by Maci Grant
“Maddie, please. What if I’m right, though? What if Sam was murdered and no one ever knows the truth?”
Maddie frowned and shook her head. “Don’t you think if he was, someone would have seen something—someone would know something?”
The question reminded Blu about the windbreaker. She took a deep breath before she spoke again. “Maddie, I know I don’t deserve it, and you’re so very angry at me right now, but can you do me one last favor? Then I promise, I won’t involve you in this at all any more.”
“What?” Maddie frowned.
“Could you look in Brian’s closet for a windbreaker?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just please check for me.” Blu pleaded. “Then that will be all. I’ll never breathe a word about this to you again.”
“Fine.” Maddie sighed. “I’ll check. But Brian has a lot of clothes, Blu.”
“Thank you. I promise, if you lose your job over this, I’ll do whatever it takes to get you another one.”
Maddie frowned and opened her arms to Blu. “I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Blu waited for Maddie to say that she forgave her, but Maddie didn’t speak another word. She just pulled away and walked off.
“Blu, can we ride the train again?” Joey jumped up and down at her side. “Marley threw up!”
“What?” Blu looked down at Marley, whose shirt was speckled with grime. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” She hadn’t thought about Marley’s motion sickness before she put her on the train ride. Just as Maddie said, she wasn’t paying attention to the family that needed her.
“Let’s go get you a nice new shirt, hm?”
“Okay.” Marley smiled. “Can I have ice cream too?”
“How about after we’re done with the rides?”
Marley giggled.
Blu spent the rest of the night focused on the two kids that she’d sworn to help raise and protect.
The next morning Blu’s stomach was still in knots over her conversation with Maddie the night before. She tried to ignore her feelings and stay focused on the crime. She wanted to make sure that she was right this time.
The kids had a birthday party to attend, so she made sure that they were dressed appropriately and fed a good breakfast.
After dropping them off, she knew she had some time to figure out her next step. If Penelope was telling the truth and Brian had no reason to be jealous of her relationship with Sam, then she needed to face the facts. As awful as it made her feel inside, she suspected that there was only one other person that could have been on the beach the morning that Sam died.
Chapter 26
Before going to Kayla’s, Blu stopped off at the beach house. The kids still had a few more hours at their birthday party. She didn’t think anyone else would be home for some time. With the house to herself she felt comfortable doing some research in the middle of the living room.
She opened up her computer and began to search into Kayla’s history. It was clear that Kayla was not shy about social media. In fact there were so many selfies that Blu had to filter them out. She searched for one post in particular. When she came across it she smiled with victory.
The post described Kayla’s heartbreak over Sam leaving her. She blasted the wealthy side of town and talked about the temptation of money being stronger than the force of true love. It was all quite dramatic and very angry. It was clear that Kayla was not happy with the choice that Sam had made.
Blu tracked Kayla’s social media posts over the past days and they became all about grief, the loss of her true love, and how she would never love again.
On a hunch Blu dug into the newspaper articles for the local community for the past few summers. She was not surprised when she came across an article about an eighteen-year-old Kayla being arrested for disorderly conduct. Reading between the lines of the article, it was easy to surmise that it was a dispute between Kayla and another woman over Sam’s attention. She had a history of violent behavior and jealousy. Kayla was also still young enough not to think through the consequences of her actions—to instead act on impulse.
“Kayla, it’s time to tell the truth.”
She checked for Kayla’s most recent address. Then she closed her computer and headed out.
Blu kept a constant watch on the time. She made sure that her cell phone was on. She didn’t want to risk getting caught up in the investigation and missing the pick-up time for the kids’ birthday party.
When she reached Kayla’s neighborhood, she parked down the road from her house. With casual steps she walked toward Kayla’s house. A part of her expected Kayla not to be there. She expected that this loose end would be just that—a loose—perpetually unraveled—end.
Instead, when she reached the end of the driveway, she noticed a very different scene. Kayla was right there, surrounded by boxes.
Blu stood back as Kayla loaded a box into the back of her truck.
“Are you moving, Kayla?”
“I am.” She glanced over at her. “Do I know you?”
“No. I’m just a nanny for a family that stays in one of the beach houses.”
“Oh, you’re one of those.” She picked up another box. “Come to see the sideshow?”
“What do you mean?”
Kayla dropped the box down into the bed of the truck with a loud thump. She brushed off her hands and turned to face Blu. “Here I am. The woman who had everything. I had a man who loved me—not some guy who thought I looked good or wanted to marry me for my cooking. But a man who loved me—all of me—because of who I am. I had what most women never get to experience. And, like a fool, I sat back and let them take him from me.”
“What makes you think that someone took him from you?”
Kayla moved forward so that she could look directly into Blu’s eyes. “Sam would never leave me, not if he had any other choice.”
“But didn’t he break up with you?”
“He broke up with me, because he didn’t want to hurt me. That’s how much he loved me. I told him he was an idiot, that he didn’t need to end things, but he said that he couldn’t even consider cheating on me. That devil woman tempted him with more money than anyone could turn down. His poor parents were a month away from being evicted from their new place. What was he going to do?”
“I bet that burned you up on the inside, Kayla. I bet you had the one thing in the world that you thought none of those rich spoiled women would ever have. You had the love of a good and loyal man. Until one of those women found a way to take him from you. When that happened, I bet you couldn’t stand it. The hurt was too much, the anger overtook you, and you made a plan.”
“A plan?” She stared at Blu. “Yes, I made a plan to win Sam back, to prove to him that I would never care about what he’d done.”
“Or maybe you made a plan to make sure that no one else could have him. If you couldn’t have him, then you wanted to make sure that no one else ever would.”
“What?” Kayla’s eyes flew wide open. “Do you think I murdered Sam?”
“Well, not with your bare hands.” Blu crossed her arms. “You’re much too small to be able to do that, and besides that, I don’t believe that you would have been able to go through with it. No, I think you paid someone else to do it. I think you decided that Sam was better off dead than as Penelope’s puppet.”
Kayla slapped Blu right across the face. The impact was so unexpected that Blu cried out and stumbled back. In her entire life she’d never been struck by another person. She pressed her palm against her cheek, which burned with pain.
“Kayla! What are you doing?” AJ charged out of Kayla’s house and grabbed the young woman around the waist. Kayla fought so hard to get free and attack Blu again that AJ had to lift her right up off the ground.
Blu noticed the ripple of AJ’s muscles. She also didn’t overlook the fact that he had been in Kayla’s house.
“That’s right, so you paid AJ to do it,
right?”
“To do what?” AJ looked at Blu and then glared at Kayla. “Don’t you dare bite me! What is going on here?”
“She thinks I murdered Sam! She thinks I paid someone to kill him!”
AJ abruptly released Kayla. She almost fell to the ground when he did. He grabbed her arm to steady her.
“What?” He stared at Blu. “Is that true? You think I murdered Sam? Blu, what are you talking about?”
Chapter 27
Blu chewed on the edge of her tongue. When AJ looked at her like that, she had a hard time thinking anything. She couldn’t figure out why he had such an impact on her, but he did.
“Well, you had as much to lose as Kayla did—in fact more. You had as much to lose as Penelope and Brian did. Didn’t you? If Sam ran his mouth off about what happened upstairs, what would happen then, AJ? Would you lose the bar? Would you go to jail? You probably wouldn’t have the chance, because the elite would have you taken out of the picture before you even had a chance to hire a lawyer. So when Kayla came to you with a plan, it was pretty much a win-win, wasn’t it? Kayla gets her revenge, Sam takes his secret to a watery grave, and it all looks like an accident.”
“Seriously. I should let her have a go at you.” He continued to hold tight to Kayla’s arm. “Not many people still manage to surprise me, Blu, but you’ve done just that.
“Because I figured it all out?” She braced herself for Kayla’s release.
“Because you couldn’t be more wrong about who I am, and I couldn’t have been more wrong about who you are.” He shook his head with disgust. “To think I tried to help you! You’re nuts if you think I had anything to do with killing Sam, and you’re downright insane if you think Kayla did.”
“I saw the two of you. I saw her paying you money. I’m not insane. I know what I saw.”
“Sure you saw it. You saw Kayla paying me for the truck that she was buying from me. That’s why I’m here, to get the final paperwork and help her pack her things. She wants to get as far from this place as she can, and I see why now. It’s not bad enough that she lost the love of her life, but now she’s being accused of being involved in his death? What’s wrong with you, Blu?”
Blu took a slight step back. Her cheeks flushed with heat. Could she be wrong? She was so sure that she was right.
“I just thought—”
“—Stop. Please.” AJ interrupted her. “Stop thinking about it at all. You’ve gotten everyone all upset, and you’ve done nothing to help Sam. Just go back to your beach house and stay out of our business.”
“I don’t understand.” Blu shook her head. “Someone killed Sam.”
“Maybe.” AJ met her eyes. “But like I said before, we’ll never know for sure. I believed for a little while that you might actually be able to figure something out, but now I see that you were just looking to blame the locals. I get it—you don’t know me, you want to accuse me of murder. I can tolerate that. But Kayla? She’s the only innocent one in all of this. How could you accuse her?”
“She was so angry.” Blu frowned.
AJ released Kayla.
Instead of charging toward Blu, Kayla only hung her head. “Wouldn’t you be? Haven’t you ever been in love, Blu?”
Blu frowned. “No. I haven’t.”
“Then you can’t understand.” Kayla’s voice was quite as she continued. “They took him from me. Whether they took him by getting him so worked up that he made a mistake, or by finding a cunning way to cover up his murder, isn’t going to change the fact that they simply took him. Nothing fixes that.”
“But some things can make it worse. Wasn’t he already gone before he died, Kayla?”
“No, he wasn’t.” Kayla blinked back tears. “He would have come back to me. We would have had our lives together. Nothing in this world would make me ever harm a single strand of hair on his head. You don’t have to believe me, but it’s the truth.”
“Either you accept it, or you get off this property.” AJ crossed his arms. “The last thing Kayla needs is to be harassed. I suppose you think that I had something to do with all of this, and to be honest with you, I don’t care what you think. I don’t have anything to prove to you, Blu, and neither does Kayla.”
“No, she’s just going on the run, isn’t she?” Blu narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t that what guilty people do? They get as far from the crime as possible?”
“Enough!” AJ moved in front of Kayla. “Off of this property this instant or I’ll have Chief Pitman here in two seconds to arrest you.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot. The police force only does its job when it suits them. I guess that your uncle has a problem with investigating a murder, but he’ll be more than happy to show some favor to his favorite nephew.”
“Blu, you’ve lost it.” His voice grew quiet. “You’ve really lost it. Get out of here, or I’ll make sure that you’re thrown in a holding cell until you come to your senses.”
A glimmer of fear flashed through Blu’s mind. If she was in a holding cell, who would pick up the kids from the birthday party?
“Fine.” She raised her hands into the air. “I’m going.”
Blu walked back to her car. She grew more angry with every step. Either a grieving woman was guilty of murder as Blu had just accused, or AJ was heavily involved in the cover-up of Sam’s murder. She hated to think that either was true.
She still had a little time before the birthday party was over. Instead of driving back to the house, she headed for the dock.
She needed a chance to clear her mind.
Chapter 28
After parking near the dock, Blu checked in with the parents who were hosting the birthday party. The kids had been invited to stay a bit longer to play, so she could relax for a few minutes.
She walked the wooden planks of the dock and looked out over the water. She sat at the end of the dock. She watched the last of the light disappear on the horizon.
In a short amount of time she’d managed to alienate just about everyone, including her best friend Maddie. She wasn’t sure if she’d made the right choice by looking into Sam’s death. It felt like the right choice, but maybe she was just dead wrong.
The ripple of the water against the dock calmed her, but it didn’t change the fact that she was alone. There was a sense of isolation from everyone and everything. At the beginning of the summer, her biggest concern had been sunscreen and skinned knees; now her mind was consumed with what had happened to Sam.
As Kayla had said, were Sam’s last thoughts an anguished desire to get to her? It made Blu’s heart ache to think so. Who would end a love like that? Who would have the power and the coldness to do that?
“What are you doing out here all alone?”
Blu heard AJ’s voice coming from a few feet behind her. She turned to look up at him. The sunlight was so bright that it nearly blinded her. Was that what Sam saw last? The face of someone he knew and trusted?
“Just thinking.”
He smiled. “I see that. Would you like to have a drink with me and talk about what’s on your mind?”
Blu till didn’t know what to make of AJ. Was he someone that could be trusted? Was he a suspect beneath that friendly demeanor?
“After what I did to Kayla? After all those things you said to me?”
“Look, I got a little heated. I’m sorry. I can be overprotective, I’ve been told. I know that you’re only trying to figure out what happened to Sam. I’d like to know what you’ve figured out so far.”
“Alright.” She stood up. The only way she could figure out if she could trust AJ was by getting to know him better.
They left the dock and stepped inside the Beach Bum. Just as they settled at a table, Blu’s phone rang. When she saw it was Maddie she picked it up right away.
“Maddie? What is it?”
“I just saw a windbreaker hanging in Brian’s closet.”
“You did?” Blu’s eyes widened. “Can you get it?”
“I don’t know
, but I can tell you that even if I could, it’s not going to be worth much to you.”
“Why not?”
“He’s had it dry cleaned. It’s still in the plastic.”
“Oh.” All of Blu’s excitement faded. “But it’s there?”
“Yes.”
“Can you send me a picture of it?”
“Yes, I can do that. I’ll text it to you.”
“Thanks, Maddie. I really appreciate you doing this.”
“Blu, you know that I adore you. I just don’t want to lose my job.”
As soon as the picture came through, Blu jumped up from the table.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” AJ stood up with her.
“I need to go see someone.”
“Why?”
“Never mind. We’ll have to postpone that drink.”
“Wait, I’m going with you.” AJ moved between her and the door of the bar. “I’m not sure what you’re up to, but I can’t just let you run around town making accusations.”
“Fine, if you want to come with me, do. But I’m driving.” She rushed past him and out the door.
He followed right on her heels. Blu sped toward Jeffery’s house. She never sped or drove recklessly with the kids in the car, so this was a big change for her—not to mention the fact that the police chief’s nephew sat beside her, with a clear view of her speedometer.
She parked in Jeffery’s driveway, careful to watch for Duke. Jeffery stepped outside and waved to her.
“Blu, what’s up?”
“Jeffery, I need to show you a picture.”
“I told you I wasn’t close enough to see his face.” Jeffery looked warily at AJ as he stepped out of the car as well.
“This isn’t a picture of a person. Is this the windbreaker that you saw the man wearing?” She held up her phone with the picture of the windbreaker displayed.
“Yes, that’s it.” Jeffery nodded. “That looks like the jacket the man was wearing on the beach.”
