Inn Dire Straits

by Dixie Davis

  “Why, who else would I mean?”

  “‘Someone got hurt’ could mean almost anything. We’ve had our infighting.” The last word was tinged with bitterness.

  She needed to know more about that — and more about what their group was like then and over the years. “Who would you say was the leader of your group?”

  “In high school? Annie. She had ringleader written all over her. Almost all of our pranks were her idea. She — she could’ve gotten us in real trouble. More than once.” Trey’s voice trailed off as he turned contemplative, still stirring his grits.

  “Your grits not agreeing with you?” Lori asked.

  “No, they’re delicious.” He flashed her a quick, charming smile. “Just thinking.”

  Lori decided to opt for the element of surprise right now, just to see how Trey reacted, before she continued her previous line of questioning. “Did you kill Nate?”

  Once again, Trey laughed. “I’m not the one with a reason to kill him. I still considered him a friend.”

  “I thought you hadn’t talked in years.”

  He blew on his grits, though Lori didn’t think they could still be that hot. “I talked to Nate. Serena sometimes. Brett, almost never — though that’s changing. We’re doing lunch at the Salty Dog.”

  Their original plans? “Is that why you canceled on me?”

  “It was the only time that worked for him.” Trey offered only a sheepish grin.

  Lori knew she needed to be impartial, but she couldn’t help trusting Trey and his boyish charm. “What about Annie? You weren’t in contact with her?”

  “Annie, obviously, fell off the face of the earth as far as we were concerned. I actually thought she must have changed her phone number when her family moved to Florida after graduation — she never answered our texts or calls.” He stabbed his spoon into his grits to punctuate the complaint.

  “And now you don’t think that?”

  “When she gave her number last night — it’s the same as it was back then. I still have it in my phone. It’s just gotten moved from phone to phone for ten years.” He shook his head. “Like I couldn’t let her go.”

  Because they’d dated? “Was your relationship serious, then?”

  “We were seventeen. It wasn’t like Serena and Nate’s.”

  Lori realized she was worrying the edge of the lace tablecloth. “Serena and Nate were serious? Before she dated you?”

  Trey nodded. “They broke up — I don’t know how they stayed friends, actually. I definitely couldn’t have handled it the way they did. But I’ve thought for years they must have had something going on again, and they just didn’t want me and Brett to know. Figured they thought I’d be jealous.” He shrugged. “I was married for three years in there, and they still didn’t tell me, so what do I know?”

  What did he know? “Were you jealous, then?”

  “Nah.” But Trey was a little bit too focused on his grits for Lori to take him at his word.

  She waited for Trey to look up. Once he did, Lori tapped into her mom superpowers and gave him a do you really expect me to believe that? look. Trey sighed. “What right did I have to be jealous after the way my relationship with Serena ended?”

  This time, Lori simply raised an eyebrow. Apparently, she still had the knack: Trey settled back in his chair and let the truth spill out again: “I dumped her for Annie. It wasn’t pretty.”

  “Then how did you all stay friends?”

  “We almost didn’t.” Trey’s gaze turned distant as his mind receded into the not-so-distant past. “Nate stepped in, helped to smooth things over. I was actually kind of surprised they didn’t end up dating right away back then — to spite me, because she’d always liked him more, I don’t know.”

  Lori pondered his assessment. “Was Nate always the peacemaker of the group?”

  Trey shrugged, scraping his spoon around the bowl. “Sometimes.”

  “Would anyone have a reason to hold a grudge against him?”

  He contemplated the question through his final two bites of grits, then tapped his spoon on the edge of the bowl. “Not that I knew of. Unless Nate actually rejected Serena. Maybe he didn’t want to be sloppy seconds to her.”

  “Hm? Just a minute ago, you were speculating that they’ve been dating behind your back for a decade, now he’s spurning her interest?”

  “‘Spurning’?” Trey repeated. “Yeah, I assume they might have gotten together at some point, but that’s mostly watching Serena when we’re all together. It could be all in her head — one-sided or maybe he friend-zoned her.”

  “‘Friend-zone’?”

  “Yeah, gave her the ‘I just want to be friends’ line.” He tapped his spoon on the bowl again, shaking his head.

  “What if he had said something like that to Serena? Would she have been upset?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Lori didn’t have to wonder or speculate about that — but they weren’t here to discuss her lacking love life. “Would she have been upset enough to kill him?”

  Trey took a deep breath, furrowing his brow. Lori realized that it was the first time she’d seen him look truly focused, without a hint of a smile lurking in his eyes or on his lips. “I want to say no, she couldn’t possibly.”

  “But . . . ?” Lori drew out the question, filling in a blank left by Trey’s tone.

  “But I don’t know. Serena isn’t the angel she seems.” He glanced out the window at Salt Water Bakes’ live oaks, their gnarled branches all tangled together. “None of us are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Trey snapped back to her, his attention returning to the present and this room. He shrugged one shoulder, his mouth still trying to come up with the words. “Oh, you know — we’ve all done stupid things. Things we regret.”

  “Like running over an old friend?”

  Trey sat up in his chair, tapping his spoon once more. “I still didn’t do it, but feel free to send Chief Branson over to breathe down my neck some more.”

  Oh, so he was interviewing all the friends? Good on him for following leads like he should instead of focusing on one suspect prematurely — again. Single-minded devotion had its place, but when you decided someone was guilty and ignored all evidence against everyone else, maybe you did cross the line from stubborn to stupid.

  Not that she’d ever say that to Chief Branson’s face. Hopefully she’d never have a reason to.

  “I can tell he’s one of your favorite people, too.” Trey’s mouth twisted into a half smile.

  “We need good law enforcement,” was all Lori would allow.

  “And he’s zero for three there.”

  Lori rolled her eyes, not admitting to the laughter that did threaten at the joke. She could see how Trey could have charmed both Serena and Annie in high school. “So you decided to break up with Serena for Annie?”

  Trey grimaced. “Yeah.”

  “And Annie hadn’t shown any interest before you broke up with Serena?”

  He snorted. “Of course she did. I was a jerk in high school, but not a complete moron. I wouldn’t have broken up with Serena if I didn’t think Annie was a pretty sure thing.”

  “And why did you think that?”

  Trey raised both eyebrows. “How long have you known Annie?”

  “I met her yesterday,” Lori confessed. “But Doug’s been dating her for more than a year.”

  “Lucky man.” But with the way Trey bit his lip, she couldn’t be sure he meant that. “Let’s just say that I don’t think she’s ever been on a single date that she didn’t handpick.”

  So Annie had always had her choice of men — and she’d taken it. Even if her best friend was dating him, apparently. “And there wasn’t any tension between Serena and Annie in high school?”

  “Of course there was. I think they probably invented the phrase ‘frenemies.’”

  Lori wasn’t familiar with the term, but it wasn’t too tough to tease out: a mix between friends and enem
ies. She’d also lived enough to see that phenomenon in action, too many times. She’d survived high school herself, after all.

  Although more and more, she was beginning to think her fairly tame high school experiences hadn’t prepared her to deal with this group’s dynamics.

  “You don’t have anybody that could vouch for your whereabouts yesterday?” Lori asked, circling back to the alibi issue. Not a one of their group had a solid alibi, and that was probably the most damaging evidence the chief had against them.

  “Not unless a bunch of people who can tell you where I wasn’t counts.”

  Lori smoothed an invisible wrinkle in the tablecloth. “Sorry, no. The one place we need to know where you weren’t doesn’t have any living witnesses.”

  Trey pressed his lips together, grim. “I am sorry he’s gone. He was a good guy.” He sighed. “I probably should have treated him better.”

  “In high school or recently?”

  “Both. He texted me yesterday, all worked up because he’d run into Annie. He wanted all of us to get together and talk, and I just blew him off. Never responded at all.” Trey shook his head. “I thought I’d grown out of being a jerk.”

  “I think you’re making progress in the right direction,” Lori reassured him with a gentle smile.

  Trey laughed silently. “Anything is an improvement over back then. Got a long way to go still.”

  “And I have every confidence you’ll get there. You just need to stay out of trouble. In fact —” Lori checked her watch. “ — you should get over to the memorial, if it hasn’t ended already.”

  Trey sighed. “I just . . . I can’t face them. Any of them — the people from town, the rest of our crew. We treated Nate like —” He glanced at Lori, censoring himself. “Not like he deserved.”

  Lori tried for an understanding, patient expression. “It’s totally normal to feel that way after you lose a friend. We all handle grief differently — maybe going to the memorial and remembering him together is a way that everyone else is working through that.”

  Trey shifted, his Shaker-style chair creaking, and Lori hurried to add, “But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for you, either. Just make sure you give yourself a chance to say goodbye to him — maybe at the actual service, if you’re comfortable with that. I think you’d probably regret it if you don’t at least try.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll . . . I’ll head on over for now, but I’ll probably just hang out in my car.”

  Lori gave him a smile, somewhere between I’m proud of you and you can do this. “Death is hard for all of us.”

  “Hardest for Nate, I think,” Trey muttered. He climbed to his feet. “Thank you for the grits, Mrs. K. They were perfect — I’ve got to get me some of that cheese. What did you say it was?”

  “I didn’t — but it’s Monterrey jack and Kerrygold cheddar from Lowes Foods.”

  Trey smiled and nodded. “Thanks again, Mrs. K.” Out of what Lori had to assume was habit, Trey leaned down and kissed the top of her head on his way past.

  Lori walked behind him to escort him out, and she couldn’t help a small smile. It really was like entertaining one of Doug or Adam’s high school friends again — and Trey had slipped into the role just as easily.

  She bid him goodbye and closed the door behind him, then peeked through the lace curtains to watch him go. She returned to the kitchen and found herself placing “Trey’s grits” in the fridge like he was one of Doug’s teenage friends who she was expecting to return for his leftovers. Lori chuckled at herself.

  This whole thing wasn’t just an act, him buttering her up so she wouldn’t see through him, was it? The man — because he was a man, not a mixed-up teenage boy — had laughed when she asked if he killed Nate. Was that normal?

  Perhaps it wasn’t. She’d still keep an eye on him, and she definitely couldn’t dismiss him as a suspect entirely. But she had to take a closer look at Serena based on what he said, too.

  This mystery was only getting deeper — and she’d just begun to dig.

  Lori had just finished fetching the laundry from the dryer when the front door to the inn opened. She tossed the basket of clean towels into the storage room and hurried out to greet a guest — but found Serena instead.

  Serena, who was mourning the same friend Trey was. “Were you at the memorial?” Lori asked.

  “What memorial?”

  Lori startled. So much for trying to cut Serena slack. Now that she’d finally shown up, Lori could interview her next. But frankly she didn’t seem bright enough to have pulled off a hit and run anyway.

  “Oh, for Nate?” Serena finally figured it out. “Yeah, I was there.”

  Lori furrowed her brow. What other memorial would she be referring to?

  Serena glanced behind her in the direction of the community center where they’d held the memorial. “Did I see Trey over here a little bit ago?”

  “Yes, he came over to discuss the case.”

  Serena pressed her lips together, pondering that very deeply. Before Lori could ask what the matter was, she heard the police sirens. When she’d lived in Charlotte, distant police sirens were just a part of everyday life, but here in Dusky Cove, they were normally reserved for bigger, more important crimes — the rare, true emergencies of small-town life.

  This time, Lori just knew they had to be for something bad. Something terrible. She rushed through the kitchen and out the back. She couldn’t see any flashing lights or pinpoint exactly where the sirens were headed, but they weren’t far away.

  Lori headed out in search of the crime scene.

  When had she turned into the private investigator’s equivalent of an ambulance chaser?

  But that wasn’t really true. She wasn’t here for personal gain or profit. She was out here, following the distant echo of the sirens — it seemed the police had arrived at their destination — because some part of her knew that sirens today, the day after Nate’s murder, had to be related to his case.

  And they had to be related in a very bad way.

  Lori was fifty feet from the Salty Dog when she could make out the blue and red flashing lights.

  She was still a good ways off, but she could see the black SUV half off the road in between the cop cars now blocking traffic. She knew she’d seen it around. Who did she know who drove a black SUV?

  Mitch drove a white SUV, and Lori thanked her brain for that extremely helpful, very pertinent and not at all painful information.

  Didn’t Brett drive a black SUV on Val’s deliveries sometimes?

  Was Brett hurt? Lori picked up her pace even more, craning her neck to scan the road and the shoulder for anyone who might be injured. Not that Lori would be able to help more than the police, but at least she would know. Maybe she could help Val with something, too — taking care of Brett, the bakery, deliveries, whatever she needed.

  Lori was only ten feet from the closest police car when the officers at the scene finally spotted her. Ken, an officer she’d worked with — well, not exactly “with” — before walked up to her. “Mrs. Keyes, I’m going to have to ask you to keep your distance.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m setting up a perimeter.” Ken shot her a challenging look — obviously he knew he hadn’t answered her question, and he was just daring her to keep prying.

  “Come on, Ken,” Lori tried, turning her voice somewhere between cajoling and pleading. “Does this have anything to do with last night?”

  “We don’t know anything yet.”

  Lori managed not to let her skepticism show on her face . . . much. But before she tried another argument, a new siren wail reached her ears — was that an ambulance?

  She scanned the road and the trees beyond the squad cars in front of her, but she couldn’t see anything. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “We don’t radio for EMTs for a social call.”

  This time, Lori did let a little of the Mama Bear out, pinning Ken with a don’t you sass me l
ook. Even though he was only five or ten years younger than her, Ken shifted uncomfortably.

  Before she could continue the conversation, the ambulance cleared the bend in the road, barreling toward them. She stopped to watch them fly to the far side of the accident, stopping beside the police car over there. The EMTs hopped out and carried a backboard around to the shoulder — where Lori’s view was blocked by the closer squad car.

  Lori turned back to Ken to pound the point home: “Brett is my friend’s son. If there’s anything I can do to help —”

  “Brett Cromley?”

  Lori nodded earnestly. “Val’s my neighbor and my friend.”

  “Yeah, but who said anything about Brett?”

  “What?” But Lori didn’t look to Ken for the answer. She turned to where the EMTs were working. They’d finished whatever they were doing there in record time, and two cops and the two paramedics hoisted the victim to hurry him to the ambulance.

  Dangling off the end of the backboard were a pair of red Converse All-Stars.

  Lori’s stomach dropped and she pressed both hands to her mouth. Trey? What was he doing here?

  But she already knew the answer to that question: he was meeting Brett for lunch at the Salty Dog. The appointment she was supposed to have with him.

  Even though changing their appointment wasn’t Lori’s call, she still felt a pang of guilt directly to her heart. If she’d been meeting him for lunch, he might not have been here, or she might have been able to protect him.

  Instead, he’d changed his schedule to meet Brett — and, it seemed, his doom.

  “Is he going to be okay?” she breathed.

  The ambulance doors slammed shut and one paramedic rushed around to hop into the cab. They pulled out, lights and sirens going.

  Lori finally turned back to Ken, still waiting for the answer to her question. He frowned, his gaze wandering away from hers. “It didn’t look good from what I saw.”

  Lori staggered back a step. It wasn’t her fault — it wasn’t — but it still felt that way. Things would have been different if his schedule hadn’t changed. If she’d insisted they keep their lunch date. If she hadn’t told him to go to the memorial. If she’d kept him longer.