Because he thinks I’ve got terrible judgment in men. Because he thinks I need—I need to be fixed or taken care of or something. And I don’t need that. I certainly don’t need that from him, not when he can’t even handle his own—”

I managed to stop myself. A flush made me pull at my jacket, and sweat prickled under my arms.

“Do you really believe Bobby thinks those things about you?” Indira asked.

I didn’t answer.

“I won’t pretend I know what he thinks,” Indira said, “or that I know everything that’s been said between you two. It’s possible he’s told you something, or expressed in some way I haven’t seen, that he thinks those things. But from what I have seen, I can tell you that you are one of the most important people in Bobby’s life.”

“That’s ridiculous—”

“Dashiell.” The vexation in Indira’s voice, more than the use of my full name, cut through my hazy thoughts. She continued, “He comes over almost every day. Before his shifts start. Or after. On the weekends, you go on walks together—”

“Hikes,” I said.

“They’re only hikes if you actually go uphill,” she said with unnecessary, um, factitude. “You go out to eat together. Good Lord, last week, you dragged that poor young man to the outlet mall with you. How many times have I walked in on you reading a book, and Bobby’s lying on the floor listening to music, or you’re watching a show together, or he’s being admirably patient while you and Keme play those ridiculous games.”

Yes, I thought. Okay. True. “But he’s only over here when West is working, and West doesn’t like going hiking, and he needed new earbuds and they have a store at the outlet mall—” I stopped, my throat thick. “I mean, I’ve only known him for a few months.”

But that didn’t sound true, not when I said it out loud. Because it felt like I’d known Deputy Bobby for a long time. It felt like I’d known him forever. I texted him every day. Heck, as Indira had so ungraciously pointed out, I saw him almost every day. Everything about our friendship had happened so easily, so organically, that I’d never really stopped to think about it.

“He has friends,” I said, my voice a little too tight to sound natural. “He has West.”

“You should know better than anyone,” Indira said, “that it’s possible to have a life full of people and still be desperately lonely.”

I couldn’t look at her, so I looked at the table. Everything blurred and doubled in my vision.

When Indira spoke again, her voice was full of unexpected compassion. “I think that when you said those things to Bobby, you might not have said them because you believe he thinks them. I think, maybe, that Bobby touched a nerve without meaning to.” She was silent for a long time. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded. “If he was—” So many words presented themselves to me. I chose the only safe one. “—worried about me, why didn’t he just tell me?”

The vexation was back in her voice as she said, “I believe you were complaining earlier about someone acting like a man.” She rose. “You might consider that he was trying to tell you, Dash, the only way he knew how. You might consider that this is hard for him, and he’s doing his best.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Because I didn’t know what to say. Because I didn’t want to think too much about what Indira was saying. About what she might be saying. Because it was all conjecture, assumptions, based on wildly inaccurate interpretations of, well, everything.

But when I looked up, Indira was staring back at me: those dark, knowing eyes, and that witch’s shock of white hair.

A knock came at the door. It had an unfamiliar cadence—labored, almost struggling. But it was strange how you could know a person. All the ways you could know them. The way they looked when they were trying not to laugh at you. (Because, for example, you’d fallen off your bike trying to do a trick you remembered from fifth grade.) The way a room felt when they were in it—how you could know, without even looking, that they were lying on the floor, earbuds in, listening to some band you’d never heard of. Their breathing, maybe. That hint of a clean, masculine smell. Heck, maybe it was their body’s electromagnetic field. The way they knocked on the door, and no matter where you were in the house, that sound sent something through you: like someone had plucked a string, and a single, perfect note ran through your body.

“I wonder,” Indira said, and her smile was kind because she was always kind, “who that could be?”