by Jill Cooper
“Let’s see…. comedy seems like our safest bet tonight.”
“No horror or thrillers?” I joke, but Mom silences me with an icy glare that’d make Elsa jealous. I clear my throat. “Comedy’s fine.” Anything will do that fills the silence.
So, we watch, and we eat. I pretend to laugh and be amused by things. The food smells great, but it feels like sandpaper going down. All I’m doing is going through the motions, and I wish someone would come rescue me from this night. I just want to go to sleep and wake up in the morning, knowing Maxx is going to be okay.
That she isn’t dead. That I wasn’t leaning in her blood less than three hours ago. I can barely feel my fingers and toes as a surge of panic rushes into my chest. All of those threats and messages I received, what if they had been for real, and they had led me here?
With me scared out of my mind and Maxx dead.
Mom places her plate on the coffee table and picks up her lemonade. “There’s no good time to tell you, but I’ve decided to put the house back on the market.”
Sharply, I turn to her. “What? Why?”
“You need to ask me that? Look what’s happened with your friend. There’s something wrong here, Jess. I know you feel it, too. That girl that died all those years ago, your resemblance, and now Maxx… We can’t stay here. I don’t think it’s safe.”
I swallow the bit of food still in my mouth. “We can’t just leave.”
Mom studies my face before she speaks next. I wish I knew what she was thinking. “I think we should. Before we settle down too much. Before we grow real roots here. I can sell the house and get some of our money back.”
“And what? You’d need a job. I need a school. I don’t want to leave.” More than anything, I want to see this thing through about Amber, and now, after Maxx’s murder, I have to. I got her killed, so I need to stay and solve this thing, one way or another.
“It’ll take time to get the house listed and sold. We don’t need to have a plan tonight. I didn’t want to say anything tonight, but I can’t keep my feelings a secret. I’m sorry.” She picks up her plate and glass. Before I can say anything else, she leaves for the kitchen.
I know she’s right about one thing. It won’t happen overnight. There’s still time to change her mind and to figure out what happened to Amber, but I need to work fast.
When there’s a knock at the door, I jump. I’m not expecting anyone to drop by, but it might be the police. “Coming!” I call and hurry to the door.
Ryan Alistair on the other side of the door isn’t what I’m expecting, but there he is. He looks sheepish, his hands in his pockets and his face tilted down. I cross my arms and lean against the door threshold. “What do you want?”
“To say I’m sorry. The way I acted at the drive-in. At school.” He shrugs and looks about as pitiful as a puppy. “My temper can get the best of me. I’m not used to being shunned by girls, especially pretty ones.”
“So, I’m responsible for your moods, huh?”
His cheeks redden as he looks away. “I’m just sorry. I shouldn’t have threatened you. I was…embarrassed. I lashed out. And tonight, when my dad mentioned what happened to Maxx…”
My eyebrows rise high. “He knew? He told you?”
“He has friends in the police department. They’re closing the high school until the weekend. They want to get a handle on the rumors and stories, I guess. Can’t say I blame them. This is going to rocket out of control faster than a wildfire.”
I swallow hard and nod. Great. Looks like I really am staying home tomorrow.
“Are you okay?” Ryan’s eyes narrow. “I heard you were there.”
“Yeah, I was. The murderer…he was still in the house.”
Ryan goes pale, and his mouth drops open. “Shit, are you serious? Are you…?”
“I’m fine. I think I wouldn’t be if the police hadn’t shown up, but yeah, I made it out alive. Lucky me.”
“You are lucky. Talk about bad timing.”
“Sure was.” I can feel my temples beginning to throb from the stress of constantly lying, even to the likes of a snake in the grass like Ryan. “Thanks for checking up on me.”
“Sure. Anytime. Any idea what the murderer was after? Was it a robbery? A crime of passion?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I start to close the door. “You better go before my mom finds out you’re here.”
He grimaces. “Right. I’m still on the outs. Can’t say I blame her. Or you. I just hope you can forgive me, even if you don’t want to be alone with me. I’ve learned my lesson. I promise.”
I don’t want to say anything committable one way or the other. He sets alarm bells off in my head, no matter how cute he is. I watch him leave and stare at his black pants and how perfectly they fall around his ass, straight down his leg and down to his black boots.
Black work boots.
Was it possible that Ryan was the intruder at Maxx’s house? Is that why he stopped by and was so nice? And if it was him…how much danger am I in?
Chapter Thirty-Three
It’s after dark when I arrive at the police station in my favorite black beanie and black jacket. I can’t believe I’m really going to do this. Breaking and entering. If you’re going to commit a crime, you should at least start at the top.
I go around the back by hopping a chain-link fence, and I hide in the bushes until I’m sure the coast is clear. It is. You’ve got to love small towns, right? If I get caught, though, I have no idea what excuses I’ll use that anyone will actually believe. Which just means I can’t get caught. That should be easy enough, right?
Heaven help me if my mom finds out.
I think about Ryan as I come to the rear entrance. The lights are off inside, and I suspect there isn’t even a guard on duty. I peer in the windows, looking for signs of life. But it’s dark, and I don’t see any footmen on patrol. Time to try the door.
I squat down low and take a lockpick case out of my jacket pocket. I never thought I’d need these again. It’s a good thing I hadn’t gotten rid of them like everyone told me to. That’s forethought for you. The lock clicks open, and I pull the door open. It’s heavy weight slides across the cement block, and I slip inside.
I stand in the total darkness of a back hall. I take a moment to get my breathing under control and let my eyes adjust to the dark. There’s barely any variance, so I turn on my phone and use it to sweep across the lay of the land.
There are no cameras that I can see. I count myself lucky that Bay Harbor is such a small town, and except for dead beauty queens and ghosts, it appears to be pretty safe. There are rows of desks for the police on the left side of the room. Further down is a partition that must separate this area from the lobby. Over on the right side, a series of doors.
I go over to the one marked evidence. Bingo.
I worry for a split second that maybe they have someone guarding it 24/7. Maybe the big cities do that, but I don’t have to worry about that here. Through the frosted glass window, all I see is darkness on the other side. I grab my lockpick tools and work quickly on the evidence door. I hold my breath until the door snaps open.
Whew.
I step inside and close the door. It’s dark, but I can make out several columns of metal racks that stretch down as far as my eye can make out. There are cardboard boxes, the type my dad used to have for organizing all his client’s files. In front of me is a desk for the officer on duty and on the wall beside it, a clipboard.
I grab it and shine my light on it. I find what bay the cold cases are kept in, and it’s bay twenty-three. It’s probably the furthest one down.
Here goes nothing. I travel down the rows and shine my light where I need to. I’m back against the brick wall almost when I find a sparsely filled row. I go through box after box but can’t find what I’m looking for.
With a grunt, I gaze up. The top row appears empty, but there’s a corner of a box, almost pushed from sight. I put my bag and phone down so I can c
limb up the other rows so I can reach it. I only have to go up one or two steps. The darkness makes me uneasy. I touch the corner of the box; my fingers have to do the seeing for me.
When I touch it, something grabs my hand, and it’s wet and cold. I scream and yank myself back. I nearly fall to the floor, but I right myself, grab the box, and jump down. Shaken, my back presses against the brick wall, and my heart shudders.
Was it Amber? Did I imagine it?
I put the box down on the ground and grab my phone. I’ve never been happier to turn the light on and shine it down into the nearly empty box. Nearly empty. How is that possible? This case had to be important. It had to have garnished a lot of attention.
I go through the folders and find witness interviews, statements, and accounts from the Chetwoods. There are pictures of her wrecked car after it was pulled out of the harbor and a list of suspects shorter than my pinky finger.
Jackson Sinclair.
Martin Alistair.
Rudolph Chetwood? Her own father? That’s interesting.
There’s little physical evidence left. In a bag, there’s part of a dress and I go through the printed list of evidence at the very bottom of the case: dress, hair sample, fingernail, and a broken tiara.
But there’s no tiara in the box. It must’ve gotten lost—or someone took it. I shudder at the thought of who would’ve taken it. Maybe the killer or someone who missed her very much. I’m left with little to go on.
I take what little there is and stuff it into my backpack and put it back on. I close the box and return it. I need to find the phone that was taken from Maxx’s house. I return to the clipboard and find that Maxx’s evidence is still downstairs in the lab.
Then that’s where I need to go.
I reach for the doorknob, but as I do so, it twists open from the other side. Shit! My eyes widen, and I force myself into the corner behind the door. Heavy footsteps enter, and someone closes the door. I can tell it’s a man, and he stands glancing around in the dark slowly, meticulously. I can hear the rustle of his clothes, and I hold my breath, willing myself to be perfectly still.
If I get caught and arrested now, my mother may never speak to me again. I can’t even say that I would blame her.
He turns back to the door, and I breathe a sigh of relief. My head screams for me to get out of there, but I need to get to the lab. If I don’t get the phone now, I’ll never get it. It won’t be long before Maxx’s killer comes looking for it, too.
I might already be too late. I can’t let her down like that. If I solve Amber’s case, I find Maxx’s killer.
Before the killer finds me.
The lab is downstairs, and it’s sterile and brightly lit. The lab room is split in half, and behind a partition is the morgue with rows of metal drawers in the wall. I try to put out of my mind that Maxx is behind one of those drawers now. I also resist the urge to go look. Why would I ever want to see her like that again?
Morbid.
I stand at the lab tech’s metal desk. The laptop screen is still active and hasn’t gone to sleep yet. The Kiss the Lab Tech mug is still warm to the touch. It means I might not be alone long. Hunched over the keyboard, I bring up autopsy records. I type in Chetwood, and Amber pops up twice.
Shudder.
I print both, and the printer automatically begins to spool. I grab the pages and roughly fold it and stick it into my bag. On the other side of the room is a table for evidence with trays lined up. Maxx’s clothes are folded into plastic bags in one of the trays. My eyes pause over it as memories from earlier that night flood my mind.
Her dead body on the floor and the smell of blood rushes back to me. My nose stings, and I remember every crease in her face. Then the memory of being attacked from behind and my face forced down onto the kitchen island.
I scowl and move on. I don’t want to feel like that again; I’m no one’s victim. Not Maxx’s killer and certainly not Ryan Alistair.
Further down, the cell phone sits, and the charger cable is coiled up beside it. I grab them and gently put them into my backpack’s front pocket. Zipped back up, I hurry from the lab toward the exit when I hear a knock.
Only it’s not coming from in front of me. It’s coming behind me.
I turn around slowly as the thud continues in rhythmic repetition. I stare through the morgue. My eyes fixate on the drawers, and I watch as one vibrates with movement.
Bang.
I hold my breath.
Bang. Bang.
It jets out like something inside desperately wants out.
I cry out, toss the door open, and run out of there. I run up the stairs and burst through the door onto the main floor. I slam right into someone.
He grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around. “You!” His face is hidden in the shadows, and I can only make out his sneering mouth full of clenched teeth. But the voice is familiar. Is it the voice from Maxx’s house?
Hard to tell, but if it wasn’t from there, where had it come from?
I shriek in terror and slam my elbow into his stomach. His grasp on me loosens, and I sprint toward the exit and skip down the front steps, running up the street. “You there!” The voice calls after me.
But I don’t answer, I run across someone’s front lawn and duck behind a bush long enough to throw a glance back. I see a dark figure running up the street. Big and burly with dark work boots—it might be the same guy who killed Maxx earlier that night. Fear motivates me to keep moving. I jump over a small stone fence and run up the street.
It’s lined with houses and is a steep incline. My thighs cramp up the harder I push. I duck in an alley between two houses and crouch in the darkness, hiding behind a bunch of trash bins. It’s not the nicest place to hide, and the smell overwhelms me as I try to catch my breath.
I cover my mouth with my arm as the shadow of a man approaches from the street. The streetlights cast him in a glow, and the reflector running up his pantleg catches my attention. He’s a cop.
The guy who killed Maxx, maybe it’s this guy, which means a cop killed Maxx to keep Amber’s killer hidden in the shadows. I’m in more danger than I ever knew.
He walks past, and I bide my time before I break my cover and sprint home. I’m relieved to see it and run up the porch steps and into the house. I close the door and feel welcomed by the dark living room. I lean against the wall and lock the front door and deadbolt it—just in case. I peel my hat off, stuffing it in the pocket of my jacket.
I dodged a bullet tonight. Or at least I think so until the living room lamp turns on. I gasp and turn to see Mom sitting in the recliner. She’s in her soft blue robe, her legs are crossed, and she looks pissed.
“Care to tell me where you’ve been at this hour? Or what’s going on?”
I try to come up with an excuse really fast. “I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about Maxx. So, I went out for a walk. I figured I’d stop at the library and study.”
She tilts her head to the side, and her eyes widen. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Jessica.”
“It’s the best I got.” Unless she wants to hear how I broke into the police station and stole evidence, but I’m thinking that wouldn’t help me right about now. Or ever.
“If that’s the way you’re going to play it. You took your phone, didn’t you?” She picks her phone up from the coffee table and flicks it on. “Should I look to see where you went?”
GPS tracking? Really? “I went by the police station. I…wanted to see if they had any updates yet, and I wanted to tell them something I remembered.” I swallow hard.
Mom puts her phone down—thank goodness for small miracles. “Oh?” Her face flickers between relief and alarm. “What did you remember?”
“A dark sedan was parked out front. I didn’t recognize the driver. A guy. Large. Scrunched up face.”
Mom nods. “Did you talk to anyone at the station?”
I shake my head. “They were already gone. So, I came back.” I bite my lip and
twist on the soles of my feet. “Sorry if I scared you.”
“I know she was your friend, and this is hard for you.” Mom sighs and leans forward. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling, and I was scared. I can’t have anything bad happen to you. You hear?”
I nod and feel tears welling up in my eyes.
Mom stands up and reaches for my hands. “I probably should’ve let you express your grief and fears more tonight. I was trying to protect you from feeling that. To protect myself from hearing it, too. Us moving here is all my fault.”
“I think we were meant to move here. I was meant to know Maxx.” And now, I was going to prove that cop killed her, one way or another. Maybe I’d prove he killed Amber Chetwood, too.
Mom shakes her head and gets that look on her face when she’s made up her mind. “I’m still going to list the house for sale. We’ll stay as long as it takes for us to move. If we’re meant to stay, we’ll see what happens, right?” Mom kisses my forehead and retreats for the stairs when someone knocks on the front door.
I freeze and can’t breathe. What if it’s the cop?
“Who could that be at this hour?” Mom hurries over and looks through the peephole. “I think it’s the police.” She reaches for the deadbolt, and I grab her arm.
I shake my head. “Don’t.”
He knocks again, and I jump.
She squints at me. “What’s gotten into you?”
“He’ll pass on. Just don’t answer it. Please.”
Mom rolls her eyes at me and answers the door. I want to run away and scream, but I cement in place. “Is there something I can do for you, officer?”
“Evening,” his voice chills me because I recognize it from the fundraiser event. It’s the chief of police, Carl Evans. I shudder as Mom moves back, and his icy eyes lay on mine. “I thought I saw someone run in here and wanted to make sure there wasn’t a problem.”