Chapter 4

The sheriff didn't arrest me, which seems like a miracle, but he did have Deputy Bobby take me to the station. I sat in an interview room, alone, for a long time. And then, for an even longer time, I sat there while the sheriff asked me questions. I didn't say anything. I wish I could say that a lifetime of hearing my parents argue about police procedures had prepared me for this, and that I was smart enough and savvy enough to remain silent until they either arrested me or let me go. But the truth is I was in shock.

The sheriff and his deputies believed someone had killed Vivienne. And they believed that someone had been me.

Eventually, I left. The sheriff didn't like it. He shouted. He threatened. He told me I was making a huge mistake. But by then, I'd recovered enough to remember my rights. He didn't arrest me, so I left.

Of course, I only made it as far as the parking lot before I realized I had no car, no friends, and nowhere to go. It was evening, and the gloomy day had settled into dark. Cold, damp dark. For a moment, the need to cry rolled over me, and I sucked in lungfuls of air that smelled like fish and motor oil and old cigarette smoke. Then I took out my phone to call an Uber.

No Ubers. Of course not.

"You all right?" The voice came from behind me, and when I turned around, Deputy Bobby was standing there in his civvies: an Aran sweater, jeans, boots that toed the line of trying a little too hard to be butch.

"Fine," I said.

He stared at me for what felt like an uncomfortably long time. Then he said, "Let me give you a ride home."

I almost said, I don't have a home. But that sounded maudlin even to me, and for lack of a better option, I let him lead me across the parking lot. He drove a Honda Pilot (black), which went with the boots. He followed me around to the passenger side and held the door for me.

"All that training," I said as I got into the seat. "Making sure the arrestee doesn't hit their head when they get in the car."

"You're not under arrest."

He shut the door gently and came around the SUV. We eased out of the lot, gravel crunching under the tires. He had music playing, something metal, but the volume turned low. I didn't recognize it; I wouldn't know [blank] from [blank] (fill in your metal bands of choice). I tried to remember the last time anyone had held the door for me.

We drove in silence. The dark thickened against the glass. Trees, stars, the gloss of headlights on wet pavement. Then I realized where we were going.

"I can't go back to Hemlock House."

"Okay. Where would you like to go?"

"I don't know. A motel. I can't get my stuff, can I?"

"Not yet; they haven't released the scene."

"Anywhere, then. It doesn't matter."

He turned the music off. "This is peak tourist season. You're not going to find a motel."

I shook my head and dropped back against the seat.

"Why can't you stay at Hemlock House?" Deputy Bobby asked.

"I don't know. Maybe because I'm a murder suspect?"

It took me a moment to recognize his silence as amusement. "You're kind of a smart aleck."

"I'm sorry. Being accused of killing an innocent woman brings out the snippiness."

For some reason, that made him smile. Not at me, but out at the darkness. It was a surprisingly goofy smile for someone who handed out tickets like they were candy and looked like he was in training to be an action figure. The sweater wasn't exactly form fitting, but I'd seen him in uniform, and Deputy Bobby was, well, jacked.

The smile faded, though, and he said, "Did you kill her?"

It was a strangely open question—no expectations weighted behind it, no hostility.

"No."

"Okay then."

He didn't exactly say, What's the problem?

I answered the question anyway. "But everybody thinks I did."

"But you didn't."

"But they think I did."

"But you didn't."

"Is this from Abbott and Costello? Did I lose a page of the script?"

"This is what I meant about being a smart aleck."

I was surprised to catch a smile on my face—a tired one, yes, but one that felt weirdly genuine. Before I could stop myself, I asked, "Why are you driving me home?"

"You needed a ride."

Well, I thought, if that wasn't the most confusing answer of all time, I didn't know what was.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked.

An unhappy laugh spilled out of me.

Deputy Bobby cocked an eyebrow.

"That's funny because one thing I'm good at in life is not making decisions. About anything. Ever. That's vintage Dash. I couldn't decide where to go to college. Then I couldn't decide what to study. Then I couldn't decide what kind of job I wanted. I write mysteries, in theory, and I can't decide who the killer is going to be. Heck, I can't even decide on an opening sentence."

"It was a dark and stormy night. That one always works."

"There's only room in this car for one smart aleck, thank you."

There was that grin again: boyish, almost silly. "You should stay at Hemlock House. There: that's one decision you don't have to make."

I made a face.

"Sorry," he said with a laugh. "It's already decided. No rethinking, considering, debating, or changing."

I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. That need to cry washed over me again, and my face prickled. Finally, I managed a thick, "Thanks."

"Things are going to work out," Deputy Bobby said as we pulled into the drive at Hemlock House. "The sheriff will keep investigating. I know it looks bad now, but you'll feel better in the morning."

"I'll feel better when I'm not the number one suspect," I said. "Who knows? Maybe there's someone even sketchier than me in Hastings Rock."

We finished the drive in silence; maybe I'd said something too stupid for words, or maybe Deputy Bobby didn't want to contradict me. It did seem like a long shot—I didn't think anyone else had a bedroom with a secret door that made it possible for them to commit an otherwise impossible murder.

Hemlock House rose on the cliffs ahead of us, painted by dramatic landscape lighting so that it looked like something out of a movie (horror or thriller, obviously). An imposing arched doorway, multi-paned windows, so many dang chimneys. It looked like Mr. Nathaniel Blackwood had started with a symmetrical design, maybe Georgian, and then a fit of Victorian madness had taken over—hence the turrets, towers, and, apparently, secret doors. It also looked distinctly creepy, if anyone wanted my opinion. And the fact that someone had managed to murder Vivienne inside her locked bedroom without waking me—or, for that matter, being noticed by anyone else—made me reconsider Deputy Bobby's suggestion I should stay here tonight alone.

If it even was murder, I told myself. If it wasn't an accident or suicide. Like Nathaniel Blackwood, I thought, and a crazy laugh tried to escape me. Like his bride.

When Deputy Bobby stopped in front of the house, he nodded at the cruisers parked on the drive and said, "You'll have company all night, I think. In case you were worried."

"Would you believe me if I said that doesn't really make me feel better?"

"Get some rest."

I opened the door and slid out of my seat. "Thanks for the ride, Deputy Bobby."

"That makes it sound like I'm on a kids' TV show."

I gave him a jaunty little salute, and I got the goofy smile in return.

"Goodnight, Mr. Dane."

"Just Dash," I said. I hesitated and added, "It was really kind of you." He didn't say anything, but for the first time, I noticed his eyes. They were a rich, earthy bronze I'd never seen on anyone. And there was something in them I didn't know how to read. I cleared my throat. "And that's being generous on my part since I suspect the whole point of this ride was to trick me into a confession somehow."

His hesitation surprised me, and for an instant, I thought he was going to say something. No, that wasn't quite right. I thought he was going to ask something. And then the moment passed, and the certainty came back into his face. His tone was slightly different, although I couldn't put my finger on how, when he said, "Goodnight, Dash."

I watched Deputy Bobby drive off, and then I went inside. The house was cold and damp and dark, and since I had no idea where the light switches were, I padded through the vestibule and into the hall in the gloom. Sounds drifted down the stairwell: voices, movement, too indistinct to make out anything useful. The deputies, I assumed, still processing the scene of the crime. Which, according to the warrant the sheriff had shown me, included my bedroom.

In the darkness of the hall, I stood and listened and thought I should just go home. I could get in the Jeep, spend the night in Portland, and be well on my way back to—where? My parents? I wanted to laugh. They'd love that. And then they'd go back to their books and their awards and their lives, and I'd turn into Emily Dickinson, shuttered in the attic until they brought me out for parties. Worse, actually. I'd be a ghost. The ghost of Dash who might have been. No, I couldn't go back to my parents.

And I couldn't run away either. Running away from my problems was how I'd gotten here in the first place. (Although, for the record, I still fully endorse running away as an all-purpose solution for avoiding things you don't want to deal with.) Maybe it was the fear, maybe it was the lingering shock, maybe it was simply logic—whatever it was, a part of me understood that I couldn't run away from this. Because running away would make me look guilty, and Sheriff Jakes already had me in his crosshairs. Deputy Bobby might believe that the investigation would continue, and I could hope and pray someone would show up at the sheriff's station and confess to Vivienne's murder. But the reality was that, as far as the sheriff and most of the town was concerned, the case was already solved: I had murdered Vivienne, and now they were just gathering evidence until they were ready to arrest me.

So, if someone was going to find Vivienne's killer, it would have to be me.

The thought was surprisingly bracing: a cool, clear relief from my normal indecision and the generalized anxiety that accompanied it. Even though the day had been long and exhausting and, quite frankly, horrible, I felt awake. Alert. Energized, even. I knew a lot about crime. I knew even more, specifically, about murder. I knew about police procedure, evidence, building a case. (I mean, I knew how to build a case in a mystery. In theory.) This stuff was my bread and butter; this was what my family lived for. (And that was a little red flag to bring up with my therapist.) But I could do this. I could. I would. I had to.

And the first place to start in any murder investigation was with the victim.