The Amateurs, Book 3

by Sara Shepard

  “I’d never give up running,” he admitted. “If only knowing that you’d be in the stands, watching me at the Olympic trials.”

  “Good,” Seneca said.

  “But how can I go across the country?” he moaned. “I’ll miss you too much.”

  Seneca leaned back against the pillow and stared out the window. Her house had a view of the Chesapeake, and the water was dotted with sailboats and fishing vessels. “You can’t quit your dreams because of that,” she scolded.

  “It’s not just because of you.” Maddox considered propping his feet up on the coffee table until he remembered he wasn’t in his own house. “I mean, yes, it’s mostly you, but this summer changed me. I didn’t run last week when we were looking for Aerin, and I didn’t even care. There are things out there that are bigger than running, you know? It put things in perspective.”

  “Yeah, but hopefully we won’t have to deal with those big things anymore, right? It’s all behind us.”

  She looked so chill when she said this. Not maniacal. Not crazed or obsessed like she’d been in Breezy Sea after they’d found Damien. Maddox thought about that crazy-awesome-awful day for a moment. A few days after their blowup, he’d gotten it—really gotten what she was trying to tell him. Brett was like a sickness in Seneca’s head; if she didn’t treat that sickness, it would grow like a weed, choking out everything else. And the only way she was going to get rid of the weeds in her head was to find Brett.

  That, combined with the note he knew she’d received from him, was why he’d watched her so carefully. He knew she was searching. He knew, too, that she would hit upon the answer in time. Like Brett had said, she already had all the clues.

  When he looked up, Seneca looked giddy, like she was working hard to hold in a secret. “What?” he asked.

  She bit her lip, her eyes sparkling. “Okay. I was going to save this for closer to you leaving, but I guess I’ll tell you now.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Her gaze fell to the couch, where a few crumbs of the pita chips they’d devoured earlier were scattered. “I’ve been talking to my dad. Like, really talking. He’s pissed at me for not explaining what I was up to, and he was livid that I tracked Brett down alone—but that’s not all we’ve been talking about. We’ve been talking about her, too. My mom.” Her gaze drifted to the big book of photo albums on the coffee table; she’d been showing Maddox them nonstop since he’d arrived. “For so long, my dad hasn’t wanted to—he said he was trying to protect me from his grief. And I think I didn’t want to talk to him about her because I was trying to protect him from my rage. But anyway, we’ve been telling stories about her—fun, funny stuff that I’d forgotten. It’s been really nice.”

  “That is really nice,” Maddox agreed.

  “That’s not all. Knowing what we know now, about Brett? It really helps. Both of us feel closure in a way we haven’t felt since her death. Before, at the University of Maryland, I was so unsettled, still stuck on my mom’s mystery. It was why I couldn’t focus on classes—or anything, really. Even relationships.” Here she looked up and gave Maddox a half-sly, half-sheepish smile. “But now everything has changed.”

  “That’s great.” A boat drifted across Maddox’s field of view, and for a second he wished he and Seneca could be aboard, wearing skimpy bathing suits, listening to hip-hop. Then he turned back to her. Seneca was grinning as though the best part of her speech was yet to come.

  “I think what’s held me back is staying in the same town where my mother was killed.” She swept her arm around the living room. “Even hunting down these other mysteries and getting out of my bubble really helped. And then, the other day, right before you got here, I got accepted into a criminal justice program. And I’m going to volunteer with the college’s local PD.”

  “Wait, what?” Maddox exclaimed. “All this happened and you didn’t tell me?”

  Seneca looked sheepish. “I needed to think about it first. It’s such a big step. But the college was impressed with the work I did finding Helena and Brett. So that helped with my applications.” When she looked up at him, her face was full of hope. “I really want to do it.”

  “Then you should do it! You definitely should!”

  She sat back. “See? You support me in my dream. Of course I’m going to encourage you to follow yours as well.”

  Maddox rolled his ankles and felt both joints crack. He was dying to get back into running and racing. And, okay, missing the Olympics was more than he could even bear. Who’d pass up the chance to walk in the opening ceremonies with Michael Phelps and all those hot women volleyball players?

  “I just hate that we’re going to be separated, you know?” he said softly.

  A sneaky smile appeared on Seneca’s pink lips. “But I haven’t even told you where I was accepted.” Her eyebrows shot up and down. “How does the University of Washington work for you?”

  Maddox stared at her. “Washington…as in State?”

  “DC’s way too close to home, baby.”

  “As in only a few hours from the University of Oregon?” Maddox grabbed her arms. “Are you kidding me? Are you seriously kidding me?”

  “Nope,” Seneca said as he pulled her in for a bear hug. “And I’m going to intern at the Seattle PD.”

  Maddox stared at her for a long while, then put a finger to his temple. “Mind, blown.”

  “I thought you’d like it,” Seneca murmured into his ear as he held her close.

  “I don’t just like it,” Maddox said, pulling her back and looking deeply into her eyes. He wanted to freeze this moment, put it in a jar, and keep it always. “I love it.”

  “And I love you,” she said softly, kissing his lips.

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER Madison, Aerin, and Thomas arrived and Seneca got them settled in her house’s creaky third-floor guest rooms—which were a bit dusty and serving as a Holiday Inn for a few spiders—the group set off down the road to Lowry’s, one of Seneca’s favorite crab cake joints in all of Annapolis. The restaurant had a noir-slash-pirate vibe about it: It was very dark inside, the floors were original from the 1940s and littered with peanut shells and wood shavings, the bartender was an old, grizzly dude named Sven, and the dock outside for boats bobbed and shook and had death-trap planks with nails sticking up every which way.

  Everyone barreled inside, and the hostess, Fran—a cranky older woman who’d been there forever—led the group to a booth. But before Seneca followed, she held up her finger to Maddox, stepped out onto the back porch near the decimated dock, and peered out at the bridge in the distance.

  There was another reason why she was drawn to this restaurant over the years: It held a vista across the water of where her mother was found. If Seneca squinted, she could just make out the marshy inlet where the police had recovered her body. She hadn’t been on the scene when that happened—she hadn’t known, actually, until hours later, when an officer came to the house to ask her to ID her mother’s corpse—but after she found out the details, her mind had worked to fill in the holes. How on earth had her mother gotten there? Who had done this to her? Why had this happened?

  Now she had those answers. Every single part; she’d even put ­Collette’s killer behind bars.

  Seneca pushed her hair behind her ears. Not long ago, she’d assumed that when—not if—she cracked the case, she’d feel a huge weight off her shoulders. Her life would immediately be happy and peaceful; everything would change for the better. But that wasn’t exactly what had happened. In learning about what had happened to her mother and why, Seneca had peeled back the layers of so many terrible events. Tragic car accidents. Descents into madness. Stolen childhoods. Hideous violence. The world could be so senseless and cruel. People were so fragile, so easily ruined, so quickly haunted.

  Brett had been right—they were alike in a lot of ways. They were both marred by what had happened to them. They were both victims of life’s hideous cruelty and randomness. But unlike Brett, Seneca wasn’t going to turn
her tragedy and misfortune into evil. By studying criminal justice in Seattle, maybe she could help even one person get closure on something that was haunting them. She hoped it would make a difference.

  The wind kicked up, making ripples across the water. The rickety dock swayed noisily, knocking the lone moored boat against its side. Seneca stared hard at the inlet across the bay; she’d always thought of it as her mother’s true grave, not the St. Anne’s Cemetery, where they’d buried her. We did it, Mom, she thought, feeling tears prickle at her eyes. We got him. I’m just sorry he did this to you in the first place.

  She closed her eyes, wishing for an answer. If only her mom could talk to her just one more time, but since that day at Brett’s house, her voice hadn’t returned. What more did Seneca need her to say? That she loved her? That she was sorry? Was Seneca mad at her mom for sending Brett back to Elizabeth’s lair all those years ago? Brett certainly was. If you looked at it one way, her mom’s decision set off a toxic chain reaction that led all the way to her death. But if you looked at it the rational way, who would ever have thought evil could lurk two doors down in a peaceful beach town? Seneca wouldn’t have. Most people wouldn’t have. She couldn’t fault her mom for that.

  “Hey.”

  Maddox stood in the doorway, his head cocked to the side, his eyebrows were raised in question. “Hey,” she said, walking back to him. He put his arm around her. “I really love this view.”

  Maddox smiled. “It’s pretty, especially with this sunset.”

  Seneca nodded. Then she turned to him, feeling a little shaky and uncertain that she should ask the question that was swirling in her mind. “Do you ever think about Brett in prison?”

  Worry flashed across Maddox’s face, and Seneca was afraid he was going to give her another lecture about too much Brett on the brain. But then he nodded. “Actually, yeah. It’s hard to imagine him actually confined somewhere, you know? I can’t quite picture it.”

  “I keep thinking he’s going to escape.” Seneca laughed self-consciously. “I’ve called the prison every day to make sure he’s still there.”

  Maddox chuckled, then took her hand. Seneca leaned her head on his shoulder, considering asking him another thing that had been weighing on her mind—if he was going to go to Brett’s trial. She had to. Aerin did, too, because of the kidnapping. The prosecution would only call Maddox as a character witness, though. Seneca figured he would, but the two of them had avoided talking about Brett over the past few days. It was so much calmer that way. So much less charged.

  But she was still thinking about Brett. Not obsessively, not in an I-need-to-find-him-or-I’m-going-to-explode sort of way. Now, to her surprise, her thoughts about him were tinged with something complex that she couldn’t quite name. She knew it made no sense, but the only thing it reminded her of was how she felt when she’d come home from the hospital after getting her tonsils out—the surgery had hurt, the hospital bed was lumpy, and a couple of the nurses were unfriendly, but it had been memorable and transformative. In a completely bizarre way, she had Brett to thank for setting off her life in a thrilling, purposeful new direction—meeting new friends, meeting Maddox, finally feeling ready for college. She’d always remember Brett for that. Not with fondness…but definitely with significance.

  “Helloo?” a voice trilled. Madison poked her head around the door, hand on her hip. “There’s a big plate of fried clams with your name on it, Seneca!”

  Seneca squeezed Maddox’s hand and stepped back inside the restaurant, sliding back into the booth with the four friends who were probably the most important people in her life. Aerin sat against the wall, her glossy mouth smiling wide, so unlike the cranky, closed-off girl Seneca had met months before, when she’d come to Dexby to search for Helena’s killer. And Thomas was squeezed next to her, still looking thrilled that he was even with Aerin but also providing a comforting stability. Madison, picking up a clam strip with the tips of her fingernails, which were decorated with polka dots and glitter, ribbed Maddox about wearing a freaking Under Armour T-shirt to his girlfriend’s twentieth birthday party. “I mean, honestly, Maddox?” She took his sleeve between her fingers. “Could you not have put on something a teensy bit fancier?”

  “It’s okay.” Seneca leaned into Maddox. “I like his sporty gear. Which is kind of funny, because the very first time we met in person, I thought, Ugh, a jock.”

  Maddox poked her. “Actually, the very first time you met me, you were surprised I wasn’t a girl.”

  The table roared with laughter, and Seneca did, too. She wouldn’t have a few months ago—maybe even a few weeks ago. She used to be so prickly about her mistakes, so defensive about any critique someone made of her. But she was starting to get over that. She wasn’t always right. And that was okay, as long as someone had her back.

  “Here,” Madison said, pushing something wrapped in tissue paper across the table at her. “A birthday present.”

  Seneca frowned. “I said no gifts, guys.” But she peeled away the filmy tissue paper anyway. Inside was a small white box. Seneca lifted the lid, then gasped. Her mother’s P-initial necklace lay on a small satin pillow. The gold shone. The charm was no longer bent and charred. Tears came to her eyes.

  “Guys,” she whispered. “How did you do this?”

  “Madison knows a jewelry guy,” Maddox said. “He fixed it right up.”

  She ran her fingers over the gold disc. The memory flashed back of pulling it off her mother’s body, desperately needing something that was hers. She lifted it from the box, and Maddox helped to secure it around her neck. The P charm settled at her throat in that old, familiar way she remembered. Her fingers instantly started to fiddle with it, and she felt her heart slow. When had her friends even had time to do this? She’d never felt so touched in her life. “Thank you. I don’t even know what to say.”

  Maddox held his water glass up in a toast. “Happy birthday, Seneca.”

  “We love you,” Aerin said, raising her glass, too.

  Seneca clinked her glass to theirs. She couldn’t help but get a twinge of the last time she’d heard a toast—in that dark, spooky living room in Halcyon, with Brett leering at her from his couch. A shiver went through her, filling her with dread and even a little worry. But that was crazy, of course. Brett couldn’t scare her anymore. Because of her—because of them—Brett would never hurt anyone again.

  THE WAY JACKSON Brett Jones saw it, if he’d lived through years of being locked up with a madwoman, prison was going to be a piece of cake. He’d learned a thing or two since escaping from Elizabeth. Like how to manipulate people. Like how to slide into any role he needed to play. Fake it till you make it, and all that. And so Brett walked into the Garden Plaza Correctional Facility not the scared little twerp who let himself be kidnapped or the careless dude who’d misjudged an amateur crime-solver named Seneca Frazier, but the confident, ballsy, mad-genius badass he knew he was.

  And it had worked—so far, anyway. He’d already gotten privileges to have shoelaces, decent shampoo, and fresh rolls in the cafeteria. He’d schmoozed with enough inmates and did enough favors—which typically involved hacking contraband cell phones to contact the outside world—and people gave him a wide berth. He was escorted to the front of the phone call line every Wednesday afternoon, and he always got hot water for his shower. Basically, he had it pretty good, all things considered.

  The best part? He’d charmed the guards into giving him a choice job in the prison library, which put him around tons of books…and computers. And sure, the prison thought the internet’s server only accessed a handful of sites the staff thought appropriate, but that was before Brett got his hands on the thing. Like it was really so hard to bypass their flimsy firewalls. He almost wanted to write an open letter to the taxpayers of New Jersey, spilling how their hard-earned money was going to a lot of uselessness. Then again, he had more useful endeavors for his web-surfing time.

  He sat at the computer terminal now, his fingers wigglin
g over the keys, trying to ignore the fact that the room smelled not like musty books but like sweat, piss, and burned hair. The first thing he did was Google Jackson Brett Jones. Not so long ago, there were no results except for those buried stories about a missing boy from Tallyho Island, but today? Today, he was a freaking Twitter trend.

  Every news outlet known to man was speculating on his upcoming trial, trying to figure out how he was going to plead, hedging their bets on whether he’d get the death penalty—which, duh, he wouldn’t, because Brett was hoping all the cases would be thrown out on technicalities or insufficient evidence. There were timelines of the murders he’d pulled off, essays from psychologists diagnosing him with various mental illnesses, a big splashy story about how he measured up to some of the serial killer greats, and an interview with Viola, who’d seemed so stunned and blindsided through the whole thing that Brett’s heart broke a little. The CNC forums were full of questions: how he’d gone unnoticed for so long, how he’d chosen his victims, and how he’d gotten the cash to sustain himself all these years.

  Brett would love to answer that last question—would anyone believe the story? Who knew the old-fashioned scion Vera Grady, one of the very first women he killed—and the woman he claimed to be his grandma to Seneca and the others—was paranoid about banks? It wasn’t even why Brett killed her—he’d been working as a bagger at a high-end grocery down the street from her in Greenwich, and she was bitchy to him every time she came in, and he’d snapped one day, still so wounded and touchy from the agony of Elizabeth. But he considered it a lovely little perk.

  He’d found money stashed all over the house. A safe with an easily crackable code contained over one hundred thousand dollars in crisp hundreds. Not even her housekeeper, Esmerelda, knew about Vera’s little nest egg, because the press didn’t report anything missing. It also helped that Brett had left everything else in that safe—a lot of gaudy jewelry, some deeds to some properties, an old, sappy love letter—untouched.