by Tara Kelly
“Look, my best friend went missing yesterday. And…” Every part of me was trembling now, even my voice. “I just… I need to know it’s not him. Can you tell me what he looked like? His hair color? Clothes…”
The lines around the woman’s eyes softened. “Oh, honey…” Her voice was about an octave lower than it was a few seconds ago. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t…”
“Was he wearing a hoodie, like a gray hoodie?”
She stared at me and put her hand over her mouth, her dark eyes growing shiny.
I could see the woman’s face, her skin flashing red and then blue, the trees towering behind her like giant, lurching shadows. I could hear shoes crunching on gravel, the hiss of radios, murmuring voices, and birds chirping. But I wasn’t here. I couldn’t be here.
A hand touched my back, and there was a guy’s voice but I didn’t register what he said.
“Nova,” Jenika’s voice broke through.
I turned to see Detective Sandoval, the younger detective who was at my house, staring down at me.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s Nova, right?”
The white noise was still in my ears. “Is it Alex?” The words tumbled out of my mouth, choked and frantic. “Please say no. Please.” I wasn’t talking to him. Not really. I was begging some God I didn’t even believe in.
“Take a deep breath for me, okay?” Sandoval said, his dark eyes studying me. It wasn’t in a concerned or human way. More like I was a broken clock he needed to put back together.
I did as he asked because it was the only thing I could do. There was no running away from this moment. No rewind button. No second chances.
“Why do you think it’s your friend?” he asked, his voice gentle.
“Because he’s been missing since the night before last.”
Cindy had finally reported Alex missing after we left yesterday, but if Sandoval knew that, his expression didn’t give him away. It didn’t give anything away. I might as well have been talking to a statue.
“Why are you out here right now?” Sandoval asked.
“The sirens, they woke me up.” My hands gripped at the fabric of my sweater. “Is it him?”
Sandoval’s gaze softened, the first sign of emotion I’d seen on his face. I couldn’t tell if it was sympathy for my fear…or something worse. “I’m sorry. I can’t share anything right now.”
“You just have to say no,” I said. “Shake your head. Something.”
“Can I have someone take you home?” he asked.
“We’re okay,” Jenika said. “We can walk.” She sounded so sure herself, like the possibility of that body being Alex’s hadn’t even crossed her mind.
“Nova!” My mom called out. She was silhouetted by the police lights, jogging toward me.
She threw her arms around my shoulders, her long dark hair hitting me in the face. “I heard those sirens and…God, you scared the hell out of me.” She pulled back, cupping my face. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a body—a young man.”
Mom’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and her mouth trembled. She drew in a shaky breath. “Is it…?”
“I don’t know.”
She pulled me to her again, squeezing me so tight I could barely draw in a full breath. I closed my eyes, waiting for the tears to come. To lose it. To break down.
But nothing happened. There was just that horrible humming in my ears and the smell of my mom’s hair, jasmine and menthols.
I couldn’t work my shift, but Mom didn’t want me to be alone, either. So I sat in the diner kitchen, rocking back and forth in the old brown rocking chair, tensing every time we heard voices on the scanner. Not that they ever said anything useful on the channels we could hear.
It was hard to sit still. I wanted to be out there, turning the town upside down. I wanted to be here in case something useful came in over the scanner or Megan called. I wanted to be at Alex’s, in case… In case… I couldn’t even say it. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him.
“There’s just as much chance it’s someone else,” Jenika said. She stood in front of the back door, her arms folded.
“She’s right,” Gramps said, chopping onions and peppers. “You can’t let your mind go there—not until you have to.”
I kept seeing that woman’s eyes when I mentioned the gray hoodie. It played like a loop, over and over. “What other ‘young men’ are missing right now? How can I not go there?”
“Christian is…” Jenika said.
“We don’t know that for sure,” I said.
Jenika glanced at the display on her phone, her left leg jiggling. “So sit there being scared and useless. That’s gonna help.”
Her words felt like a flame inside my chest. “We can’t all be sociopaths like you, Jenika. He’s my best friend. I’ve got every right to be scared!”
“What’d you call me?”
I stood, moving toward her. There was a voice inside telling me to stop, but I couldn’t. I wanted to keep going. I wanted to hurt her. “You barely know him. All he is to you is…”
She came at me, stopping inches from my face. “Go on. Tell me what Alex is to me. Tell me who I am.”
I opened my mouth, but the words didn’t come out this time.
“Say whatever makes you feel better about being weak,” she continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “Because that’s what you are. A weak, self-righteous bitch.”
“Hey!” Gramps hollered, smacking his meaty hands together. “Go outside and duke it out. You’ll do less damage.”
Neither of us moved or even blinked. If she wanted to have it out, I was game. Right now I wanted to tear the world apart with my bare hands.
The kitchen doors swung open, making us both turn toward the entrance. Brandon walked in, his brow furrowing at Jenika. “Hey,” he said, his gaze shifting between us.
“They found another body,” I said. “Have you heard?”
He ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “Yeah… My mom took off early this morning. Told me I’m no longer allowed to walk anywhere alone.”
Everyone went still and quiet, even Gramps, who’d stopped chopping. I rubbed my fingers across the goose bumps on my arms. “Alex is missing,” I said.
The lines in Brandon’s forehead deepened, and his lips parted, but nothing came out for a few seconds. “I know…”
“The sirens woke me up, so I went to the scene.” My voice was starting to quiver again. “And I heard it was a young man—the body. But they wouldn’t tell me who…”
“I’ll call my mom, okay? See what I can find out.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He pulled out his phone and went out back. Jenika followed him, letting the door slam shut behind her.
“Tell me it’s going to be okay,” I said to Gramps, walking in circles around the rocking chair. I almost wished Gavin were here instead of with Rhonda; it was too quiet, too calm.
“Alex is a tough kid,” Gramps said, dumping the chopped peppers into a silver bowl. “It’s not him.”
“Then where is he?”
“Probably best I don’t know. ’Cause when I find him, I might kill him myself.”
Distorted voices echoed through the kitchen, making me jump. More codes and letters. I watched the back door, waiting to see the knob turn. Waiting to see Brandon come through.
Gramps pulled me into a hug, squeezing me so tight his arms quivered. Jenika was right—I should be out there doing something. Not rolling over and playing dead.
The back door opened and Brandon came through, his head down. I pulled away from Gramps, my stomach in my throat.
Brandon knew something, because his fingers were twitching at his sides.
“Just tell me,” I said.
He looked up then, and I stopped breathing. My skin went cold. A second lasted a minute. It isn’t Alex, I told myself over and over.
“It’s Christian Barnett,” he said.
I exhaled, my muscles turning t
o jelly, the odd sensation of being relieved and horrified at the same time. Gramps turned then, cracking eggs into a pan, but not before I saw his shoulders relax and his eyes slowly close.
“Where’s Jenika?” I asked.
“She took off after I told her.” Brandon stared at the wall behind me, like he was in a daze. “This is insane…”
“Do you know if he was painted up, like Amber?”
“Between us?” Brandon said. “Mom said the scene is similar.”
“Strangled?” Gramps asked, his back still turned to us.
Brandon looked down at his feet, shifting his weight. “His throat was slit, but you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Hmm…” Gramps said. Usually he had a lot more to say than that, but I had a feeling he was just as stumped as the rest of us.
I didn’t believe in a coincidence at this point. Someone was targeting the cakes. In the eyes of the cops or anyone, that could be me, Alex, Jenika, or Matt, especially if they got a hold of that video.
And if anyone had a motive, it was Jenika. She didn’t even ask those potential witnesses if they saw the body; she asked if they saw anything. She knew where our security cameras were, so she could’ve sneaked out the back door and hopped the neighbor’s fence while we all were asleep.
Still, it was all too obvious. The killer was meticulous, trying to make a point, not get caught. Jenika straight up told Zach she thought they’d torched her house.
My hands and feet were buzzing again, begging to move. The damp heat in the kitchen clung to my skin and made my insides feel like they were melting.
I bolted for the back door, dug my feet into the gravel, and took off, letting the cool air sting my face. I ran until my lungs burned and there was nowhere to go but into the fog and the gray waves crashing in front of me.
I felt like I’d been split in two. There was the girl watching from above, wanting to press the stop button and make this all go away. She told me I should be scared. I should cry. I should feel something.
Then there was the girl inside me. She felt nothing other than the need to get answers.
Answers were the only way out of this.
I went home first and called Mom, telling her I’d stay there. She made me promise. I closed my eyes and said I promise. Then I looked at the footage the security cameras recorded last night. The camera above the entrance recorded something at 4:26 a.m., a shadow darting across the driveway. I went through it frame by frame, only to see a bushy tail and four legs.
I kept going over the other night with Alex, seeing that weird intensity in his eyes. When he’d leaned in and kissed me the first time, it seemed like slow motion. But it was sudden, almost rushed. At least for the Alex I knew up until a couple weeks ago. He would’ve danced around the moment forever, the tips of his ears turning red.
“Just for tonight,” he’d said. “Let’s pretend out there doesn’t exist.”
It was like he knew everything would be different in the morning. Like he knew he’d be gone…
But he wouldn’t bail on his job and Megan, not unless he had to. Cindy did say the cops had been by to question him twice. Maybe between them circling around and that rumor, he got scared. Still, other than his Uncle Joel’s in Portland, he had nowhere else to go. He barely had any money. Even with the wilderness survival skills his grandpa taught him, he wouldn’t last long out there without supplies.
I needed to find out what he’d said in that note, not that Zach would ever willingly tell me. And it would be almost impossible to get to him now. His mom probably had him under twenty-four-hour surveillance.
There was one way I could get to him, though. His email. Knowing Zach, his password was probably one of five things.
The phone rang, making me tense. A local number I didn’t recognize showed up on the caller ID, and the chill down my arms told me it wasn’t good news.
“Hello?” I answered.
“It’s Jenika. Your mom said you went home.”
“What’s going on?”
“There was just a bunch of cops at Alex’s place. It looked like they were doing a search.”
A full-on house search around here usually meant a drug bust or some wanted felon who was hiding out at his relative’s place. Or, in this case, someone who was suspected of a lot more than running away.
“You there?” Jenika asked.
“Did you see them carry anything out?”
“Some bags—I couldn’t tell what. They have to have something on him, right?”
The apple tree leaves fluttered outside my window, reminding me to stay calm. Think, don’t feel. “Or Cindy gave them permission.”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
Because she was Cindy. She probably didn’t think she had a choice. “I’m going to head over there now. See you in a few.”
If I were one of those detectives, I’d probably be looking at Alex, too. The victims had bullied and humiliated him. That stupid rumor about him being seen with Amber was spreading like a cold on an airplane.
And then he disappears, right before Christian turns up dead.
It all fit together in a nice little box. But life wasn’t a nice little box.
On the way to Megan and Alex’s, I walked the route Alex usually took, keeping my eyes open for anything that could explain what happened to him that night. There were the usual things—cigarette butts, fast-food containers, and Band-Aids. There was a pair of jeans lying in a crumpled heap on the side of the road, which made my heart jump in my chest. But they weren’t Alex’s.
How would the killer be able to kidnap three people without ever being seen? Emerald Cove had no traffic cameras and plenty of remote areas, but it was almost impossible to avoid people during tourist season, even in the middle of the night.
Megan answered the door, her thumbnail in her mouth, her blond hair wild and tangled, like she’d been running her fingers through it constantly. “The cops were just here.”
“I know,” I said, moving past her. “What happened?”
Jenika followed me in and headed down the hallway, straight for Alex’s room.
“They tore his whole room apart,” Megan said. “Took our computer.”
“Did they have a warrant?” I asked, following Jenika.
“No. Cindy let them because…”
I turned, facing her. “Because why?”
She folded her arms, focusing on the floor. “Grandpa’s A-5 is missing. She noticed it last night.”
“What?” Their Browning Auto-5 shotgun was a family heirloom, passed down from Alex’s great-grandfather. Alex’s grandpa had left it to him, but Alex wanted nothing to do with it.
“Where did you guys keep it?” Jenika asked, standing in Alex’s open doorway.
“In its case, in the living room.”
“You said Cindy tore the house apart the other day,” I said. “Are you sure—”
“Yes!” Megan broke in. “We went through everything last night looking for it.” Her face scrunched up like she was about to cry. “It’s not here…”
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “We’re going to figure this out.”
“How?”
I didn’t even believe my words right now—why should she?
Still, neither Amber nor Christian was shot. The detectives couldn’t tie it to the murders. If he did take it, the only reason I could think of was for protection.
“Where’s Cindy now?” I asked.
“In her room, crying.” Megan’s voice softened to a whisper, as she motioned for us to go into Alex’s room. After we were all inside, she shut the door and locked it.
“She’s starting to believe he’s involved in the murders,” Megan said. “Like, really, truly believe.”
Jenika threw up her arms. “What kind of person turns against her own blood without proof?”
“Cindy,” I muttered, her name leaving a sour taste in my mouth. She’d always expected Megan and Alex to “go bad” as
she put it, like they were nothing more than cartons of milk. It wasn’t surprising to me that she’d turned her back on Alex already. She’d done it to both her kids.
I opened Alex’s closet, looking for anything that might be missing. Not that I could remember every item of clothing he had. He did only have two pairs of shoes, though. Blue-and-white running shoes and his Vans. Both were missing.
“What else did you see them take, besides the computer?” I asked Megan.
“I couldn’t tell,” she said. “They told us to stay out on the couch, and the stuff was in bags.”
I scanned the room for his backpack. Usually he kept it in the corner next to his desk, but it wasn’t there. His skateboard was propped against the wall, next to his bed. Jenika sifted through the piles of books, socks, and papers scattered on his floor. It looked like the police had come in here and literally thrown everything into the center of the room.
His iPod was gone, too, but he took that thing everywhere with him. It could’ve been in the pocket of his jeans that night he came to my house. I should’ve found a way to search his room yesterday. At least then I might’ve been able to tell if he’d made it back here or not.
“If people were accusing me of killing someone and came after my little sister, I might not stick around,” Jenika said. “Maybe he thinks it’s better to stay away.”
She was right—that did sound like Alex. But it still didn’t make sense. “So, he thought taking off with a shotgun would make things better?”
“Who says he even took it?” Jenika asked. “When’s the last time you actually laid eyes on it, Megan?”
“I can’t remember.”
“So it could’ve been gone for months, right?” Jenika pressed.
“Maybe.” Megan ran her fingers through her hair, her forehead scrunching up. “I don’t know…”
I touched her back, moving my hand in gentle circles. She stiffened at first and then leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder.
“What if it’s true?” she said, softly. “What if he killed them?”
“He didn’t,” Jenika shot back, glaring at her. “How the hell can you even ask that?”
“This is Alex,” I said in a whisper, swallowing back the lump in my throat. My own tiny sliver of doubt. “Look me in the eye and tell me you think he’s capable.”
