The Amateurs

by Sara Shepard

  Could Helena have been here that Christmas? Could she have opened those gifts herself?

  Aerin looked at her phone again and scowled. Aside from Madison, who’d texted to say Seneca’s father had unexpectedly shown up and spirited her away, no one else had reached out. She’d expected more from them. Maddox could have reassured her again that he didn’t think she was a bitch. Brett could have sent her a parting picture of his torso. And what, had Seneca’s dad taken her phone, too? Their split had been so abrupt, like a TV show she’d binge-watched suddenly getting canceled.

  The wine had a tinny taste to it, probably half-corked. She definitely did want to drop the case, though, right? Of course she did. They were getting nowhere. And it was much, much better to keep Helena’s past sealed inside a box. Aerin was surprised by how hurt she felt by what she’d learned. All those years of thinking she and Helena were so close. All those years of trusting her sister, admiring her. Even that last day, when Helena had seemed so gentle with Aerin, so sweet and open. But she’d used Aerin as a pawn, sending her inside for a stupid task so she could slip away.

  Was Helena really that unhappy to throw her life away and run off with some random guy to New York? She had to have been head over heels in love. Maybe she thought she’d only run away for a little while, then come back. Maybe she’d met with Mr. New York in the woods, as Seneca had suggested, but then he’d turned mean and ruthless and abusive. Helena had naively fallen for a Dr. Jekyll and got Mr. Hyde.

  What if it really was all Aerin’s fault for leaving her out there alone that day? If she’d balked, if she’d made Helena go get the bag, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. And why had Aerin never considered that Helena might have deliberately sent her back inside? Even worse, why didn’t the cops? Maybe she should have mentioned snooping in Helena’s room in her early interviews. Maybe that could have led to the cops digging more into Helena’s secrets, asking around about a secret boyfriend instead of just accepting that she was with Kevin, narrowing it down to someone, and finding Helena before … well, before her body turned up in the woods three counties away.

  Perfect – another thing for Aerin to feel guilty about.

  She tipped the wine to her mouth, but the glass was already empty again. So, okay, maybe she wasn’t done with Helena completely. But how could she get to the heart of what happened? There had to be another way to find stuff out. If only she was omniscient and could read everyone’s minds. If only she had special access to each suspect’s motives and alibis – like if Kevin really had been at that conference, or if Greg Fine really had been in rehab, or if there was someone else she hadn’t thought of yet who’d been doing something sketchy.

  Then it hit her. There was special access: in the Dexby police station. And she knew someone who worked there.

  She messily scrawled on a Post-it that she would be back later, just in case her mom cared. Then she typed Thomas Grove, Dexby, CT into Google. He was listed. Aerin smiled. It seemed like a sign.

  Thomas lived in a block of apartments on the water next to a restaurant boasting the best lobster rolls in all of Connecticut. The buildings were made to look Victorian, with dormers and turrets and fiddly molding details. Daffodils were starting to bloom in the front gardens, and the siding was painted a cheerful yellow. A bunch of cars were parked in the lot, and Aerin noticed a Norton motorcycle among them. She wondered if it was Thomas’s.

  Aerin walked up to number four and rang the bell, wobbling from foot to foot in her kitten heels. She looked down at herself, taking in her tight sweater, tweed mini, and bare legs. Her eyelashes stuck together from all the mascara she’d slathered on, and her lips felt goopy with gloss.

  The door flung open. Thomas stood on the other side in a pair of jeans that hung off his hips and a gray T-shirt that read University of Connecticut Basketball. His eyes widened. ‘Oh my God. Hi.’

  Aerin lifted a bottle of wine aloft. ‘Wanna share this with me? Maybe we could sit in a yacht in the harbor and pretend it’s ours.’

  Thomas’s gaze bounced from the bottle to Aerin’s face. ‘Give me one second.’

  He shut the door softly. Footsteps receded. A minute later, he opened the door again. His hair was combed, and he’d changed into a long-sleeved shirt. His jeans were different, too – a darker wash, no holes in the knees – and he’d traded the yellowing socks Aerin had noticed for a pair of New Balances. Musky cologne wafted off him.

  She hid a smile.

  Thomas opened the door wider. ‘Why don’t you come in? It’s freezing out there.’

  The apartment was small but very neat – Aerin wondered if he’d quickly tidied, too. The living room was barely big enough for a brown tweed couch. A La-Z-Boy from sometime last century slumped in a corner. A boxy TV sat on a milk crate. Aerin squinted at it. Either she was drunker than she thought, or the baseball game on the screen was in black and white.

  ‘This is … nice,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘Oh, don’t lie.’ Thomas took the wine bottle into the kitchen. ‘It’s a total dive. But it’s cool. I have a view of the water, and it’s nice living alone.’

  Aerin looked around at the rest of the room. There was an oil painting over the couch of a desert sunset. The lamps on either side didn’t match and were both ugly in a pleated-lampshade, fake-gold-base kind of way. A scratchy-looking crocheted afghan in browns, yellows, and oranges hung on the back of the plaid La-Z-Boy, and there were several Hallmark ceramic figures on the bookshelf. A little boy played baseball, another carried a knapsack like he was running away, and one more grinned, showing two missing front teeth. It gave Aerin a pang. When she turned six, Helena had given her a Hallmark figurine of a ballerina. She’d cherished that little girl, but after Helena went missing, Aerin had put her away, her innocent smile too difficult to bear.

  ‘Who decorated this place – your grandma?’ she called out.

  ‘As a matter of fact, she did. I lived with my grandparents for fifteen years. Grammy helped me move in here. That’s her.’

  Aerin looked at a picture on the wall. Thomas sat with his arm around an older lady in a muumuu and oversized glasses. She seemed like the kind of jolly grandma who made her own spaghetti sauce and fed stray cats and liked to drink beer. Not like Aerin’s grandmother, who barely left her Florida condo and complained about her life constantly to anyone who would listen.

  ‘You lived with your grandparents?’ Aerin repeated.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Where were your parents?’

  He uncorked the wine with a pop. ‘It wasn’t safe there. They had issues. Have issues.’

  Aerin wanted to weigh in that her parents were like that, too, though she had a feeling her parents were nothing like what he was hinting at. ‘Do you mean drugs?’

  ‘Most definitely.’ Thomas got out two mismatched wineglasses.

  ‘What kinds?’

  ‘Pretty much anything available.’

  ‘Was that … hard for you?’

  Thomas shrugged. ‘My grandparents are good people. They went to my soccer games, helped me with my homework, took me to movies they most definitely had no interest in. We went to the Cape every summer. My grandpa was a cop, too. In Norwalk.’

  His expression was open and unabashed. Aerin was surprised. She’d figured everyone who lived in Dexby – and especially those who went to Windemere-Carruthers – had easy lives. She wondered what it was like to grow up with train wrecks for parents. Thomas seemed to be coping really well.

  She blinked. She was here to look for ways to get into the police station, not to bond.

  She scanned the room for possibilities. Thomas’s coat hung on a hook near the door; its pockets looked full. There was also a bowl in the kitchen that looked like it held odds and ends. But what if he kept things – like keys, or a keycard, or a code – in strange places, like how her parents used to keep petty cash in an unused flowerpot by the garage?

  Thomas was staring at her as if he’d just asked her a question. �
��I’m sorry?’ she said.

  Thomas fiddled with an empty wineglass. ‘Maybe you should have something to eat before you drink more. You seem a little unsteady. Toast, maybe. Or a grilled cheese?’

  The thought of that was overwhelmingly tempting. When had someone last offered to make her a grilled cheese?

  ‘Say yes,’ Thomas said. ‘I make the best grilled cheese in this apartment complex.’

  Aerin couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I’m not sure if that’s impressive or not.’

  Thomas walked over to her, took her hands, and sat her down at the table. He was so close suddenly. She could smell the cologne he’d sprayed on. In any other situation, she would have leaned forward and kissed him hard. It wasn’t that she didn’t find him cute – in fact, he was much cuter than most of the guys she’d kissed. Sweeter, too. And she already knew he was a good kisser. That was probably part of the problem.

  Thomas pulled away and sat in the chair opposite her. ‘So what’s going on with Helena? Did you learn anything new?’

  ‘Nah, I decided to drop it.’ Her voice sounded overly loud.

  ‘Really?’ Thomas fiddled with the wine cork. ‘I was hoping you’d crack it.’

  Aerin stared out of the window. Thomas had a small deck out back with a single lounge chair. ‘The police were right. It’s all just dead ends.’

  Silence. Aerin waited, hoping Thomas would volunteer something, a secret from those files. It would make this so much easier. Maybe it had been a terrible idea to come here.

  She rose from the table, getting another idea. ‘You know, food might be nice after all.’

  Thomas bounded to the fridge. ‘I’ve got … shit. Not much. A hard-boiled egg? Pepperoni? Cottage cheese?’

  ‘Cottage cheese?’ Aerin stuck her tongue out. ‘What about Cheetos?’

  Thomas peered at her over the fridge door. ‘Me and Chester Cheetah don’t really mix.’

  ‘I saw a vending machine on the property …’ She fluttered her lashes at him.

  Thomas shut the fridge door. ‘I’ll check.’ He gestured to the couch. ‘Lie down.’

  She did as she was told. Thomas placed the afghan over her – it was actually a lot less scratchy than it looked. He pulled it all the way up to her nose, and she giggled, then felt a little sad. He was tucking her in. She had no idea when someone had last been this nurturing.

  ‘I’ll be right back, okay?’ Thomas said. ‘Don’t move.’

  The door closed, making the walls of the little place shake. Aerin counted to ten. Then she pushed the afghan aside, sprang up, and stood in the middle of the room, tips of her fingers wiggling. She darted to the coats on his hooks first, reaching into pockets. Nothing. She scampered into the kitchen and opened drawers and cupboards, but all she found were take-out menus, silverware, and random junk. His bathroom, which had a tiny sink and smelled like potpourri, held nothing interesting. His bedroom contained a small bureau by the window. She wasn’t sure why she picked a bottom drawer, but inside was an iPad in a black sleeve. She opened it up and inspected the apps. iTunes. Netflix. Notepad. She clicked on Notepad, and a list came up. As her eyes adjusted, she realized what she was looking at. Chase Bank: XCX1934. Gmail: NorthxNorthwest87. And so on.

  It was a list of passwords.

  Aerin scanned the list hungrily. At the bottom was something called Dexby PD Database.

  Bingo.

  There were two passwords for the site, and some sort of keycode ID – too much to commit to memory. Aerin reached for her phone and took a shot of the whole screen. As she stood, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror over the bureau. Her mascara was smudged. Her lipstick was on her teeth. Her shirt had shifted so that half her bra was showing.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered to her reflection.

  The lock clicked in the front door. Panicked, Aerin shoved the iPad back into the drawer and sprinted back to the couch, leaping under the covers just in time.

  Thomas walked into the tiny living room, arms laden with a bunch of small chip bags. ‘They only had generic Cheetos, and I didn’t know if you were a purist about having the real thing, so I also got Doritos, Fritos, a snack mix, and pretzels.’ He dumped them on the coffee table, then unveiled a bottle of cherry coke. ‘I thought you might like this, too. It’s always my favorite when I’ve had too much to drink.’

  Aerin’s mind was tumbling. What if Thomas had come in when she was still looking at his iPad? That would have been a disaster. She had to get out of here. She needed to log on to that site now.

  She sat up and gave him a fragile smile. ‘I feel worse than I thought. I should go home.’

  Thomas’s face drooped. ‘You don’t want to have the finest vending machine picnic in Dexby?’

  ‘No, I’m really tired.’ Aerin stood up without looking at him. She could feel Grammy Grove watching from the wall. I’m sorry, okay? she yelled silently at the old lady. Now they’d probably never be friends.

  Thomas stepped aside to let her get to the door. ‘I’d drive you, but I’ve only got the bike, and that might make you feel worse. Let me call you a cab?’

  The cab arrived within a few minutes. Thomas packed the snacks in a plastic bag for her and helped her down the stairs. He moved to hand the driver some bills, but Aerin caught his arm. ‘I’ve got it. I’m sorry for coming.’

  ‘I like that you came over.’ Thomas patted her shoulder. ‘Feel better, okay?’

  In the cab, Aerin nervously watched the boats bob on the harbor. Once they were off Thomas’s street, she typed in the name of the Dexby PD website on her phone. Fingers trembling, she typed in the passwords from the screenshot in the order Thomas had listed them. Her heart thudded as the little wheel spun. What if she’d input the passwords incorrectly? What if the cops tracked her phone and came to arrest her?

  But then a message popped up. Welcome back, T. Grove.

  Aerin clicked on a button that said Past Cases, then selected the year when Helena had gone missing. A file folder titled H. Kelly, Case #23566 popped up.

  Swallowing hard, she opened it. There were statements, a missing persons report, and information about Helena’s bone decomposition. Aerin saw a folder called Persons of Interest and pounced on it. Kevin Larssen’s name was first. Inside the folder, the first items to appear were thumbnails of photos Aerin had never seen. She pressed on each to enlarge them, then gasped. The first was a picture of Kevin and Senator Gorman in an embrace. Connecticut Youth Leadership Conference Center read a sign behind them. A date stamp read December 8 – the day Helena had gone missing. Another stamp over the photo said Confidential.

  So Gorman had been at that conference, and Kevin was with him. Maybe it explained why he’d missed his speech, but also why he was insistent about the alibi. Aerin bet Gorman had paid off the cops to keep the photos quiet. He wouldn’t want that information to come out on the news.

  There were more photos of Kevin after that weekend, too – heading into school, going to the bookstore, having dinner with Gorman in the city. The cops must have been tailing him obsessively, maybe seeing if he was doing anything suspect. That was reassuring, at least – Aerin doubted he would have been able to sneak away to murder Helena during that time. She’d never wanted Kevin to be the guilty one, not really.

  Her gaze scanned the rest of the suspects. Greg Fine was there, too, but inside his file was a report from the Halcyon Heather rehab facility, stating that he’d been an inpatient from November that year all the way until March. So was he out as well?

  The cab reached her street and pulled up to her house. ‘Here we are,’ the driver said as he turned into the driveway. ‘Looks like you have a visitor.’

  Aerin’s head snapped up. A figure sat on her front steps, but there was no way it could be her mom. She squinted harder, taking in the longish hair, the drapey dress, the tough-girl booties.

  Seneca.

  She shoved some bills at the driver and hurried up the walkway, feeling surprisingly elated. Seneca shot
to her feet. ‘I’m so sorry, Aerin.’

  ‘It took you long enough!’ Aerin said at the same time.

  The girls stopped and grinned at each other. Then, letting out a little bleat, Seneca hugged Aerin tightly. ‘I’m a jerk,’ she muttered into Aerin’s shoulder. ‘I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I shouldn’t have said that about Maddox. He doesn’t think you’re a bitch, I swear.’

  ‘I hated how everyone had left so suddenly,’ Aerin was saying over her. ‘I don’t want to give up on the case – I shouldn’t have run away.’

  Seneca stepped back from their embrace. ‘You don’t want to give up the case?’ she asked. Aerin shook her head. ‘Well, good. Because I think I figured something out.’

  Aerin’s tongue felt furry with wine. ‘That’s a relief, because all the suspects we thought might be viable aren’t looking so hot anymore.’

  Seneca narrowed her eyes, but Aerin didn’t feel like explaining right then. She rolled her hands impatiently, urging Seneca to say what she’d figured out. ‘That message on the crane,’ Seneca started. ‘It’s not HI – it’s initials. H.I. I’m thinking it’s either the secret boyfriend, or Helena’s name if she were to marry the secret boyfriend. And I’ve been thinking, and I’ve come up with a name.’

  Aerin blinked hard. Her brain felt slow and sloppy. She ticked through people in her sister’s life – friends, boyfriends, uncles, teachers. She thought of faces at that country club, people who came into Scoops. But there weren’t many people whose last name started with I. Her eyes widened. She knew someone who had those initials exactly.