Chapter 16

I didn’t go back to bed, thank you very much.

I did cry a little. Not because I’d changed my mind. But because it was still a loss. Even though we’d done this before, it felt…final, this time. Real in a way it hadn’t before.

After a long, teary hour, though, I got in the shower, and that helped. I dressed, and that helped too. The Jigglypuff T-shirt was from Japan, and it was freaking awesome. A heavy flannel shirt and joggers blunted the worst of the day’s chill. I padded downstairs in search of something to eat (no comments, please) and found Indira, Keme, Millie, and Fox in the kitchen.

“DASH!”

You get one guess who hugged me first.

My ears were still ringing as Millie gave way to Fox (whose hug consisted of a few light pats on the back before they drifted away). Indira was next, and I almost started crying again because her hugs were so good. And then, to my surprise, Keme was there, his arms stiff around me, his face set in a scowl.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered. “Thank you for helping me.”

Some of the stiffness melted out of him, but he was still scowling when he stepped back.

“Also,” I said, “Millie got that on camera, and I’m going to have that picture printed and hang it in the hall so everyone can see the time you hugged me.”

He made a rude gesture. Two of them, actually. Then he turned on Millie, who immediately began to say, “But it was so CUTE!” And then, as they began to wrestle over the phone, “No! No! Fox, help!”

“I can’t,” Fox said as they drifted over to a plate of another of Indira’s specialties: garbage cookies. (They were not, for the record, garbage. They had MM”s and oats and chocolate chips and—well, pretty much everything. And they were amazing.)

“FOX!” Millie screamed, but it was broken up by laughter.

“You can’t help?” Indira asked.

Fox shrugged. “Because I don’t want to.”

Indira gave them a pointed look before turning to me. “How are you doing, dear?”

“All right, I guess. Hugo and I had a talk before he left. It was—what’s it called when it’s absolutely terrible, but it needs to be done, and you feel better when it’s over, and you’re glad you did it?”

“Being an adult,” Fox said drily.

“Hey!”

“In case you’re wondering, the novelty wears off quickly, and then it just feels terrible.”

“Don’t listen to them,” Indira said. “I’m sure it was hard, Dash, but you did the right thing.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, WAIT!” Millie managed to break free from Keme—probably because Keme had a ruptured eardrum. “Hugo is GONE?”

“I didn’t catch that,” Fox murmured.

Indira gave them an even pointier look.

“But my mom was so excited to meet him,” Millie said. “That’s so unfair.”

“Don’t get me started,” Fox said. “He was supposed to help me take a mattress to the dump.”

“You two are traitors,” I said. “Both of you. You know that, right?”

“My mom is obsessed with his book,” Millie said. “And he’s so nice.”

“I’ve asked you the last three weekends,” Fox said. “The last time, you did that horrible fake snoring to get out of it.”

“And who’s going to help Indira set up at the farmer’s market?” Millie asked.

I looked at Indira.

She had the decency to blush. She even reached up to touch the lock of white hair before she seemed to catch herself and froze. “He volunteered—”

“Traitors!” I pointed at Keme. “And I don’t even want to know. Thank God Hugo is terrible at Xbox.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s terrible,” Millie said—oblivious to Keme’s not-so-subtle (and verging on frantic) hand gestures. “I watched them play for a while, and he—” She must have finally caught one of Keme’s signals because her mouth stretched into an artificial smile. “He is terrible at Xbox.”

“Fine,” I said. “Perfect. Great. This makes my life so much easier. I’m going to live out on the cliffs and let the crows bring me food—”

“They’re crows,” Fox said, “not cargo planes.”

I summoned my dignity and blasted Fox with a freezing look, which didn’t actually seem to faze them. With that same quiet dignity, I continued, “—and Hugo can move into Hemlock House, and you can all be best friends with Hugo.”

“Next time,” Fox said, “try to be a little huffier. Fold your arms.”

“Do you know who didn’t love Hugo?” Millie said. “Deputy Bobby.”

“That’s because Deputy Bobby wants—” Fox managed to cut themself off at the last moment.

“Wants what?” I asked.

“Yes, Fox,” Indira said, and her voice was as sharp as one of her carving knives. “Wants what?”

“Deputy Bobby,” Fox said with a saccharine smile, “wants law and order and for everyone to have a respectable bedtime.”

Indira shook her head.

Keme rolled his eyes.

Millie beamed.

“Nice save,” I said.

“Speaking of Deputy Delicious,” Fox said, “how’s everything going?”

“It’s a mess. I still don’t know what’s going on with him. West wants to move, and Deputy Bobby seems super unhappy, and I want to help him, but sometimes it feels like everything I say comes out wrong, and there’s this way he has of looking at me like—” It was a little like having a fishbone catch in my throat. I sat up a little straighter and tried for a smile. And then, because I’m a wordsmith, I said, “Um.”

“I meant with the case,” Fox said with infinite disgust.

“Right! I don’t know. Hugo said they arrested Penny, but I don’t buy it. She might have killed Mason, but I can’t see her killing the others. It could have been Sharian, but I can’t make that line up—I think she would have either tried to talk Mason out of giving away the money, or moved on. And no matter how awful Becky and Gary seem, I can’t believe they’d murder their own children.”

“You haven’t watched enough Dateline,” Fox muttered.

“Maybe you could call Bobby,” Indira suggested. “Since we all would like to know what’s going on.”

“Uh, no,” I said. “I’m not doing that. I’m definitely not doing that.”

“Millie,” Fox said, “weren’t you going to tell Bobby all your ideas for what he should get Dash for Christmas?”

“Fox,” I said.

“Oh my God,” Millie said. “I was!”

Fox stared straight at me as they said, “I believe there was some discussion of a teddy bear holding a heart.”

“You are a monster,” I said.

“Should I call him—” Millie began.

“No!” It came out a tad too…enthusiastically. “I’m calling him.”

I dug out my phone, glaring at Fox the whole time, and placed the call.

Fox tried to take the phone and wouldn’t let up until I placed it on speaker.

“Everything okay?” Deputy Bobby asked.

Millie made a sound like that was the most adorable thing she’d ever heard.

Deputy Bobby’s silence was pronounced.

“You’re on speaker,” I said.

“Uh huh.”

“Dash is worried about you,” Millie announced. “We all are.” Keme elbowed her, and she said, “Not Keme, but I think he secretly is.”

“I’m actually not—” I tried.

“And Millie wanted to suggest a list of presents,” Fox said. “She has observations about Dash’s underwear.”

“There are so many holes,” Millie said like someone at the beginning of a long explanation.

“My underwear is fine,” I snapped. “And it’s four months until Christmas. And I do not need you yahoos—”

“I’m not sure what’s happening right now,” Deputy Bobby said, “but I’ve got to go.”

“We were wondering about the case,” Fox said. “If you could tell us what’s going on?”

“No, I can’t. It’s an ongoing investigation. Goodbye.”

“For heaven’s sake, Bobby,” Indira said, “you know that you don’t actually believe it was that girl, and we know that you don’t actually believe it was that girl. You don’t have to put on a show for us. We’re your friends.”

“You too?”

A hint of color came into Indira’s cheeks. “Well, we are curious, you know. And that thing about the monogrammed scrap of evidence at the crime scene, wasn’t it a tad…on the nose?”

No one said anything for several long seconds.

“I feel like I have to say that some of my underwear might look, to an untrained eye, like it needs to be replaced,” I said, “but the whole point of breaking in clothing—”

“Oh my God,” Deputy Bobby said. The sound came of a door shutting, and in a lower voice, he said, “Look, Acosta is doing the best she can, but there’s a lot to sort through. Penny argues with Mason. Mason ends up dead. Then Penny takes the paternity test to Jodi and tries to get money out of her. Jodi refuses, and she ends up dead. Cole finds the paternity test—” His voice turned dry. “—according to an unidentified witness, and then he’s on the chopping block. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine that Penny overheard him when he called you and said he had something important to tell you.”

And something about that set the wheels in motion. Cole had called me. And I could hear Hugo saying, don’t use any of the old tropes about twins. Cole had called me to tell me something. The old tropes about twins. Twins being mistaken for each other. A twin no one ever knew existed. The wrong twin being killed. That was usually because the twins had switched clothes at some point, usually something significant and identifying. It made me think, with a sad smile, about Cole telling me his mom had always made him wear red.

But this wasn’t an Agatha Christie novel. What the sheriff needed was evidence, something that tied the killer to this crime. Like bloodstained clothes—if someone had taken something of Mason’s, for example. Or DNA evidence under someone’s fingernails. Heck, even dirt and rocks could be incriminating, and I found myself thinking of the loose stone I’d seen in the Gauthier-Meadowses’ house. In a police procedural novel, especially one that leaned heavily into forensic science, there might be a way to analyze the gravel in the Otter Slide’s parking lot. A rookie crime scene analyst might buck the system and play by his own rules and prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the killer could only have picked up those tiny pieces of rock at the crime scene. (I had a brief but vivid thought that maybe Will Gower should be a hotshot dirt analyst, but I needed a more science-y name for the job. Geologist, maybe.) But the reality, I was pretty sure, was that gravel was gravel—and the fact that Gary’s stupid hiking boots got the carpets dirty wasn’t exactly enough to throw him in prison.

And then a thought began to form at the back of my head, something tantalizingly close that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Cole had called to tell me something.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

“But I don’t understand,” Fox was saying. “Why wait? And how did she know Cole had seen the paternity test? And wouldn’t it be more likely he was trying to help her? I mean, he did destroy that piece of evidence. And—”

“He didn’t call to tell me something,” I said.

Everyone stopped.

After a heartbeat, Deputy Bobby said, “I thought—”

“He wanted to show me something.”

Deputy Bobby’s breathing changed. Paper rustled.

“He had something on him,” Millie said. “He had something he was going to show Dash.”

Keme shook his head, and Indira pointed at him as though he’d spoken. “But the killer would have taken it.”

“Unless Cole fell, and the killer didn’t have time to retrieve it,” Fox said.

When Deputy Bobby spoke again, his voice was tight, and it sounded like he was reading. “Sneakers, joggers, hoodie, watch. Right pocket: wallet, three joints, lighter. Left pocket: keys, necklace. Was he hiding it? Maybe the sole of his shoe? Inside one of the joints?” The sound came of a door opening, and a muffled voice spoke, and Deputy Bobby said, “Coming right now.” Then he added, “I’ve got to go,” and disconnected.

I shook my head. Whatever it was, either it had been lost in the fall, or the killer had—

“Oh my God,” I said. “Twins.”

“What does that mean?” Indira said.

“It was in his pocket.”

Fox’s eyes were bright, and they spoke a little too quickly, humor edged with excitement. “I’ve seen this before. Dash, do you smell toast?”

I didn’t even bother with a glare; Will Gower let that kind of nonsense roll right off him. Instead, in my most authoritative voice, I said, “I know who killed Cole. I know who killed all of them.”