Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

I hadn't done that right.

This is why I don't talk to people. I wasn't good with people in general, but with traumatized teenagers I was really bad, given I had no prior experience except some firsthand, many years ago on the receiving end, and I'd blocked all that out. So I dropped that on them and Poppy started to cry.

Rose put her arms around Poppy and patted her back, making soothing noises. I shifted from one foot to the other as Rose looked over her shoulder at me with one of those frowns that I'd learned meant "What the fuck is happening now?" Or it could be "What the fuck is wrong with you?" I hadn't been here long enough to be able to discern between them.

"Come on, Poppy," Rose said to her daughter, holding her close. "Let's hear what Max has to say."

Poppy nodded, taking a big gulping breath, and then looked at me, blinking tears away. "You're really staying?"

Did you miss the part about Melissa being dead? "Until we find out what's going on, yes."

"Maggs is staying?"

"Yes." Apparently, I wasn't enough.

She swallowed and pointed at my face. "What happened to you?"

"I was in the river."

"Why?" Poppy asked.

I didn't want to get into that again; we had bigger problems.

Rose was also focused on those bigger problems, so she just said, "Somebody cut Reggie's rope bridge and he fell in the Little Melvin." Poppy gasped as Rose looked at me. "So I gather Melissa did not die of natural causes."

"No," I said.

"And, of course, we don't know who did it because the possibilities are damn near endless," Rose said, sounding jaded about the whole thing.

" What is going on? " Poppy said, her voice going up again, but she sounded angry now, which was a step up from sobbing. " Why are people dying? What's happening to us?"

"Good questions." Rose tightened her arms around her, calm as anything. "Pops, you know this town is full of retired spies. A lot of them have pasts just waiting to catch up with them. That's why Serena came to town when Oz died. And now, it looks like somebody caught up with Melissa."

Poppy sniffed and let go of her mother.

"It's not everybody in town," I said, trying to help. "There are many fine people in this town who have never killed anybody." Rose looked at me from under her brows. "Never killed anybody here . And even among the players, not all of them were killers. Some had other specialties."

"But some of them have killed in the past," Rose told her. "And you know a lot of them. We've been here your whole life, Poppy. Nothing's changed. Except now you know what's going on."

Poppy looked from her to me and back again. "Who else here has a secret spy past?"

Rose said, "It doesn't matter," but it did. The kid needed to know. Luke had been right: There was protecting and there was keeping someone ignorant, and in my experience the latter could be fatal.

"Me," I told Poppy. "Melissa, which is probably why somebody took her out. Luke. Coral and Pike. The Ferrells. Sid Quill. Harvey Ware. Bea Handler, Betty Baumgarten?—"

" Stop it! " Rose said.

I held my ground. "She wants to know. She needs to know that even though there are a lot of dangerous people out there, most of them would protect her and Darius and the Weeds and the rest of her friends if there was trouble." I looked at her. "Ever notice there's no crime in Rocky Start? No robbery, no rape, no muggings? You're living in the safest place on earth for you. You're okay ."

Which was utter nonsense given the events of the past couple of weeks, I belatedly realized. The people who had hurt her here were Outsiders, but safe she wasn't.

Poppy blinked at me. She was going to need some time to process all this along with everything that had happened last week. And she was going to need a sense of safety to work through it.

And since Oz was dead and Pike was mostly talk at this point, that meant she needed me around for a bit longer. Luke and me. Who were not the new Pike and Oz. But . . .

Well, hell.

"It wasn't safe for Melissa," Poppy pointed out.

"Her past caught up to her," I said. "Her past outside of here." I looked at Rose. "Is it okay if I stay until this is straightened out?"

She shrugged. "You know where your bedroom is."

I wondered if that meant I wasn't going to be sleeping in her bed tonight, but I couldn't read her tone and now was not the time to ask.

Later, maybe.

Eye on the ball, that was me.