At that moment, someone pounded on my door. Meghan froze. I leapt off the couch, my heart racing, and took a flying cat-leap for my poker, which I’d abandoned by the armchair. The pounding continued.
“Oh my god, oh my god, who is that?” Meghan cried.
“Autumn!” a voice shouted. “Open the door! Right now, damn it!”
It was Bay. “It’s okay, that’s one of my employees. It’s fine.”
I rushed to the door and found Bay and Allison. Bay’s face was white, and Allison had her phone at her ear. “I’ve got 911 on the phone,” she told me as soon as I opened the door. “They’re sending a patrol car by.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
Bay pushed the door open. “When you didn’t call back, we thought something horrible had happened.” She froze when she saw Meghan standing in the door to the living room, tear-streaked and bedraggled. “Which . . . maybe . . . it did?” She looked at me, eyebrows raised.
“Boy, do I have a lot to tell you,” I said.
The two of them sat down, and once Allison finished with the 911 dispatcher, I filled everyone in on the gory details of the story so far.
When I finished explaining Meghan’s part in the day’s drama, Bay clasped her hands in front of her, looking thoughtful. “It’s wild to think that this whole time, he’s been living with you, supporting you and being nice boyfriend-guy, when he was also threatening you and us and concealing a murder.” She shook her head. “Goes to show that you never really know someone. But why would he do it?”
Meghan shrugged, morose, and I said, “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? We don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle.” If we chose to believe Meghan at all.
“Jordan’s on her way,” Bay told us. “I called her as soon as I got off the phone with you. She said not to let you leave the house. She’ll bring Detective Keller with her.”
“Has there been any news about Nick or Paige, or about the smoke bombs in Meghan’s store?”
“Nothing we’ve heard,” Allison said. “But the 911 dispatcher wasn’t well-informed.”
Bay snorted. “They’re like drive-thru operators, those people.”
“That’s not fair. It’s an important job and with minimal training—” Allison objected.
“Hello!” Meghan shouted, cutting across their argument. “I just said I think my fiancé is a murderer, your friend found creepy stalker photos of herself on her front step, this is not the time to be arguing about our country’s crisis response system!”
Bay and Allison broke off and stared at me. Bay’s lips were parted in surprise. I blinked and felt a smile tugging at the ends of my mouth. “She has a point.”
“Why are you smiling?” Meghan snapped. “Nothing about this is funny.”
Allison giggled, and Bay started laughing. I felt a bubble of hysteria rising in my own throat, threatening to explode in a burst of inappropriate laughter. I forced it down, still smiling, and said, “I’m sorry, Meghan. We’re all just a little on edge.”
We pulled ourselves together before the police arrived in semi-full force, Jordan and Detective Keller striding up in street clothes, while a patrol car with lights flashing parked in my front lawn. They gathered in my hallway, the police using tweezers to collect the photos into plastic baggies. They questioned me about what I’d seen on my way home, who I’d talked to, what had happened, and Detective Keller dispatched a uniformed officer to quiz my neighbors about any strangers they might have noticed.
Throughout everything, Bay and Jordan stood at my sides, keeping Meghan and everyone else from coming near me. Jordan hugged me when she came in and squeezed my arm several times, apologizing, I think, for not taking my concerns more seriously. It wasn’t her fault—it was no one’s fault, and I could hardly blame the police for not accepting my half-baked theories. Even now, the argument against Craig seemed flimsy, and the officers interrogating Meghan looked dubious, to say the least.
Once the wheels were rolling on the new path of the investigation, the detective rounded on me. “I knew you weren’t telling me everything,” she barked at me.
“Ah—” I glanced shiftily from her to Jordan. “Well, before today, I thought that Meghan and Donald were colluding to fix the grant competition, you know, for the small businesses, and that they killed Wes Bowen because he knew about it, but now—” I looked at Meghan. “That doesn’t seem so likely.”
“You think your landlord was in on it then, too.” In a thermal shirt, fleece vest, and jeans, the detective looked like she had walked out of an episode of Supernatural, and it made her even more intimidating than a uniform had. “Why do you think that?”
“Well—” Bay stepped in helpfully and showed Detective Keller the photos on her phone. The older woman studied them, a frown forming on her face. “We know we were wrong now, though. Meghan says they were working on something else.”
“And Miss Kountz thinks her boyfriend, Craig MacLeod, might be behind the violence.”
“Yes. But we thought Donald might be in on it, too. Bay saw an email from Meghan to Donald saying the plan was off—”
By the fireplace, Meghan’s head swiveled toward us. “What?”
We all stopped, looking at her. “I saw it in your sent messages folder,” Bay said. “But not in Donald’s account.”
Meghan shook her head. “I never sent that.”
Detective Keller looked at me. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea.” I shrugged, looking at Bay.
“It might mean someone else sent it from your account,” Bay said to Meghan.
“Someone like Craig!” Meghan cried.
“But why was it in the account that sent it and not in the account that received it?” Detective Keller asked.
Bay waved a hand. “He probably just deleted it, and we didn’t see it.”
“Deleted it,” I said, “to cover it up, and then he attacked Meghan, trying to destroy her computer!”
“Craig tried to destroy my computer,” Meghan objected.
“But they’re working together!”
“Ladies, please,” Detective Keller said. “You are jumping to conclusions. You have no proof of anything. We found the murder weapon in Paige Harding’s car. She and her little boyfriend had means, motive, opportunity.”
“What about the smoke bombs today?” I said. “And the attack on Meghan? And Paige works for Craig—he probably put it in her car!” If Craig was the DM of this sick little episode, Meghan had finally pulled back the screen, and now we could see him pushing us, the little painted pieces, around the board. I hadn’t wanted to believe it, but it made so much sense, I couldn’t deny it.
“Miss Sinclair, this man is your ex-boyfriend, and your behavior toward his current girlfriend has been outright suspicious. I’m not sure you want to keep making accusations against him.”
Bay drew herself up to protest, and even Jordan looked uncomfortable at this assessment of my position. I waved them both off. “Well, why did you think I was hiding something? You know something in this case isn’t adding up—you’ve known it for a while now.”
“That does not justify your behavior.”
Bay couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “Someone is stalking her—she’s not doing this!”
I shot her a grateful smile. “I’m not asking you to take my word for any of it,” I said. “But I’m not the only one making the accusation. His fiancée thinks he’s up to something, too.”
Detective Keller looked at Meghan, then, her face somber. “Do you seriously think Mr. MacLeod has been behaving suspiciously?”
“I saw him,” Meghan insisted, but she didn’t sound certain. My heart leapt into my throat. We were losing Detective Keller—but she was here, and she was willing to listen. That wasn’t something we could let slip through our fingers.
“Listen—we know that Donald didn’t leave the building Friday night when Max, the security guard, said he did. He went
to the basement. We found a witness who saw him. It’s possible Craig didn’t either. How much can we trust Max’s word? He’s not the brightest bulb in the box.”
“He’s your security guard,” the detective objected.
“He’s the Crypt Keeper’s chatty older brother,” I said.
“Say what you really think,” Bay muttered.
“I know I’m being mean,” I said, “but you have to see that there are holes in the story. Nick and Paige weren’t the only ones there that night who could have killed Wes.”
“Who was your witness?” Detective Keller said. “The one who saw Donald Wolcott in the building’s basement after he said he’d left?”
“A guy at our store—Cody Patterson. He was there that night, too.”
“Cody Patterson, the one who had an argument with the victim and our prime suspects?” Detective Keller said. “The one you wanted us to consider as a suspect? Listen to yourself Miss Sinclair—is he your key witness?”
“Well, I know he’s not the most reliable, but you didn’t find any evidence that he was the killer—”
“Oh, that’s an excellent reason to trust him. We don’t have any evidence that he’s a murderer. Great.” Detective Keller sighed. Her frustration was palpable. Clearly something was missing, but for all my efforts to help, I’d muddied the waters. No wonder interfering with a police investigation was a crime. I should remember that in the future. “Miss Sinclair, do you have any concrete leads for us?”
“Meghan,” I said. “She’s scared. What she saw, and what she knows.”
Detective Keller turned to Meghan again. The cop who had been talking to Meghan took a step back, looking unsure, and Meghan herself looked like she wanted to disappear into the wall. “Miss Kountz?” the detective said, like she expected Meghan to produce video evidence of Craig moving the smoke bomb in her office, or lighting them off himself, or putting the murder weapon into Paige’s car.
Meghan lifted her chin. I had to respect her for respecting herself, even if I didn’t like her. “I told you what I saw,” she said.
Detective Keller nodded. “Yes. Well, we’ll follow up on that information.” She turned to me. “Miss Sinclair, I suggest you and Miss Kountz stay with a friend for the time being, until we determine if whoever left these photos for you was stupid enough to leave behind a fingerprint or some other evidence.” From her tone, I guessed she didn’t think that would happen, that she half expected to find some confirmation of my own duplicity—Bay’s prints in the ink or something to indicate I’d asked my employees to fabricate the threat.
“Will do,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”
The cops filed out as abruptly as they’d come in, Detective Keller trailing after them. She stopped at the doorway, looking at me. “I know you think I’m not taking you seriously,” she said. “But there’s a procedure to these things, and we have to follow the rules. We will investigate Mr. MacLeod, and Mr. Wolcott, as well, but I have to tell you, we’ve done thorough checks on everyone who was present in Independence Square Mall the night of the murder, and Miss Harding and Mr. Lawlis were still at the top of the list. We don’t arrest people without cause. I would suggest you tell your friends to find themselves a good lawyer. If they’re innocent, they won’t go to jail.”
“That’s not very comforting,” I said.
“Being comforting isn’t part of my job description.” And with that, she left.
Meghan, Allison, Bay, Jordan, and I all went to sit in my living room. A puzzled silence fell as the strain of yet another late-night emergency settled into our brains. Meghan sniffled into her tissue, and Bay looked like she was calculating numbers in her head.
“Now what?” Allison asked brightly.
I looked at Jordan. “Are you okay to be here?”
“Don’t make me feel worse than I already do,” she said. “Of course I’m here. Keller said I could help you out as much as you want, as long as I’m not on the clock.”
“She said that?” Bay asked. “After her little speech about not arresting innocent people?”
“She’s a good cop,” Jordan said. “But she’s right. The case against your friends is pretty strong. And she has to do what the law requires her to do.”
“Of course she does,” I said, trying to keep the peace. “But Allison’s right, we need to figure out our next move. Staying here isn’t a good idea, since whoever is behind all this—Donald or Craig—knows we’re here and knows what we’re doing.”
Meghan flinched when I said Craig’s name, but we all ignored her. She was the pretty pink giraffe in the room, and none of us wanted to face her issues or have to talk to her any more than was strictly necessary. I felt bad for her, sort of—it couldn’t be easy to suspect your fiancé of killing a sweet boy and then trying to beat you into silence.
“We need to find real evidence against either Craig or Donald. Preferably both,” Jordan said.
“We tried that—we broke into Donald’s office, didn’t we? And we found evidence, just not the right kind.”
“Well, maybe we need to take a different approach,” Jordan said, thoughtful. “Try confronting them openly rather than sneaking around.”
“What good would that do?” Meghan sniffled. “They’ll just lie.”
“Consider their tactics, though—secrecy, and hidden messages, and literal smokescreens. Maybe if we force them out in the open, we’ll be able to shock the truth out of them. It’s role-playing one-oh-one: if we don’t have high enough investigate stats to roll better than our opponent, we have to adopt a different tactic.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Bay said.
“How do we do it?” Meghan asked. Her nose was red, but she was starting to look irritable instead of sad. “Craig is impossible to corner. Just ask Autumn—the man can charm his way out of any problem.” She gestured at me. The others looked my way, and I shrugged. It’d been ten years, and I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life acting as character witness for Craig, good or bad. I kept my face impassive.
“He’s already getting violent,” Meghan continued, “and he’s been hiding things from me for weeks. He’ll never even agree to hear us out, let alone publicly.”
“Detective Keller’s putting men on him, so he’ll be trickier to confront, anyway,” Jordan said. “So maybe it would be better to try and go after Donald—especially since we don’t even know for sure that he’s involved. Craig is the likelier suspect, but he’ll be more difficult to entrap, too.” She bit her lip. “I hope we don’t scare him off.”
“No!” I said. “We can’t talk ourselves out of doing something before we even start!” I stood up, feeling like I should make a rousing call-to-arms speech, but when the others looked up at me, expectant, I started to feel silly. I sat back down. “Look, we just need to scare him. Where is he tonight?”
“At home.”
Jordan shook her head before I could start. “No, the detective is going to talk to him tonight. If we interfere, she’ll lock you up for sure, Autumn.”
“Fine.” I bit my lip. “So we need to go after Donald, and we need to confront him in a way that will knock him off guard and scare him into admitting he did wrong, preferably publicly so no one can doubt what we learn.” A flash of inspiration hit me, and I grinned. “I have an idea that just might work.
20
MEGHAN STOOD BESIDE ME at the front desk of City Hall the next morning, unhappy at our plan and at having spent the night on Jordan’s couch. Meanwhile, Bay and Allison had gone to keep tabs on Craig while we initiated stage one of Operation Prove Donald and Craig Are Evil.
Alice peered over the top of her desk at all of us, thoroughly bewildered at our presence in front of her desk at ten in the morning on a Thursday. “Do you have an appointment, Autumn?”
I stared at her, stunned by color. She wore another Wesley Crusher sweater, this one bright coral pink to match her lipstick.
“Uh, yes, I do.” I
nodded at Meghan. “I’m with her. For the grant committee meeting. They called everyone in, I guess.”
“Oh, of course,” Alice said. She smiled. “I’m not sure they’ll want you there, though.”
I shook my head. “No. Probably not. But . . .” I glanced at Alice, who was watching us like a rather interesting television program. She wouldn’t rat us out. “I just need you to let me in, so I can talk to them.”
“Well, it’s not a normal meeting,” Alice said. “It’s an emergency session. Vanessa called it on Donald Wolcott’s behalf. He had to close down his building because of the smoke damage, and now he wants to delay the official decision about the grant until later in the year.” Alice turned her eyes on Meghan. “Was there a fire? What’s going on?”
Meghan stepped forward. “Wait, he wants to delay? Why?”
“He wants the delay for you, I think, hon. With all the vandalism, you haven’t had a fair chance. He says they need to reschedule so that you can be better prepared.”
Ha. Donald really was trying to fix the competition for Meghan. I wanted to gloat, but it hardly seemed the right moment.
Meghan turned to look at me. “That means we’re right, though—right? He wanted the delay, so he set off the smoke bombs.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Craig was the one who was trying to destroy your computer. You saw that yourself. But we still don’t know who sent the email calling off your plans with Donald, or why either of them would do it. It doesn’t quite add up.”
“Maybe they turned on each other,” Meghan said, her eyes wide. “Maybe Donald had second thoughts.”
“Second thoughts about what?” Alice asked.
“We’re not sure, exactly,” I said to Alice before looking back to Meghan. “Maybe you’re right, though, and they’ve turned on each other.” I emitted a loud growl and pulled at my own hair.
Alice peeked over her desk at me. “I’m sorry, dear, but I’m going to need to ask you to keep it down.”
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