Adding a suspect, though, had only made the investigation more complicated. I had too many suspects. And too many motives. And not enough of anything else. What I needed was physical evidence, something irrefutable to tie the killer to Gerry’s murder. And, barring that, what I needed was something to maneuver the killer into confessing. The ideal thing to do (if this were a mystery novel) would be to manipulate the killer by claiming to have found a backup copy of the blackmail. The killer would then expose themselves by trying to recover it. But if Nate was correct, and if the killer had already recovered and destroyed their blackmail file from Gerry’s safe, then they might be feeling safe and secure. It would take more than an unsubstantiated claim to lure them out of hiding.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything, and nothing presented itself as I drove back to Hemlock House. I called Deputy Bobby on the way; I wanted to tell him—and the Last Picks—what I’d learned. Somebody might know more about Nate. Or about Ali. Or about something I hadn’t considered. Maybe Millie’s network of town gossip had picked up the perfect clue, and all I had to do was ask. Deputy Bobby didn’t answer, so I left him a message telling him I needed to talk. I tried one more time, but I got voicemail again, so I focused on driving.

  My route took me south along the state highway. I passed through Hastings Rock. On a day like today, with the sky an intense, vast blue and the sun casting cut-glass shadows, the town looked like what it was supposed to be: a postcard destination, a perfect hodgepodge of dollhouse buildings rising from the bay to the bluffs. The oaks and maples were starting to turn, and scattered with the deep green of pine and spruce were flashes of gold and copper and red.

  I was leaving town on the south side when I noticed the Jeep was handling differently. A little stiff. A little less responsive. I started up a small hill, and the engine seemed to hesitate, even when I fed it more gas. As I crested the hill and reached the tunnel of the spruce forest, I passed from the brilliance of a seaside day into the perpetual shadow under the canopy. That was when I noticed that the Jeep’s dash lights were flickering. A red warning light popped on—the battery.

  At the exact same time, the Jeep shuddered. The steering wheel stiffened as the power steering went out. The hiss of air in the vents went silent. The Jeep gave another of those shudders, and it startled me out of my daze. I wrenched the wheel to the right, trying to wrestle it to the shoulder. The engine sputtered, the Jeep hitched, and then, with a final lurch, it died.

  I had enough presence of mind to shift into neutral, and the last of the Jeep’s momentum was enough to let us trundle off the state highway and onto the side of the road. Adrenaline coursed through me too late: even though my brain knew I was safe now, my body couldn’t slow down the flood of hormones. My hands started to shake. My mouth tasted sour. I felt lightheaded, and I gripped the steering wheel to keep myself upright and steady.

  After a few deep breaths, I felt a little better. I forced the shifter into park, set the emergency brake, and took out my phone. It hadn’t been that bad, I told myself. It had been the surprise more than anything. I was safe. I was fine. It was a quiet stretch of road, and I was lucky there hadn’t been any other cars around when it happened. When I glanced at my phone, though, I felt a little less lucky—like lots of spots up and down the coast, this was apparently a dead zone. Which meant I could either walk back to town, walk to Hemlock House, or wait and hope someone would stop.

  Before I had to make a decision, movement in the rearview mirror caught my eye. A car came over the hill—a dark sedan. The driver must have seen me because they slowed and eased onto the side of the road. They must have been extra cautious because they stopped a long way back.

  I opened the door and got out of the Jeep. Down the road, the driver was getting out of their car. I squinted, trying to make out details through the thick shade and the distance. Dark pants. Dark shirt. Dark…mask?

  No, my brain said automatically. That couldn’t be right.

  But it was. The driver was wearing a balaclava.

  In October.

  In Oregon.

  On a beautifully bright, sunny day.

  A fresh wave of adrenaline began to pump through me. That sick-sour churn of my stomach started again. My vision felt funny—off, somehow. Because, a detached voice inside me said, your eyes are dilating in response to the hormones. Not that I could process the words. I couldn’t think about anything. All I could hear was a drumbeat getting faster and faster inside my head.

  The masked figure started up the shoulder toward me. They were carrying something in their hand—something small, something made of metal.

  My rational brain gave one final protest. This was impossible. It was the middle of the day. It was a state highway. There would be cars, there would be people, there would be witnesses.

  Which sounded all well and good and logical. Except where the heck was everybody?

  The masked figure had closed a quarter of the distance. They weren’t running. They must have realized they didn’t need to run. I was just standing there. Staring. Like a moron.

  I considered my options: lock myself in the Jeep, or run. The Jeep wasn’t a bad bet unless they had a gun. But they probably did have a gun. So, I ran.

  The ground sloped down from the shoulder of the road, falling sharply into a wooded ravine. I pushed through a line of ferns, slipped on wet leaf litter, and almost went rolling the rest of the way down. Somehow, I recovered and caught my balance. A shout made me glance back. The masked figure was running toward me now. Behind them, another vehicle had finally appeared—a dark SUV barreling along the state highway. Too little, too late, I thought, and I hurried as best I could down the hill.

  If you’ve never run down a wet, slippery hill before while a masked figure chases you, let me tell you: it’s not as easy (or as fun) as it sounds. Every step threatened to send my feet sliding out from under me. The soil gave way abruptly, which meant I’d skitter down a few inches until my heel caught something solid again. The understory wasn’t thick, but there were enough brushes, brambles, and yes, more ferns, that after a dozen yards, I was covered in scratches. I tried to be smart; I tried to zigzag, in case the masked figure was taking aim. I tried to take a path that would lead me between the trunks of the massive spruce and pine. But all of that was secondary to my main goal, which was to stay upright. And staying upright meant that, no matter how fast my heart was hammering, my progress was painfully slow.

  Distantly, fresh shouts broke out above me. Then a gunshot broke the forest’s stillness. Dirt and decomposing leaves sprayed up a few feet to my right. I dove to the left, landed on my shoulder, and began to roll. I turned the roll into a scramble and ended up behind the bole of an enormous ponderosa pine. My brain told me to keep moving, but I felt frozen—that shot had come so close.

  Up on the shoulder of the road, someone was shouting again—and you wouldn’t hear any of those words in church. Farther off, an engine growled, and then the sound faded. Someone was moving through the brush higher up the ravine—leaves rustling, branches snapping.

  And then Deputy Bobby’s voice called, “Dash?”

  I fought to control my breath. I sagged. The cold, damp leaves were like ice against my face, and they felt wonderful. Somehow, after a moment, I managed to sit up and call back, “Here!”

  Chapter 12

  Deputy Bobby helped me back up to the road. He sat me in his Pilot, told me not to get out of the car, and then jogged off—to get service, of course.

  By the time he came back, I was only shaking a little. I slid out of the Pilot to meet Deputy Bobby. He cocked me a look like he didn’t exactly approve of this display of initiative, but all he said was, “Some deputies are on their way. Get back in the car, please; I think you’re in shock.”

  “I’m fine.” I managed to smile as I added, “Thanks.”

  And honestly, I was fine. More or less. Like I said, the shaking had all but stopped. The cool air felt good—the earthiness of the moss hanging from the branches overhead, the dustiness of the broken stone underfoot, the sweet, dark pitchiness of the trees. My eyes were still playing tricks—adrenaline, and the deep shadows of the forest—and I tried adjusting my glasses. Deputy Bobby must have taken pity on me because after a few rounds of me taking off my glasses and squinting and putting them on again and squinting some more, he took the glasses from me and settled them on my face.

  “Thanks,” I said again, and that was when my voice decided to get wobbly. “God, thank you, Bobby. How did you—I mean, you saved my life.”

  “Luck. Good timing.” He tucked some of my hair behind one arm of my glasses, and then he seemed to realize what he’d done and dropped his hand to his side. “You sounded serious when you said you needed to talk, and when I called you back, you didn’t answer. I thought I should get back to the house.”

  The way he said the house sent something thrumming through me. I wasn’t eager to look too closely at that particular feeling, so I said, “Dead zone.”

  He gave me a lopsided smile.

  “Right,” I said, and for some reason, I had to struggle not to cry. Somehow I managed to say, “You knew that.”

  “Dash, why don’t you sit down?”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine.” A breeze lifted, branches stirred, and the trees groaned like old men. I thought I could feel a touch of the ocean on my hot cheeks. “I know I shouldn’t have gone alone; please don’t be mad.”

  And then I told him everything.

  To his credit, Deputy Bobby didn’t get mad. At least, he didn’t shout. He didn’t kick anything. He didn’t get into the Pilot and drive away. Instead, he nodded. He breathed slowly and deeply. His hands opened and closed against his thighs.

  It was so much worse.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I’d just look around.”

  “Bull pucky.”

  Okay, that wasn’t quite what he said.

  Since I didn’t want to spend too much time on that particular topic, I said, “But he’s right, don’t you think? I mean, Nate’s a creep and a thief, and I’m still totally willing to believe he killed Gerry. But it was so easy to get into that safe. Whoever killed him had almost a full day when they could have gotten into his house and removed their blackmail file. And what Gerry said about Ali—”

  “Ali’s gone.”

  “What? What do you mean she’s gone?”

  “She disappeared, Dash. She ran away. She’s been couch-surfing with friends—I guess I don’t know if they were friends, but they were all part of that reclamation movement. And now she’s gone.”

  “That’s suspicious, right? That’s got to mean something.”

  Deputy Bobby made a noise that could have meant anything.

  “The sheriff has to admit it was murder now, doesn’t she? I mean, the footsteps that were erased at the cliff, those blackmail files, the fact that Ali disappeared?”

  “Dash—”

  “I know the medical examiner has to determine the manner of death, but there’s no way the sheriff is going to let this be written off as an accident, right?”

  “I don’t know. It’s none of my business. And it’s not any of yours, either.”

  He said it roughly—almost harshly. And the words were so unlike the Deputy Bobby I knew that it took me a minute to make sense of them, to step back and look at him, to see him, then, more closely. The red eyes. The way he folded his arms. The challenge in his face.

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  He shifted his weight, and the broken asphalt on the shoulder crunched under his feet.

  “You said you were driving back to Hemlock House because I called. Where’d you go?”

  Deputy Bobby looked past me, and when he spoke, his voice was thin and brittle, like ice about to break. “West and I talked this morning.”

  Even though I’d suspected it from the way he was acting, it still, somehow, felt like a surprise. “Oh God. Is that good? What happened? Are you okay?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “You’re—” I didn’t know how to phrase what I wanted to say, so I asked, “Want to talk about it?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I apologized. West accepted my apology.” He adjusted his arms across his chest. He was still looking out into the trees, the moss, the ferns shaped like swords. “We’re good now.”

  “You’re good now.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  But this time, I recognized the unfamiliar hostility for what it was: defensiveness. It was easy to recognize; I was feeling some of it myself. “What did you talk about?”

  Something flickered in Deputy Bobby’s eyes, but he said, “I told you. I apologized.”

  I made a noise of understanding.

  His gaze flicked to me for less than a heartbeat, and then he wrenched it back to the trees again.

  “Did you write down what you wanted to say to him?” I asked.

  Deputy Bobby didn’t answer.

  “Did you?” I asked again.

  “I appreciate you—”

  “You didn’t, did you?” The question dropped open like a trap door between us. After a moment, I said, “Of course you didn’t.”

  Now he looked at me. A dusky flush rose under his golden-olive skin. Even in the canopy’s deep shadows, his pupils looked hard and small. “I didn’t need to write anything down. I just needed to apologize. We both overreacted, and now it’s all over.”

  “You overreacted? Really? Do you remember last night?”

  “I remember that this is my relationship. Mine. And I don’t need your opinion or your commentary.” He struggled to add, in an approximation of his normal voice, “Thank you for being worried, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  The old Dash would have let it drop there. Heck, the old Dash never would have gotten this far in the first place. But apparently, having your entire life turned upside down and shaken like a dollhouse goes a long way toward helping you deal with your conflict avoidance patterns. Also, confronting murderers didn’t hurt. So even though I tried to do what he asked, I felt myself already starting to speak.

  “Big surprise,” I said, “you don’t want to talk about it. Well, too bad. God, why are you being such a—such a dude about this? You’re so smart. Most of the time. You’re so funny and kind and generous and good. And you deserve to be happy. Instead, you give me this nonsense about how everything’s fine and it all blew over. Stuff like this doesn’t blow over. That’s why you’re so unhappy!”

  My shout echoed out into the trees. The branches above us shifted in the breeze, and shadows rose and fell on Deputy Bobby’s face. He stared at me. The hurt in his face was already closing, hardening, turning into a wall I didn’t know how to get past.

  “I am happy,” Deputy Bobby said.

  “No, you’re not. You don’t want to move to Portland. You don’t want to give up working in law enforcement. You don’t want to be a doctor, or whatever you think you’re supposed to do. You don’t want to do any of that. And I don’t know why you can’t just tell him.”

  “I’m fine, for your information. West and I are fine.”

  I shook my head, and now I was the one to look away.

  “You know something, Dash?” He laughed—part scoff, part scorn, and it was the first time, I realized distantly, I’d ever heard Deputy Bobby try to hurt somebody. “For someone who whines and moans about how bad he is at relationships, you’re sure quick to talk about stuff you don’t know anything about.”

  Deeper among the trees, a bird broke into flight—a flurried flap of wings that shattered the stillness. The sound of tires on pavement came next, and a sheriff’s office cruiser came over the hill.

  The weight of Deputy Bobby’s gaze rested on me for another long moment. And then, without another word, he got in his car and left.

  Chapter 13

  I told Salk what had happened. At least, I think I told him. My body seemed to be on autopilot while my brain played back snatches of that horrible argument with Deputy Bobby. Salk looked around. He couldn’t find a shell casing. He couldn’t find a bullet. I think he believed me, but all my higher-level functions had come unplugged, and none of it seemed to matter. He called a tow truck. He waited with me.

  Mr. Del Real, who owned Swift Lift Towing, told me someone had tampered with the alternator. I thought about how I’d parked right next to the service garage. About how Nate had disappeared in that direction after I’d tried to talk to him the first time. But it wasn’t just Nate who could have done it. Ali Rivas basically had a part-time job disabling machinery. And against my will, I remembered that Jen had told me Damian was good with cars.

  As Mr. Del Real was hooking up the Jeep, Salk said, “I think you’re in shock. Let me take you to the medical center.”

  I shook my head. “I just want to go home.”

  Which was how, about an hour later, I ended up in bed.

  A while later, the shadows had changed, deepened, and now the room was dark. I wasn’t sure I’d slept. I didn’t know where I’d been. Someone was knocking at the door.

  “Dashiell, dear,” Indira called through the wood. “Would you mind opening the door? We’re all a bit worried about you.”

  I thought about ignoring her. But that had never worked with the Last Picks, so I said, “I’m fine. I just need some time alone.”

  “Did you hear that?” Millie said. It was like she was standing right next to the bed, by the way. “Did you hear his voice? He’s definitely NOT FINE.”

  “I am fine,” I said. “I’m totally fine. I’ll be down for dinner.”

 

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