Dirty Little Secrets

by Elise Noble

  “She sure can. Tell your brother to call me if there are any electrical problems, okay?”

  “Electrical problems? Yes, I’ll tell him.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the cocktails or the dancing or the dehydration, but I suddenly felt really tired.

  “Take care of yourself, Brooke.”

  “You too.”

  I drained the rest of my Coke and yawned. What time was it? Only ten o’clock, but I wasn’t used to dancing all night. And I’d neglected my fitness for the last month. The only exercise I’d gotten was sex, and I wasn’t sure that took as much effort as my daily hikes. Probably I should look that up. Someone on the internet would know.

  “Penny for them?”

  “Huh?”

  Darla stood watching me. “Your thoughts, hun. You look puzzled.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Was I blushing? “Nothing important. Are you leaving too?”

  She leaned down to give me a hug. “I’ve always been an early bird rather than a night owl. If Paulo’s totally hung-over in the morning, call me. I can come in for a few hours.”

  I glanced over at him. He’d organised a limbo contest for the few people who could still stand, a mop balanced across two chairs, and I could see that ending in tears or possibly a concussion.

  “You’re the best. I’m gonna go home myself soon.”

  At least, I hoped so. How much longer would Aaron be? I began to worry that we’d been wrong about Clarissa, that she genuinely had hurt herself. Aaron should have…should have…called…the police. Maybe I should message Luca? He was already on his way to Baldwin’s Shore, and he might be back faster. But Aaron and his stupid macho-ness… Was that a word? If it wasn’t, then it should be. Macho-ness.

  “You okay, sweetie?” Addy slid onto the chair beside me. “You look kinda glazed.”

  “Just tired. I think I’m just tired. Although I feel a little sick.”

  “Probably dehydration. Have you drunk enough?”

  “I had a Coke two minutes ago. And a cocktail before that.”

  “Hmm…” Addy studied me, head tilted to one side. “Maybe you should go to the bathroom, just in case. Here, let me help you.”

  I clung to Addy as I wobbled my way toward the door. Next time, I’d remember to drink more water. At this rate, Darla would be covering for me and not Paulo tomorrow.

  “My head feels all jumbled.”

  “I know, sweetie. Mine too, but those cocktails were soooo good. Is Aaron done with the drama queen yet?”

  “He said he’d call when he…when he was on his way…back. And he…he hasn’t.”

  “You look kind of weird. Was that last drink a double or a single?”

  “I don’t know?”

  I was almost certain I hadn’t ordered the pretty green cocktail myself. But I wasn’t sure who had. It just sort of…appeared in my hand. Taya? Was it Taya who’d given it to me?

  The bathrooms were in a vestibule by the entrance, and I sucked in fresh air when the breeze hit me through the open front door. Perhaps I had heatstroke too? Could you get heatstroke from dancing? I tripped sideways, and my shoulder hit the wall.

  “Ow.”

  “I’ve got ya, sweetie.”

  “Addy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “But Aaron said…” Addy turned, and both of her studied me. “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna call Selwyn.” Selwyn… Selwyn… Oh, Selwyn. He’d been driving his cab in Baldwin’s Shore for as long as I’d been alive. “We know he’s not your stalker because he’s, like, a hundred years old and Black. He can drive us to your brother’s place, and we can wait for Aaron there.”

  “Okay. That…that shounds good.”

  There was a little wall right outside the door, and I collapsed onto it, but what I really wanted was to lie down. And sleep. I needed sleep. Was the ground wet? Yeuch, it was.

  “Shit, I can’t find my phone. It must’ve fallen out when I put my purse under the table. I…uh…”

  “Go…just go get it.”

  “But I’m not allowed to—” Addy glanced around the parking lot. “I’ll be two seconds. Don’t go anywhere.”

  I couldn’t have gone anywhere if I’d tried. My legs had turned to mush, like half-set jello. And the parking lot was fuzzy too. Lights blinded me for a second, and then a shiny red car splashed past. Another car followed, black, black, black, even the windows. Was it a car? It sort of…purred along. Maybe Skip had been right and UFOs really did exist?

  “Brooke, are you okay?”

  What? Who? A head came into view, floating, and I smiled. I think I smiled. I knew that face. But now he had a twin. That was…special?

  “I’m…fine.”

  I leaned against the back of the chair and fell straight off. So…not a chair? At least I was wearing pants. Not skirts or dresses, not anymore. A girl needed to stay safe.

  “You shouldn’t be out here like this.”

  “Addy… Addy…”

  “Shouldn’t have left you alone. I’ll take you home.”

  “But… But… Aaron…”

  “I’ll call Aaron.”

  Then I wasn’t on the ground anymore, and this seat did have a back. And an engine. And nice music. Maybe if I just closed my eyes for a few minutes…

  33

  Luca

  “Do you have Brooke?”

  What the fuck?

  “No, I don’t have Brooke. Buddy, you literally broke my nose for having Brooke.” Then the implications of Aaron’s words hit, and I gripped the steering wheel of my rental car hard enough to bend the damn thing. “I thought Brooke was with you? She’s meant to be with you.”

  Aaron’s voice was tight. “There was a Clarissa-related incident. I had to go see her.”

  “You left Brooke alone?”

  My foot hit the gas without me even thinking about it.

  “Not alone. She was with Addy, and the bar was still half-full.”

  “Where’s Addy now?”

  “At her parents’ place. Colt’s on his way to get her. I’m ten minutes out.” A horn blared. “Five minutes out.”

  “Start at the beginning. What happened?”

  If any harm had come to my girl, blood was gonna be spilled. Cupid’s, and maybe Aaron’s too because he had one damn job and he’d fucked it up royally.

  “Clarissa texted me a photo of a knife and said she couldn’t bear to live without me. I could hardly just ignore it.”

  “She still alive?”

  “Yeah.” Aaron’s tone said he might have regrets about that. “Brooke and Addy were supposed to stay inside the bar until I got back, but Addy said Brooke got wobbly, so she decided to call Selwyn and take her home.”

  Selwyn was still driving his cab? Damn, I thought he’d have retired long ago.

  “And they never got there?”

  “Addy lost her phone, and she left Brooke outside the bathrooms while she went to look for it. When she got back, Brooke had disappeared.”

  “Addy checked the bathrooms? The parking lot?”

  “Yes, and yes. Then she borrowed the bar’s phone to call Selwyn, and he drove her to Deals on Wheels in case Brooke tried to walk.”

  “Brooke wouldn’t have tried to walk.” I’d told her a hundred times not to go anywhere on her own. Even if she’d been drinking, she wouldn’t have taken that risk.

  “Addy didn’t think so either. She wasn’t even sure she could have walked. Buddy, I swear she wasn’t that drunk when I left.”

  What’s done was done. We could argue about whose fault it was later.

  “We just need to find her.”

  “Fuck, I know. Anyhow, she didn’t go to Deals. Brady’s still there packing up, and he said he hasn’t seen anything suspicious. Not Brooke, not a car slowing outside, nothing. He’s gonna hang around for a while in case she shows.”

  “You said Addy checked the Crowe place too?”

  “Yeah, and then she fr
eaked out totally and called me.”

  “Does the bar have security cameras?”

  “Colt’s gonna check.”

  Fuck. I’d dealt with critical situations a hundred times, seen more tragedy than any man should, held good friends as they died, but the pain I’d felt in those situations paled into insignificance beside my fear for Brooke. A woman couldn’t vanish into thin air. He had her. Cupid. He’d been watching, waiting in the shadows, and the second he saw an opening, he’d pounced.

  And Cupid wasn’t Steve. Steve was at home, nursing his wounded pride after getting slapped by a brunette whose ass he’d groped.

  So that left the million-dollar question. Who the fuck was Cupid?

  Addy was crying when I arrived at the Crowe place. Judging by the state of her face, she’d been crying for a while. She was in an armchair, legs curled up against her chest, her parents hovering in the background. When I walked in with Aaron, she scrambled to get up, swayed alarmingly, and grabbed the mantlepiece to keep her balance.

  “I’m so s-s-sorry. I don’t know what h-h-happened.”

  “Cupid took her. That’s what happened. Why did you leave her?”

  “C-C-Cupid?”

  “Her stalker. That’s what she calls him. Who did you see in the parking lot when you headed outside with Brooke?”

  “Nobody! We barely even got outside. She was right next to the door. And I was only gone for a minute, literally a minute, and definitely no more than two. I’m sorry, I’m s-s-so sorry.”

  Crying wouldn’t help us to find Brooke, and neither would playing the blame game. “Okay, so who was inside?”

  “Hardly anyone. There was, like, this mass exodus in the half hour before we went to leave. I g-g-guess that’s because it’s a Wednesday and people have to work tomorrow.”

  “Think, Addy. Was Deck still there?”

  Brooke had said he’d be going tonight, hadn’t she? Dammit, I should have been there.

  “N-n-no, he left hours ago. Not long after Colt.”

  “Who in your group stayed to the end? Who else might have seen Brooke?”

  “Uh, Paulo?”

  Aaron let out a growl of frustration. “Paulo was in no state to remember his own damn name, even before I went to Clarissa’s place. What about the others? When did Brady leave?”

  She screwed her eyes shut, trying to remember. “Uh, before us, but maybe not too long before? And Darla left around that time too.”

  The door crashed open, and Colt ran in. “Any news?”

  “Nothing from Brooke,” I said, willing the quake out of my voice. Losing my head wouldn’t help us tonight. “Her phone’s turned off now. Going straight to voicemail.”

  I’d tried calling it ten times on the drive over, hoping she’d just moved out of signal range temporarily, but knowing deep down that wasn’t the case. Cupid had probably ditched the device. Where had that son of a bitch taken her? Hell, forty minutes had passed since Addy last saw Brooke. She could be on her way to California right now. Or Canada.

  “I stopped at Applejack’s on my way here. The bar has a camera outside the door, but somebody tampered with it. Hit it with a stick or something. It’s meant to watch over the parking lot, but now it’s pointing at the sky. Taya’s gonna check through the footage to see if she can work out when and who.”

  Cupid had planned this. He’d fucking planned it. Carved Brooke away from the herd, then lay in wait for the strike.

  “Did Taya see Brooke with anyone?”

  “’Bout that time, some girl puked on the dance floor, and Taya was cleaning up the mess.”

  “What about Paulo? Did you talk to Paulo?”

  “Paulo was sleeping in the corner. Everyone I spoke with said the same thing—one minute Brooke was there, and the next she wasn’t.”

  “Can we do anything to help?” Mr. Crowe asked. “Go out and search?”

  Addy scrambled to her feet. “I want to go too. This is all my fault.”

  “It’s not,” Aaron said, cutting his eyes sideways toward me. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I was the asshole who kicked Luca out.”

  Okay, so that was progress, but under the worst possible circumstances. I’d rather have been excommunicated for good if it meant Brooke was tucked up safely in bed tonight.

  “I’ll call Brady and see if he saw anyone hanging around. Can somebody call Darla?”

  “I’ll do it,” Colt offered. “Do you have her number?”

  Aaron fumbled for his phone. “I have it.”

  Brady picked up on the second ring. “Hey, did you find Brooke?”

  “Not yet. That’s why I’m calling. Addy reckons you left the bar not too long before they did.”

  “I called it a night around ten. Should’ve left earlier, but… Never mind. I don’t know how much longer they stayed, but I guess not long because Brooke was looking tired when I said goodbye. Sounded kinda slurry.”

  Tired.

  Kind of slurry.

  That motherfucker.

  Cupid had slipped something into her drink again. I believed Aaron when he said Brooke had been in reasonable shape when he took off, and I also believed Addy when she said Brooke was having trouble walking later. There was one obvious explanation for that. Cupid had been in the bar.

  He’d been up close, brazen enough to attack in front of her friends.

  “Did you notice anyone paying attention to Brooke around that time? A little too much attention?”

  “Not really. I mean, she was sitting in a chair, watching people on the dance floor. It was just a regular evening out. Apart from the altercation with Easton Baldwin at the start, anyway.”

  Hair prickled on the back of my neck. I’d felt that niggle a thousand times before, usually before somebody shot at me.

  “What altercation?”

  “I’m not sure how it started, but there were words. Aaron and Addy backed her up, and Parker talked Easton down. The Baldwins ate dinner on the other side of the bar. I saw them looking over at her a couple times after that, but…”

  Easton Baldwin again. Why did he keep turning up like a bad penny? We already knew he wasn’t Cupid. Unless Lydia had been wrong about the man she saw with Brooke on the night of Addy’s party. Or…

  “Do you know if Easton Baldwin ever dyed his hair?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “You need a hand with the search?”

  If I was going to mount Easton’s head on a plaque, the fewer witnesses, the better.

  “Can you stay at Aaron’s place in case a miracle happens and Brooke shows up?”

  “Sure I can, but—”

  I hung up and turned back to Addy and Aaron. “What happened with Easton Baldwin?”

  Aaron’s forehead creased. “Easton? He started out as his usual belligerent self, but Parker convinced him to simmer down.”

  “Taya helped too,” Addy said. “She has a bat.”

  “Does it matter? Brooke said you ruled him out.”

  “Yeah, I thought we had, but I’m not a great believer in coincidences. Did he change his hair last year? Dye it brown?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Addy hiccuped, still on the wrong side of sober. “Parker’s the one with the brown hair.”

  The gears were turning faster now.

  Parker Baldwin. Parker motherfucking Baldwin. Addy was right—he did have brown hair. And he was taller than Brooke, shorter than me. Not skinny, not bulky either. He’d been in Coos Bay that night. He was in Applejack’s tonight. Two brothers… If Parker had decided to take Brooke, would Easton have gone along with it? Probably. He had the ethics of a swamp rat. Colt mouthed, “Voicemail,” at me, but I didn’t much care what Darla had to say now, not when I had a good idea who was behind Brooke’s abduction.

  “Addy, think hard—when you headed out with Brooke, were the Baldwin brothers still inside?”

  “Uh…uh… I’m almost sure they weren’t. They were sitting over by the ju
kebox earlier, and that table was empty when we walked past.”

  I palmed my keys and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” Colt called. “Where are you going?”

  “You know where I’m going.”

  “You’re not going alone.”

  I glanced at Addy’s parents, still loitering in the background, and forced what I hoped was a smile. “Chill, I’m just gonna have a little chat.”

  Mr. Crowe nodded once. “Well, when you do, give those boys a kick up the rear from me.”

  34

  Luca

  The imposing metal gates of the Baldwin mansion were closed when we drew up outside, but I didn’t bother with the intercom. Instead, I nosed the rental car alongside the six-foot-high wall, hopped up on the hood, then the roof, and vaulted over into the grounds. Behind me, Colt was trying to convince Aaron to stay in the car, but good luck with that plan.

  “Shhh!” I hissed as they both followed me up the driveway. Parker was home. His shiny red BMW glinted in the moonlight to the right of the tacky Doric columns that framed the front door.

  “Are we gonna break in?” Aaron whispered.

  That would waste time we didn’t have. “I’ll try knocking first.”

  If Parker came to the door, it would save us from hunting him down in this monument to bad taste. The place was huge—two wings flanked the main building, and if memory served me correctly, there was a detached garage and a guest house out back too.

  I hammered on the brass knocker, custom made with the family crest, a shield and a swirl of filigree they’d probably stolen from some English nobleman. Or maybe a French family? The engraved banner at the top read “Je n’oublierai pas.”

  “I will not forget,” Aaron murmured.

  “What?”

  He traced the words with a fingertip. “Their family motto. ‘I will not forget.’ Perhaps that’s why Easton bears so many grudges?”

  Well, I wouldn’t forget either. I wouldn’t forget the way he’d accused me of stealing his billfold, or how Parker had reported me to the school principal for vandalising a classroom, neither of which I was guilty of. I was about to bang on the door again when the lock clicked and it swung open. Sara Baldwin stood there, eyes widening as she took in the three of us.