“Tea would be nice. Something soothing.”
“I have chamomile.”
“That sounds good.” As she said the words, she could almost hear Noelle’s voice in her head, saying, Chamomile tea? What are you—an old lady? “Noelle would be laughing at me right now.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because she thought tea was an old lady’s drink. She always wanted coffee, as strong and as caffeinated as she could get it. Not that she needed more energy. She woke up bouncing off the walls.” Her lips suddenly trembled as emotion welled up in her. “I can’t believe she’s dead, Mom.”
Her mother immediately came to sit next to her, putting her arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Avery. I know how much you loved her.”
“Even when we weren’t talking, I always knew she was out there somewhere, that we’d one day be friends again.”
“It’s good you got back together before all this happened.”
“But it wasn’t enough. We were just getting to know each other again.”
“It’s never enough time, honey.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “Noelle’s mom lives in Florida now. I wonder if she’ll want to bury Noelle there. But Noelle didn’t like Florida. She said the mosquitos were bad. On the other hand, she’d probably want to be by her mom. Although, she does have a boyfriend. Maybe she would want to be with him. I need to talk to both of them. I need to help.”
“Stop,” her mom said firmly. “Breathe. You can talk to everyone tomorrow. I doubt anyone will be making decisions before then.”
“I shouldn’t have let her go into the funhouse alone.”
“This isn’t your fault, Avery.”
“It feels like it.” She paused, not wanting to talk anymore. “Thanks for being here, Mom, but I’m going to lie down.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone?”
“Yes.” She pulled out of her mother’s embrace and slowly got to her feet, which seemed to take a lot more effort than it normally did.
“We’ll talk about everything tomorrow, Avery. If you need help planning some kind of memorial for Noelle, you know you can count on me.”
“You’re leaving for Hawaii on Sunday.”
“I’ll change my plans.”
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“I’m not going to leave you like this.”
“There’s nothing you can do to make this easier; I’m just going to have to breathe through it. A wise woman told me that once after my father left.”
Her mother gave her an emotional smile. “Sometimes that is all you can do.”
“But I might need to do more than breathe.”
Her mom’s gaze narrowed. “Like what?”
“Like try to find out who killed Noelle.”
“The police will do that. You need to stay out of this, Avery. Because whoever did kill Noelle is still out there somewhere, and you don’t want to be the person who knows too much. In fact, I wonder if the police shouldn’t have someone watching you.”
“I’m not in danger. I don’t think whoever killed Noelle even saw me in the funhouse.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
She thought about that—the terrifying chills suddenly coming back, but she didn’t want to alarm her mother. “I don’t think I’m in danger. And I’m not sure Noelle’s death was random. She was acting cagey. Something was off.”
“Something you don’t need to know anything more about. Why don’t you come to Hawaii with me and Don?”
“Don would love that,” she said dryly.
“He’d understand. We can get you your own room.”
“I’m going to be fine. Just keep your plans.”
“Only if you promise to stay out of Noelle’s business.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start digging even if I wanted to,” she said, offering her very concerned mother an answer that would pacify her. “I really don’t want you to worry.”
“That’s my job, Avery.”
“Not anymore. I’m an adult. I’ll get through this.”
“I know you will, but I still want you to be safe.”
“Me, too.” As she said good night to her mother and walked down the hall to her room, she wondered if what she’d told her mother was true—that she didn’t know where to start digging into Noelle’s life. Noelle had said something about her apartment right before she took her last breath.
Was there a clue there?
If there was, the police would probably find it, wouldn’t they?
* * *
That question ran around and around in Avery’s head as she tossed and turned all night, haunted by Noelle’s face, her eyes, her last gasping breaths.
If only she’d found her a minute sooner. If only she hadn’t let Noelle go into the funhouse alone. If only she’d made Noelle tell her more about what was going on in her life.
So many if-only’s made sleep impossible.
It also didn’t help that she was in her childhood bedroom. It was in this room where she and Noelle had had slumber parties, painted their nails, texted boys, gossiped about their friends, and told each other secrets in the dark of the night.
But there was no one talking now.
Noelle’s voice had been silenced.
It still seemed impossible to believe that someone had murdered her in the funhouse.
Was it random?
The police had questioned her regarding the relationship between Carter and Noelle, asking her if he was the kind of man who might hurt his girlfriend. She hadn’t been able to answer the question.
Noelle had told her with her dying breath that she had trusted the wrong person, but who was that? Was it Carter or someone else? And what was at Noelle’s apartment that she wanted Avery to get?
Throwing off the covers, she opened her eyes, relieved to see the dawn light peeking through the blinds.
Thank God it was morning. She’d never been so happy to see the sun come up. She took a quick shower, wishing she didn’t have to put on the same clothes, but she no longer kept anything to wear at her mom’s house. Then she went into the kitchen to find a pot of coffee ready for her as well as a note from her mom.
Early pre-Hawaii hair appointment. Eggs and bacon are in the oven. Eat something!
She smiled at her mom’s thoughtfulness. She might be thirty years old, but when she was in her mom’s house, her mother still continued to take care of her.
She poured herself a mug of coffee, retrieved the breakfast plate from the oven, and found herself surprisingly hungry.
Over breakfast, she pulled out her phone and forced herself to check the news. It wasn’t easy to read about Noelle’s death, especially since it was told in a dispassionate way, mentioning only Noelle’s name, her age, her city of residence, and her employer. There was no description of the vibrant, beautiful, outgoing person, who should have had a much longer life.
To think of everything that Noelle would never have—a wedding, a husband, a child, grandchildren—it broke her heart and her eyes swelled with tears.
She put the phone down, sadness being replaced with anger. Whoever had killed Noelle needed to be brought to justice. She’d asked the police to keep her in the loop, but she wasn’t sure they would. She wasn’t even sure they had taken her off the person-of-interest list.
She couldn’t blame them. She’d gone to the pier with Noelle, she’d conveniently stayed outside the funhouse during the murder, but then, somehow, she’d been the one to find her. It had sounded a bit odd even to her ears.
Picking up her phone again, she made the call she was dreading the most. She called Noelle’s mom, Kari Price. She’d had Noelle’s mom’s phone number in her phone since she was sixteen years old. Both their moms had wanted their girls to have their phone numbers, just in case.
The phone rang several times before Kari’s voicemail picked up the call. She sounded perky and happy. This had definitely been recorded before she’d re
ceived the worst news of her life.
“It’s me, Avery,” she said, her hand tightening around her phone. “I’m so, so sorry. I think you know how much I loved Noelle. I want to help you with whatever you need. Please call me back when you get a chance.” She let out a breath as she ended the message. In some ways, she was relieved she hadn’t connected with Noelle’s mom. Her feelings were still so raw.
Getting up, she rinsed off her plate and put it in the dishwasher. As she debated her next move, she realized she didn’t have her car. She’d gotten a ride to the pier, thinking that with Noelle there would be wine involved at some point. She didn’t want to hang around here all day, so after leaving a short note for her mom, she called a rideshare company, then went out front to wait.
A few minutes later, she was on her way home. But halfway there, the restlessness running around inside her made her ask the driver to change her destination.
She needed to go to Noelle’s apartment. It was the last thing Noelle had asked her to do. Avery needed to figure out why.
Chapter Four
Noelle lived in the Ocean Breeze Courtyard Apartments in Venice Beach. As Avery got out of the car, she couldn’t help thinking that the building, while modest, was nicer than some of the places Noelle had lived in. After her father and grandmother had died, money had been scarce, and Noelle’s mom had never been one to stay at the same job very long. In fact, Kari Price was probably even flakier than Noelle. But Kari had always been nice to her, and she couldn’t imagine what she was going through now. Hopefully, they would have a chance to speak soon.
She walked across the street, feeling more than a little trepidation at entering Noelle’s apartment. She told herself there was nothing to fear, but with so many unanswered questions, everything seemed suspicious and worrisome. She walked through the front gate into a courtyard. Twelve apartments, six on each level, surrounded the courtyard in a rectangular shape. At the back was a small pool and barbecue area.
The building and courtyard were empty and quiet at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning, and as she walked up to Noelle’s second floor apartment in the back corner, she wondered if the other tenants knew what had happened to her. Probably—since there was yellow caution tape across Noelle’s front door, a stark reminder of the previous evening’s events. The police must have searched the apartment last night for leads into her death.
She stared at the tape for a long moment, knowing she would probably be breaking the law if she went inside. On the other hand, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to see if she could make sense of Noelle’s last words.
The door had a coded lock on it, and if the police hadn’t changed it, she should be able to get in. She used the four-digit code that Noelle had used for everything—6257. It was the address of her childhood home, the one that Avery had spent so much time in as a young girl.
Sure enough, the lock clicked, and she turned the knob, stepping into the apartment.
Her heart was beating a million miles a minute. She knew Noelle wasn’t there, but she didn’t know if the danger or trouble she was in was.
She stood just inside the door for a good minute, listening acutely for any unexpected sound. Everything was still. The room had obviously been searched, however. The pillow cushions had been pulled off the couch. The kitchen drawers and cupboards were open. It was a huge cluttered mess.
She made her way into the bedroom, finding more sad chaos. The bed was unmade and covered with clothes, probably tossed out of the upended dresser drawers. If Noelle had left something here, it was gone.
She felt overwhelmed at the idea of digging through everything to find some clue when she didn’t even know what she was looking for.
And then she saw Noelle’s jewelry box sitting open on the floor just inside the walk-in closet. She knelt down next to it. There wasn’t much of value inside, rings, bracelets, necklaces…
Noelle had never had enough money to buy real jewelry, but there was the locket from her grandmother that she’d gotten on her sixteenth birthday and the charm bracelet Avery had given Noelle when they were ten. She’d bought one for herself at the time, too, and they’d collected fun charms over the next year. She couldn’t believe Noelle had kept it all these years.
Impulsively, she grabbed both items and slipped them into her coat pocket, then she rifled through the rest of the jewelry box, finding a man’s watch, that she thought might have belonged to Noelle’s father, but she wasn’t sure.
Standing up, she looked around the rest of the closet, wondering where Noelle would have hidden something—if she’d had something to hide. She probably would have been creative in some way. Put it where no one would expect. But where would that be?
She moved farther into the closet checking the pockets in the coats that were still on their hangers but found only a few quarters. Shoe boxes were strewn about the closet. Obviously, the police had already gone through them.
A couple of books on the floor caught her eye, and she smiled when she realized one of them was hers. She’d published a small book about space travel for kids the past year, and Noelle had bought it in the gift shop at Nova Star and made her autograph it.
She picked it up and read the inscription that Noelle had actually dictated for her: To the smartest, most beautiful, and skinniest best friend. Love, Avery. She closed the book and pressed it against her heart, feeling a wave of pain.
And then she heard a noise…
Her eyes flew open. Her heart sped up. Someone else was in the apartment.
She started toward the door, not sure if she should barricade herself in the closet or try to get by whoever was in the apartment.
Maybe it was just the police.
It wasn’t!
A man came out of the bathroom dressed in dark clothes with a ski mask over his head and face, a long, black gun in his hand. She shrieked in alarm and instinctively backed up. He raised his arm, the gun pointed at her face.
“Please, don’t,” she begged, knowing it probably wouldn’t make a difference.
But he hesitated.
She didn’t know why; she was just grateful.
“Just go. I don’t know who you are or why you’re here,” she said.
“Shut up.” His voice was hard, angry, and the hand holding the gun tightened.
She drew in a quick breath, still trying to figure out an escape.
Then another man came barreling into the room, tackling the gunman to the ground. He wrestled the gun out of the guy’s hand and the weapon went flying across the room.
Terrified and paralyzed, she stared in shock as the two men went after each other. It was then she realized that the man fighting her attacker was the same man from the funhouse, the one who also worked in security at Nova Star.
What the hell was he doing here?
What did it matter?
She needed to get out of the apartment while she had the chance, but the men were between her and the door.
As she hesitated, she saw the Nova Star security guy get off three quick brutal punches that sent the masked man flying against the wall.
The man quickly recovered, regaining momentum as he dodged the next blow, grabbed the security guy around the waist and knocking him off his feet.
But the security guy quickly regained his footing, bouncing back with another blow. And then in one swift motion, he ripped off the man’s mask.
She saw a dark beard and tattooed Roman numerals on the man’s neck, as he picked up a drawer and hurled it at the security guy. The drawer hit her rescuer in the head, and he went down hard. As he struggled to get back up, the formerly masked man took off, and then her rescuer growled out “Stay here,” and ran after him.
She let out a breath of relief. But staying in the apartment didn’t seem like a good idea. Still clutching the book in her hand, she left the bedroom.
The living room was empty. The front door was open. She saw a woman across the courtyard staring at her, and she was talking on her phon
e, probably calling the police.
She should stay and wait for them to arrive, tell them what happened, but the yellow tape on the front door made her realize that she’d tampered with a crime scene, and no one was going to be happy about that.
As she stepped into the exterior hallway, her rescuer came jogging back to her, a grim, angry expression on his face. She backed up a step.
“Come on,” he said. “You need to get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Look, I work in security for Nova Star. You can trust me.”
“Can I?” she countered. “I saw you at the funhouse last night—right before Noelle was killed.”
Dark shadows filled his brown eyes. “I didn’t kill Noelle.”
“I don’t know if I can believe you.”
“You were the one kneeling over her. Maybe you killed her. Maybe you came to her apartment to find something you didn’t want anyone else to know about.”
She gasped at the suggestion. “Noelle was one of my best friends.”
“Good. Then you’ll want to stay alive long enough to find out what happened to her. Move, Avery. There will be more coming.”
“You know my name?” she asked in surprise.
“It’s my job to know who you are.”
She didn’t want to go with him, but she also didn’t want to stay here and wait for whoever else might show up, so she followed him out of the building. “I think the neighbor called the police,” she said as they hit the sidewalk. “We should wait for them.”
“It’s too dangerous to stay here. You can talk to the police later. Where’s your car?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Then you’ll come with me.”
“Why would I trust you?”
“I just saved your life.”
“Did you? Why were you there?”
“We’re not having this conversation here.” He opened the door to a nearby silver SUV. “Get in.”
As a car came speeding down the street, all thought of resisting him fled. She didn’t know who he was, but he had saved her from a gunman, so she jumped into the vehicle.
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