Chapter 10

Being a full-time mystery writer, part-time super sleuth, and occasional, uh, wedding venue host means that sometimes it’s my job to make impossible decisions.

“If I get the al pastor,” I said, “I get all that delicious spit-grilled flavor, plus the marinade, plus it’s pork.”

LaLeesha was trying to fix her braid in the tiny mirror I knew she kept mounted above the food truck’s service window.

“But if I get the Baja shrimp, I get shrimp. Plus they’re beer battered. Plus they’re fried.”

She let out a heavy breath.

“Or,” I said.

“You can get more than one taco, you know.”

That was the problem with being a loyal customer: the staff began to take liberties.

“Well, not really. See, I’m meeting someone for dinner—”

LaLeesha’s gaze snapped down to me. “Is it a date?”

“—so I don’t want to ruin my appetite—”

“It’s a date. Oh my God, it’s a date. Sergey! Dash is going on a date!”

Sergey’s answering rumble came from the truck’s prep area. A moment later, he poked his head out and gave me a thumbs-up.

“Is good,” Sergey told me.

“No, it’s—”

“Number one boy.”

“Okay, well, thank you, but—”

“Superstar.”

“I don’t know if I’m a superstar, exactly—”

“Turn around,” LaLeesha said. “Wait, you’re not wearing that, are you? Oh my God, I get it. It’s a prank, right? Or one of those revenge dates? Did he ghost you? This is hilarious. Hold on, let me text Millie a picture.”

I stalked off. I thought I heard laughter behind me; et tu, Sergey?

The boardwalk was busy tonight, the way it was every night this time of year, rain or shine (barring the occasional genuine downpour). The sky was darkening slowly, with a thin band of orange and purple on the horizon. Old-fashioned streetlights were coming on slowly. Tourists streamed around me and then, to make things interesting, abruptly stopped directly in front of me—they only seemed to have two speeds: either hurrying as fast as they could, while their excited children raced ahead of them; or rooted in place so they could take approximately a million photos of a featureless stretch of ocean or Tijohn’s sand paintings or a lone hermit crab. More food trucks lined the boardwalk as far as I could see, and mixed with the saltiness of the marine air was the smell of fried twinkies and browning garlic and meat sizzling against hot steel. A balding man with a sunburnt nose was asking enthusiastically, at the service window of Spread Your Wings and Fry, to see the nutritional information for the mac-and-cheese waffle cone.

The afternoon had been surprisingly restful after I’d escaped my so-called friends. I’d gotten a nap (ignoring Fox’s jibe about hibernation), and I’d woken up to a text from Cole about where we were meeting. We’d agreed on the boardwalk; I got the feeling that Cole wanted to go somewhere more private, but since he was (if only technically) a potential murderer, as well as a source in a murder investigation, I thought a public meeting with lots and lots of eyewitnesses would be ideal.

“Hey Dash!” That was Mr. Li, waving excitedly to me from his vendor tent where he sold his watercolors. “Good luck on the date!”

I groaned, waved, and tried to walk faster (tried and failed: a tourist lady zoomed in front of me and then immediately hit the brakes so she could study the rope wrapped around an otherwise unremarkable pile). Of course Mr. Li already knew. Everybody probably already knew. Because it was a small town—and because Let’s Taco Bout Tacos was, let’s face it, the single best dining experience for a hundred miles (because a) they’re tacos, and b) LaLeesha and Sergey were geniuses)—if everyone didn’t already know about my non-date, they would in approximately fifteen minutes.

What would Deputy Bobby think about that?

The question came out of nowhere, and it was so embarrassing that even though it had only been inside my head, I felt my face heat. In the first place, it didn’t matter what Deputy Bobby thought. Or didn’t think. If he thought about it at all, which he probably wouldn’t, on account of the fact that he was my friend, that’s all. And he was dating West. And we were friends. Because he was dating West (see above). And anyway, Deputy Bobby had already seen me on a date with Cole. And he and West had tried to set me up on other dates, even though I’d always turned them down because I didn’t feel ready. And honestly, I was a grown man and an adult and, uh, independent? Maybe? I had every right to go on a date with whoever I wanted. Whenever I wanted. I could go on a date at six in the morning if I wanted. With a guy on a motorcycle. And we could go shoot guns or blow something up.

I didn’t want to, though. That sounded terrible. No one should be awake at six in the morning, and motorcycles are so loud, and guns and blowing-up-things are even louder.

Not that Deputy Bobby would care even if I told him. He’d probably nod and smile and ask some appropriately polite question about the motorcycle. He’d probably want to know how many cylinders it had.

I could hear my own thoughts, and I was getting that scream-until-my-head-falls-off feeling again.

Fortunately, at that moment, a man popped up from behind Miss Gill’s Sno-Cone cart. He saw me. Saw me staring at him. And then he dropped down out of sight again.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said under my breath.

I stayed where I was—resisting the urge to give ground even when an extended family of tourists surged toward me.

“Grandpa’s not feeling well!” one of the women shouted.

Another woman shouted back, “Get him into the Hallmark store, quick!”

But I didn’t yield. I didn’t run. I stayed right where I was, and I watched as the man in question finally darted out from behind the Sno-Cone cart. He sprinted toward the edge of the boardwalk, crashed into Jamie Brennan’s T-shirt stand, and then stumbled out of sight.

I went after him.

He was trying to hide behind a trash barrel when I found him.

“Hello, Hugo.”

He looked better for having gotten a few hours’ sleep, and he offered a smile as he stood. He looked like he was trying to pretend I hadn’t caught him skulking behind a pile of refuse, and remarkably, he was kind of pulling it off. “Oh! Hi, Dash. I didn’t see you—”

“Don’t.”

He swallowed.

“Why are you following me?”

“Uh.”

“How are you following me?”

He didn’t answer, but his eyes did slide to a spot behind me. I looked over my shoulder.

Keme, in hoodie, board shorts, and flip-flops, stood with his arms folded. He met my gaze without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

“Really?” I asked. “You too?”

He shrugged.

“How long?”

He shrugged again.

“The whole time,” I said. “Perfect. At least you did a better job than this bozo.”

Keme looked mildly gratified at that.

“Hey,” Hugo said. “I think I should get some credit for being a good friend. He said it was dangerous and—”

I whirled around to glare at Keme. What I wanted to say—what hurt, to a surprising degree—was that I couldn’t believe he’d talked to Hugo. Keme and I had been friends for months, and he’d never said a word to me. But a part of me knew that if I said those words, I’d be—well, I don’t know what. Issuing an ultimatum, or a challenge, or something. And whatever it was, it would ruin our friendship. So, after another moment, I managed to swallow the words. Keme must have sensed some of it, though, because color rushed into his face. After a moment, he glanced away.

“You are unbelievable,” I told him. To Hugo, I said, “You too. Both of you go home.”

I made my way back to the boardwalk. Night was thickening, and a breeze ripped away the day’s warmth. Even in my quilted jacket, I shivered. The chill didn’t faze the tourists of course; not far off, an entire family was lined up by size like Russian nesting dolls, each one holding an ice cream cone.

Ice cream did actually sound kind of good, now that I thought about it.

Still no Cole. I checked my phone, but I didn’t have any missed calls or messages. I opened up my thread with Cole and typed: Everything okay?

The screen dimmed and then went dark.

When I looked over my shoulder, Keme and Hugo were still there: Hugo with a mixture of defiance and worry on his face; Keme cool as a cucumber, sitting on the railing and swinging his legs.

Maybe Cole was too depressed. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. Maybe, I thought, he was high.

“I bet he changed his mind,” Hugo said behind me. I whirled around to see that he and Keme had snuck up on me. He added, “That’s what we both think.”

Keme at least had the grace to look ashamed of himself.

“He didn’t change his mind,” I said.

Hugo made a big production out of looking around, scanning the crowd. “He’s not here, is he?”

I didn’t answer that.

“I think he was playing you,” Hugo said.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I bet he did this because he likes yanking you around.”

“Hugo, will you please go home? This is important. I’m trying to help you, even though you don’t seem to understand that part. If Cole shows up and you’re still here, he might leave, or he might not talk to me, or—I don’t know. Keme, please take him home.”

Keme set his jaw and shook his head.

“See?” Hugo said. “Keme knows this isn’t safe. That’s why we’re here: to make sure nothing bad happens to you.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen to me. Get out of here before you ruin everything.”

“If he’s coming,” Hugo said like someone making the ultimate, irrefutable argument, “then where is he?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped. And before I knew what I was doing, I started off down the boardwalk. “I guess I’ll find out.”

I made my way back to the Jeep. As I got behind the steering wheel, the passenger door opened, and Hugo climbed in next to me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making sure you don’t get killed by your Prowler hookup.”

“He’s not—” Behind me, Keme got into the back seat. “No, no way. Both of you get out!”

“You’re lucky you have good friends,” Hugo said. “Friends who care about you and want to make sure you’re safe, even when you’re making irresponsible choices.”

In the rearview mirror, Keme looked unbearably self-satisfied.

I tried not to scream as I pulled away from the curb.

The going was slow at first as we navigated the flocks of tourists who seemed to be under the impression that the entire town was one giant crosswalk. Every few feet, I’d have to slam on the brakes to spare some poor sap from Iowa or Missouri or Arkansas from being sent to the great corncrib in the sky. And they weren’t even ashamed of it. One woman held up her hand—kind of like a cross between Mary Poppins and a crossing guard—and then waved eight little kids across the street. (Maybe there was some Von Trapp in there as well.) Another family that must have been from the shallow end of the gene pool made it halfway across the street before stopping to argue about which way they were going—every single one of them was pointing in a different direction. The man I took to be the dad was pointing down; God only knew where he thought he was going. A pair of men in matching felt campaign hats lurched out from between two parked cars and trundled out in front of us; they were trying to get autographs from a group of real, live surfers. Keme looked like he might die from secondhand embarrassment.

Eventually, though, we made it away from the water, and with every block, the tourist crowds thinned. The drive carried us down streets of homes where old Victorian stalwarts stood next to modernist jigsaws and Cape Cods mingled with 1950s-era beach bungalows. The shadows were getting thicker, and although lights were on in some of the homes, the town felt strangely deserted after we’d left behind the hub and bustle of the boardwalk.

When we got to the unmarked drive that led to the Gauthier-Meadowses’ home, the sheriff’s office cruiser was gone. No deputy stood guard. No formidable gate had been drawn shut. We drove up into the wooded hills, and the darkness was deeper under the firs and spruce. Colder, too. When I glanced back, Keme was hugging himself, and his face was tight.

The lights were off in the Gauthier-Meadowses’ house when we reached it. No cars sat outside. Maybe they’d moved the cars into the garage, but I didn’t think that was the case. I parked and stared at the house. Then I checked my phone. No message from Cole. Nothing.

I texted: Hey, I’m a little worried. Could you let me know if you’re okay?

“You should try calling him,” Hugo said.

The curtains were drawn in the windows. Had they all gone out to dinner? Had they all gone home?

“I’ll do it,” Hugo said.

Maybe that was it. Maybe they’d gone home, and Cole had decided it wasn’t worth responding to my texts because he’d never see me again. Maybe he was embarrassed by what he’d said.

But, another part of my brain argued, he had sounded so lost. That was what I’d thought after that first, disastrous attempt at a date: that Cole had been a lost boy who had turned into a man without ever growing up.

“I can do it for you,” Hugo said.

“I don’t need you to call him for me.”

“You hate talking to people on the phone.” I didn’t say anything. “Give me the phone, Dash. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go home.”

We, he had said.

Home, he had said.

It didn’t mean anything, the rational part of my brain tried to argue. It was an expression.

I opened the door and got out of the Jeep.

“Hey, what are you—” Hugo’s voice cut off with a familiar note of frustration.

I kept moving toward the house. If you’d asked me six months ago how I felt about detectives having hunches, I would have treated you to a long (and probably meandering) diatribe about how cheap a trick that was. Will Gower never had hunches. Will Gower observed things. Will Gower noticed that a light was burned out, or the front door had an unusual smudge, or that a curtain was askew. Will Gower detected.

But I wasn’t Will Gower. And although I would have told you—on a bright, sunny day, in the safety of my own home—that I was a rational person, and that I wasn’t superstitious in the slightest, and all the rest of that bunk, the truth was that I had a major case of the heebie-jeebies right then. And the longer I looked at that house, the worse it got. Something was wrong. And it wasn’t because of a scrap of fabric caught on the downspout, and it wasn’t because I could see footprints in the thick lawn, and it wasn’t because of a mysterious tire track. If my experience with Vivienne Carver had taught me anything, it was to trust my gut. If I got the heebie-jeebies, then it’s because there was a legitimate, heebie-jeebies inducing reason, even if I couldn’t put my finger on it. Except for that one time I thought someone had broken into Hemlock House, and it turned out Fox needed some toilet paper, and Keme wanted to see if we still had any ice cream, and Millie had forgotten her bag, and Indira couldn’t sleep so she decided to make a bundt cake. But that was only one time, and in my defense, they were making a lot of noise.

The closer I got to the house, the worse the feeling got. My stomach started to turn. My chest felt tight. Nothing moved behind the curtains—or nothing I could see, anyway; when I strained to listen, all I could hear was my heartbeat. Somewhere else, away from here, the sun was still going down, and night was settling in. But in the thick shadows of pine and cedar, it was already night. Shadows seemed to move every time I turned my head. The darkness made everything into an unfamiliar shape. I pulled out my phone and turned my flashlight on. Then I turned it off again. Sweat popped out on my face in hot prickles.

When I got to the front door, it was locked. I took a deep breath, and a childhood memory swam up: playing ding-dong-ditch with Josh (best friend age seven to eleven, before Josh tried to burn down his grandparents’ barn). For a moment, the fear rising inside me felt familiar, like I needed to turn and sprint into the trees. I hammered on the door. Somehow, I managed not to run away.

“Nobody’s home,” Hugo said.

I jumped. Literally. And as my heart exploded in my chest, I said a lot of words. Short words. Versatile words. Words that conveyed my strong emotions.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Hugo said when I finished.

Keme had one eyebrow raised. He actually looked kind of impressed.

“You scared me half to death!” I whispered.

“I said I’m sorry.” He peered at the darkened windows. “What are we waiting for?”

Pushing past him, I started toward the side of the house. He and Keme clomped after me. When I came around the side of the house, I caught a glimpse of the long, rolling hills that flowed into the ocean. A flat sheen of gold in the distance suggested the end of the day, but everything else was lost in the gloom. I made my way toward the patio at the back of the house. And then I stopped.

Light showed in a window. And I was pretty sure, from my previous visit, I knew which one: Mason and Sharian’s.

When I reached the window, I listened. My heart was still thrumming in my chest, so it was hard to tell, but I didn’t think I heard anything from inside the room. With the ground steadily sloping downwards, the window here was too high for me to see into, so I grabbed the sill and pulled myself up.

Tried to pull myself up.

Keme snorted.

“This is why we were doing that new workout plan,” Hugo whispered—unhelpfully, in my opinion. “Upper body strength is so important—”

“Just help me!” If a whisper can also be a scream, that’s the range I was hitting.

Hugo made a stirrup of his hands, braced himself, and grunted as I stepped up.

“Okay,” I said, “I don’t appreciate the noises—”

I stopped.

On the other side of the window, Jodi Gauthier lay on the floor of Mason’s bedroom. For a single, frozen heartbeat, I felt a mixture of terror at the possibility of being caught and a kind of embarrassed discomfort at having seen her like this. An empty glass lay on the floor next to her. She’d had too much to drink.

But she was so still. And she looked…smaller. Less. I’d seen death before, and I knew what I was seeing now. Cole and Mason’s grandmother was dead.

A glance at the room showed me—well, saying it had been torn apart was a little dramatic. But it had definitely been searched: the bed pulled out from the wall, drawers left open, suitcases overturned. Clothes and toiletries lay on the floor. And the French doors had been forced: splintered wood showed where the latch had pulled free.

Movement on the other side of the French doors made me drop to the ground. Hugo opened his mouth, and I held up a hand. In Mason’s room, someone was moving around. The steps were heavy and uneven. Then they moved away from us, and I thought I could hear them cross the patio.

Before I could think about it too much, I hurried after the sound. Hugo let out a strangled noise of frustration and tried to catch my arm. I slipped free and kept going. Someone had been in there with Jodi. Someone who hadn’t cried out in shock, someone who hadn’t tried to help her, someone who hadn’t even seemed to react. When I reached the corner of the house, I slowed. And then, as carefully as I could, I risked a look.

The ambient light was enough for me to make out his features. Cole stood on the patio, shoving something into the firepit. Paper, I judged by the crinkling and rustling. He produced something long and thin in one hand, and I heard the trigger click—one of those butane grill lighters. But there was no spark, no flame. Cole swore under his breath and tried again. All he got was another of those dry clicks. He swore again and strode into the house.

Movement at the corner of my eye made me turn in time to see Keme launch himself onto the patio. He’d ditched his flip-flops, and his bare feet were less than a whisper on the tile. He sprinted toward the firepit and skidded to a stop. Paper rustled. Then the flash on his phone went off. And then again. And then a third time. He stopped and seemed to be doing something on his phone, but I couldn’t tell what.

“Keme,” I whispered as loudly as I dared. “Leave it.”

The flash went off once more, and then Keme sprinted back toward us. Behind him, something moved in the lanai’s darkness. Keme was running so fast that as he left the porch, he was airborne for a moment. It looked like he might go flying down the hill, into the stands of fir and pine. But somehow, Hugo caught him. He turned with Keme’s momentum, swinging the boy in a half circle. Keme was grinning like a lunatic. And, I realized a moment later, so was Hugo.

I wanted to ask them what was wrong with them, but before I could, Cole’s voice rang out: “Hey! Who’s out there?”

Hugo was still holding Keme by one arm; he caught my shirt with his free hand and pulled both of us into a run. We sprinted along the side of the house. Behind us, Cole was shouting, but I couldn’t make out the words over the sounds of our escape. When we reached the Jeep, I started the engine but left the lights off, and we tore down the drive.

And almost got ourselves killed.

As we came out of the drive, headlights blazed to the left. I hit the brakes. The other car hit their brakes. Through the headlights’ glare, I thought maybe it was a dark sedan. Then a horn blared, and I dropped my foot on the gas. We swerved around the other car and sped away.

We had barely turned onto a residential street when sirens blared. On the street we’d left, a sheriff’s office cruiser sped past, and an ambulance followed a moment later. Headed for the Gauthier-Meadowses’ home, of course. Although who had called them—and why—I didn’t know.

After a few more blocks, on a quiet stretch of street near the Japanese garden, I pulled over. I drooped in my seat, starting to tremble as adrenaline leaked out of me. Hugo was still grinning like a maniac. In the back seat, Keme lay on his side, shaking. It took me a moment to realize it was silent laughter.

“You’re insane,” I said. “Both of you.”

“We’re awesome,” Hugo said. “Did you see when I caught Keme?”

“Did I see it? I was standing right there.”

“Wasn’t it awesome?”

“It was not awesome. It was—Keme, don’t you dare give him five!”

Keme ignored me and slapped his hand against Hugo’s.

“Both of you knock it off,” I said. “We might be in serious trouble. For all we know, Cole saw us, and he’s going to report us!”

“Report us for what?” Hugo asked. “He’s not going to say anything, Dash. He’s a murderer.”

I opened my mouth to say—what?

Before I had to figure it out, my phone buzzed. Deputy Bobby’s name showed on the screen, along with a photo in which he looked even more like a doofus than usual—he had his longboard under one arm, and his hair was a spiky, salt-stiff mess, and he had that enormous grin. He also had his wetsuit rolled down to his hips, which didn’t hurt. I mean, I didn’t even know some of those muscles existed. And yes, if you have to know, I’m perfectly aware that I’m a creep.

“Hey—” I began.

“Get over here right now.”

“Uh, where? Also, hi. And why?”

Keme began frantically tugging on my sleeve.

“The Otter Slide.” Deputy Bobby’s voice was flat and had an unfamiliar edge to it. “I want to look you in the eye while you explain how you got these pictures.”

“What pictures—” I began.

And then Keme displayed his phone. The messages were open, and a thread to Deputy Bobby (in Keme’s phone, he was listed as plain old Bobby) showed a series of photos. The papers from the firepit. And I remembered Keme’s slight pause, remembered him stopping to do something on his phone before taking one final photo.

“The pictures of a paternity test,” Deputy Bobby said, “for Penny Vega’s unborn child.”