Chapter 29

"No fucking way," Nicole says, rocking back in her chair with a grin on her face. It's after eight, and she just got home from who-knows-where. We're sitting in the kitchen and having a check-in session and a beer. "No way," she repeats, slapping the table again.

I pull out my cell phone and draw up the photo. She takes a look at it and then slaps the table a third time, palm down.

Grinning, she says, "This is proof that dreams really do come true."

Then she bellows Damien's name, making it sound like an emergency. He races into the room, nearly skidding on the linoleum, his worried expression easing when he sees us sitting at the table.

"Damien, take a look at this, will you?" she asks.

I hold up my phone obligingly, and he whistles. "That looks a lot like a golden dick."

"Right?"

"Is it your father's golden dick?"

"Yes," she says. "You know, at times like this, I almost like the guy. This is…well, golden, for lack of a better word. If you're on death's doorstep, you know exactly what to get me before you go."

He ruffles her short hair. "Don't give up hope for your birthday, Nicole. I'd hate for you to have to wait until I'm dead to get something you'd truly enjoy." He glances between the two of us, then says, "I'm going to make a phone call. I'll see you all later."

I watch Nicole as he leaves the room. "How'd you know?" I ask. "There's no way that was just a lucky guess."

She shrugs. "He used to tease my mom about it. Say he was going to get her his dick cast in gold for Christmas or her birthday or whatever. It was an ongoing thing, but I never thought the old bastard would actually go through with it. I'm guessing it's not really gold, but he must have really liked Mrs. Rosings after all. I really wish I'd put in a bet with Mark."

"The guy who owns Vincenzo's?"

"Otherwise known as the local bookie."

My eyes widen. "No way. Do you think he could have—"

"Had a problem with Dick?" she asks, rocking. "It did occur to me, abso-fucking-lutely. Can you imagine how many bets Dick must have put in? He probably got plenty of things right—and if there's one thing a bookie doesn't enjoy, it's losing money. But we already went to talk to him, as you know, and he has an alibi. Plus, a few people around town have told me they were friends. I guess Dick's the one who encouraged him to take the odds on a bunch of random shit, not just sports games or whatever, and it's made him a lot of money. So he's probably not our guy." She shrugs. "One weird thing…he mentioned Dick won a lot of money over the years." She sweeps the ramshackle room with her eyes, lingering on all the signs of disrepair.

"Doesn't seem like it went very far," I comment. Then I remember something Rex told me weeks ago. "Rex said Dick was kind of a prepper. Or that he would have been if he could be bothered to put in the work."

Nicole snorts.

"What if he didn't, you know, believe in banks."

She lets the chair slam down. "Do you think he buried treasure in the back yard? It would be just like him to do that and not leave a map."

"Wouldn't a hidden stash of money be another reason for someone to try to kill him?"

She nods, and then something flashes in her eyes. "You tripped over that hole the other day, and there were more. What if they weren't from land beavers, but the person who made them dug them so we'd assume that? What if they've been roaming around at night, looking for his stash?"

Well, shit. The thought of someone roaming around back there with ill intent sends a shiver through me. We're miles away from the small downtown area, miles away from anything.

"What do we do? Go out there with a back hoe?" I ask, my ignorance about all things related to construction showing. But my worry is twined with a surge of adrenaline that feels a little like excitement.

"Or pay attention to anyone else who goes out there with a shovel," she says pointedly. "I'll get Damien to install cameras." She allows for a dramatic pause before pointing out, "Declan would have access."

Disappointment digs into me. She's right that he'd have access, but I know—or at least I want to believe—that he wouldn't tear up the land he loves. Especially not for that reason. "He doesn't seem to care about money."

"Oh, my sweet, sweet sister. Everyone cares about money. Especially the people who don't have a lot."

I don't really agree with her. If Declan cared about money, he'd sell the pot, not give it to people. Of course, he may have been lying to me about that, and if I say anything to her, I'm pretty sure the word na?ve will be thrown around. Perhaps not without reason.

"What about Mrs. Rosings's son? I mean, she claims he has a sense of humor, and Dick messed up the staircase. Maybe he saw it as poetic justice to arrange an accident on the stairs for him?"

"You're vicious," she says with a grin.

"I didn't say I saw it as poetic justice."

She inclines her head, acceding the point. "It's definitely worth exploring. I'll look into their connection."

I want to ask questions about Declan; I also very much don't want to ask about Declan. His car was in the driveway when I got back from Mrs. Rosings's house, so I knew he's back home. He hasn't texted me, though, and things feel too unsettled for me to drop by unannounced.

From the way Nicole's watching me, she knows who and what I'm thinking about. But she's even more stubborn than I am. So I just sit there, and she just sits there, and finally she says, "I don't have anything new on your boyfriend, but he was definitely running a growhouse for his uncle. I suspect he was also running money for him through the family construction business."

"Okay," I say slowly, struggling to take that in. Declan, funneling money from organized crime. Growing weed, potentially for a lot of people.

He said he didn't sell it, but it occurs to me now that he said he didn't sell it here.

What else did he grow for his uncle?

What's the line I'm unwilling to cross? Declan joked about making a bad impression on my father, but in all seriousness, what would my dad, my real dad, think of him?

He'd tell me to run.

He'd stay up all night worrying.

He'd have a heart attack, and it would be all my fault.

But it's impossible to divorce my logical brain from the way Declan makes me feel—alive and happy and valued…

Like I'm enough, just by being me.

I want him to be enough, just as he is, too.

I want to help him with his greenhouse and walk Rocket with him and pretend I enjoy hiking.

I want to bake together and have adventures.

I run the pads of my fingers over my collarbone, feeling panic brewing inside of me, fizzing and bubbling and toxic. I'm in over my head. I'm in over my head, and I feel like I'm drowning…

"I see the look on your face," Nicole says, scrunching her mouth to one side, "but it might not be as bad as you're thinking. It's possible the guy who took over for the uncle is the one who popped him off, and Declan and his brother and sister ran because they didn't want to become collateral damage."

"I'll bet that's what happened," I say, but the words have the mouthfeel of a disappointing cake. Dry. Dusty. Wrong.

If that's what happened, he probably wouldn't be carrying around a guilty conscience. Yes, growing drugs is illegal, but he obviously doesn't mind too much if he is willing to do it here. Equally, funneling dirty money is wrong, but the way he's been acting…

It goes deeper than that.

I feel something inside me unspool as I make a decision. I'm not going to sit around catastrophizing. I'm not going to be the Claire who parked herself in an office chair for years, dreaming about a future she was doing nothing to achieve and smelling like a perfume she didn't like.

I'm going to find out exactly what's going on so I can properly freak out about it.

Which means I need to talk to Declan. I need to talk to him now.

"I'm going to take a walk," I say, my voice faint, more echo than person. But the words are defined and unshakeable.

"Wear the reflective vest I got you," she says. "I hung it on one of the hooks by the front door."

I look at her in surprise. "Why'd you do that? To make me look stupid or keep me safe?"

"Both," she says with a wink. Then, in a softer voice, she says, "If it goes badly, tell him that I know all about his history, and if he hurts you, I will ruin him. I know where his brother and sister are hiding, and I'll ruin both of them too. All that will be left of them is a whole bunch or ruin. It'll make what happened to Agnes and Doug look sweet and gentle."

I raise my eyebrows, my heart beating fast in my chest. "You know where I'm going, and you're not going to try to stop me?"

"I've always believed in solving my own problems. I'm not going to get in your way if you're stepping up to confront yours." She shrugs. "And I wouldn't have stayed away from Damien if I were in your shoes. You know…when we first got together, there were plenty of barriers against us too."

"Like what?" I ask.

"He's from this incredibly wealthy family—"

"Not making me feel better."

She grins. "But they're dicks. They hate me, obviously. They'd probably have me popped off if we weren't so much better at cloak and dagger shit than they are. And then there was his ex-girlfriend…she pretended they were sleeping together behind my back."

"What'd you do?" I ask, because she obviously did something. She's not the kind of person who'd take that kind of thing and carry it around for years. She's a woman of action, the way I want to be. The way I hope I'm becoming.

"I punched her in the face."

"Good to know," I say. "I'll keep that one in my back pocket." It takes me a second to realize I'm borrowing Declan's father's phrase. It clutches at my heart with wispy hands.

"Don't do anything I would do," she says, her expression shifting to just sideways of serious. "This is the kind of situation where being careful is probably a good thing. For you, anyway. Obviously we won't turn him in if you like him. You can tell him that too."

I doubt he'll take it as gospel. But I nod and get up from the table, then stoop and take a swig of my beer. Glancing at my sister, I say, "He may not even be home. He's been off dealing with something."

She has the grace not to suggest that whatever he's been dealing with might be criminal in nature, but fuck, it really might be.

"If he's not, you'll try again later."

I nod, something caught in my throat. "I will."

"You're going to be okay," Nicole says as she runs a hand through her hair. Half of it sticks straight up, but it has the nerve to look good. "If he turns out to be a bad guy, I'll find you someone else."

I laugh, nearly snorting beer. "Do you moonlight as a matchmaker?"

"Sort of," she says. "I've decided I consider myself more of a love fixer."

"Like fixing broken hearts?" I ask, rubbing the sore area in my chest.

"No, more like in the organized crime way. Like, you've got a problem? I'll fix that shit right up for you. That's me. And Damien, because he doesn't have a choice."

"I heard that," Damien says from the kitchen doorway. But there's a fond smile on his face as he enters the room and heads to the refrigerator, grabbing a beer from the door. Turning to us, he leans back against it, looking like he belongs in an advertisement for expensive jeans, and adds, "But it's true. She has me wrapped around her finger. Guess what she made me name our P.I. Agency?"

"I couldn't begin to speculate."

"The Fairy Godmother Agency." He crooks two fingers to make quotation marks. "‘Because we make wishes come true.'"

"You must really love her."

"You have no idea."

She grins at him, and he snaps his teeth at her, the click audible from across the room.

"You two are disgusting," I say, from the depths of the gooey, broken feeling in my chest. In my mind, I see Declan, baking with me. Getting those glasses for me. Trying to learn how to drive stick shift for me…

I've known him for less than three weeks, but it's been a transformative time in my life. An awakening. And there's no denying that I have stronger feelings for him than I've had for any of the men who've flitted through my life, or even the ones who've planted their feet in and stayed awhile. That has to mean something, doesn't it? That kind of connection isn't easy to find, so it shouldn't be easily let go of either.

I don't want to lose him.

"You'll be disgusting too, once we finish fixing your love life," Nicole says.

"Have we figured out whether we've been trying to set her up with a murderer?" Damien asks, quirking his brow.

"Working on it," Nicole says, pausing for a swig of her beer. "She's going over there to talk to him."

His expression turns big-brother serious. "If he tries anything…"

"I know, I know," I say with a sigh. "You're both very frightening, and I'll make sure he knows it." I sigh again and speak my fears out loud. "Even if he had nothing to do with Dick's death, he's not going to stay. Not when he finds out what we know. He came here to hide. No offense, but no one wants to hide next to a couple of private investigators with no respect for personal boundaries."

"Maybe. Maybe not. I guess we'll see what he's made of," Damien says firmly, and Nicole hums her approval and gets up, going to him. He wraps his arm around her, pulling her in.

I steel my spine. "I guess we will."

I guess I'll see what I'm made of too…

I turn to go, pausing in the entryway to agonize over the reflective vest. But I decide that I'd like to keep some of my dignity intact.

No reflective vest.

When I step outside, it's spitting rain. The drops are small, but they seem pissed off. I pause, wondering if I should wait until later, but then I realize I'm being Old Claire again—the Claire who'd photocopied the pages of Agnes's burn book but hadn't done anything with them, who'd broken up with Doug but hadn't had the balls to stand up to him. I don't want to be that woman anymore. I'd prefer to be the version of myself I've been becoming—the woman who speaks her mind.

So I step into the rain and eye the house next door.

Declan's car is still in the driveway…

I approach the house through the pissed-off rain and the wind that whips my skirt around my legs. Then I get close enough to see them on the screened-in front porch, sitting side by side on the swing—a beautiful blond woman with a purple streak in her hair, her side pressed against Declan, her head cradled against his shoulder in a way that suggests she's not there to install high-speed internet.

My chest caves inward like a chocolate souffle that hasn't been given enough love. I'm guessing she didn't come here to talk politics or try to convert him to the Tribe of Light. The way they're leaning into each other suggests they're quite familiar with each other. Is this one of the women on his list? A girlfriend he decided he didn't need to mention to me?

A wife?

I'm an idiot.

Declan's eyes catch mine, widening, and he pulls away from his friend, his mouth opening to say something. Brave Claire goes into hibernation, probably to never return. I turn and run.

The logical thing to do would be to run toward the house, but I don't. I race down the hill, the ground turning to mud under my feet, rain splashing my hair and my face and my everything as I dodge trees.