by Dixie Davis
Brett’s flat expression melted into something between fear and horror. “Why would you even think that?”
“That’s not an answer to my question.” She tried to keep her voice gentle to do what she could to blunt the words’ impact.
“Of course I didn’t kill Nate. Why would I even do that?”
“I don’t know — but I’m sure you could point me in the right direction. It seems like you five had a lot of history.”
Brett looked away. It took a moment for Lori to see it wasn’t because Brett was ashamed or trying to come up with a lie — he was trying not to cry. Lori waited for him to work through his emotions over Nate.
He didn’t even know about Trey yet. Would Lori have to tell him? How would he react?
Brett set aside his half-finished grits on the cluttered side table by his recliner. “Nate was a great guy.”
“A great guy someone hated enough to run down and murder.”
“Is it his fault someone killed him?”
Lori accepted his point. “That’s not what I mean. Even a good guy might acquire an enemy or two. Do you know of any for Nate?”
“I really didn’t hang out with them anymore. I don’t know how often Trey and Serena and Nate got together. Couldn’t have been all that much. I hardly ever got to see him. Until now.”
Lori tried to ignore the sting in her heart. He wasn’t going to see his old friend any more than he had.
It wasn’t fair to keep the truth from him any longer. “Brett, I saw your SUV today.”
“Oh yeah? Where was it?”
“It was out by the Salty Dog.”
“Oh.” Brett pondered that a moment. “Maybe Dad needed lunch or something.”
“I don’t know. It was involved in a crime.”
His eyebrows drew together again. “What kind of crime?”
“A hit and run accident.”
Brett’s eyes grew wide and he straightened. “Another hit and run?”
Lori nodded.
“Was it someone we know?” Brett leaned forward, gripping the arms of his recliner. “One of our friends?”
Lori had to nod again.
“Who?” Brett’s voice was only a whisper.
“Trey.”
Brett’s jaw dropped and for a moment, he just sat there, reeling, his gaze sliding into the middle distance. Lori let him take in the news, trying to give him time to wrap his brain around this.
Time they didn’t have. Surely the police would be here any minute.
“Near the Salty Dog?” he asked, breathless.
“Yeah, just up the road.”
Brett shook his head. “If I’d just gone out to meet him like he wanted — none of this would have happened.” A thought occurred to him and he perked up. “Wait, is he okay?”
“I don’t know. I saw an ambulance taking him away with lights and sirens, so he was still fighting when he left the scene.”
Brett nodded slowly, still absorbing this information. “How is he?”
“I don’t know; the police made me leave, and then I came here.”
“The police?” He rubbed his forehead with all of the fingertips of one hand. “Was Eddie O’Connor there again?”
Lori tried not to furrow her brow. “I didn’t see him.”
Brett nodded. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt Trey. None of this was his fault.”
“None of what?”
Brett’s head snapped up, his wide eyes fixing on hers. “Nothing. Just . . . everything that happened. Not his fault someone hit him and ran.”
“With your car.”
The rest of Brett’s expression turned wary, and he drew in on himself, hugging his arms in front of him. “What are you saying? You think I did this?”
“No, I believe you. But so far you’ve only said your dad might have been hungry and borrowed your car. Do you think your dad would have run Trey down if he saw him walking down the street?”
Brett scoffed. “Of course not. Dad loved Trey. Probably wished Trey was his kid instead of me.”
Lori frowned. She’d never sensed that tension between Brett and his dad, but she hadn’t spent much time around them, either. “Who else might have taken your SUV?”
Brett thought so hard, his eyebrows slowly knit into one continuous, dark caterpillar. “I keep the keys on the rack by the door. Mom and Dad don’t lock it if I’m going to be home.”
Lori looked where Brett pointed. A rack with three hooks hung by the door. She’d noticed it before — each hook was labeled with a name in a cute font: Mom, Dad, and Brett. “Did you put your keys there yesterday?”
“Pretty sure.”
So he’d left the keys by an unlocked door. A thief wouldn’t even have to walk in to grab them, if they knew where to look. “Have you always kept keys there?”
Brett shrugged. “Long as I can remember, yeah.”
“Back to high school?”
His eyebrows ran together again. “Yeah. Since before I started driving.”
Lori met his grim look with one of her own. This didn’t bode well. “If you had to pick one of your friends for this, who would you think had done this?”
“You mean, which of my friends killed my other friends?” Brett marveled in disbelief, though Lori wasn’t sure he was having a hard time believing her or the situation. “The only ones left are the girls.”
Only Annie or Serena — and only one of them had a solid alibi for the times of the murders. “Trey seemed to think Serena might have been capable of this.”
Brett threw up his hands. “Obviously they’re not the people I thought I knew in high school. And I thought I knew them pretty well back then. Things we went through — they’re supposed to bond you for life.” He sighed. “Bind you,” he added in a murmur.
What did he mean by that? “What kind of things did you go through?” Lori asked.
Brett turned away from her, shaking his head. “You know what I mean. High school stuff.”
Lori was becoming more and more sure she did not know what he meant. From the frenemies to the serial dating within their social group, something was different about this crew. And sometimes, the little things they said, the little expressions they let slip made that something sound sinister.
How sinister could high school students be? Or what looked sinister to teenagers? Lori couldn’t remember anymore. “Can you elaborate on ‘high school stuff’?” Lori tried, striving to keep the prying in her voice to a minimum.
Brett cut his eyes at her, and suddenly the gentle, fragile boy she’d known for a year had disappeared. “No” was all he said.
Lori tried to think of another tack, some other way to get at this subject or back to the ever-dwindling suspects list, but a knock sounded at the door. Lori looked back at the door, where the key rack still hung, empty except for the truck keys. “That’s probably the police,” she said.
Brett glanced at the door and back to her, panic clear in his wide eyes.
“Just tell them the truth.” Although Lori knew all too well sticking to the truth wasn’t nearly enough if someone was out to frame you for murder, there wasn’t much else she could say. She didn’t want to thoroughly spook Brett and suggest a lawyer or advise him what to do in case he was arrested.
Although maybe that really was in his best interest.
Brett looked back to her one more time. “Let me put it this way: I wouldn’t put this past any one of us.”
Before Lori could even form a question in response, Brett hauled himself to his feet and approached the door.
Lori tried not to hold her breath and tried not to hold out hope that it wasn’t the police and she’d have plenty more time to explore that last statement from Brett. But both of her attempts fell flat.
Brett opened the door to Ken and Chief Branson, deflating Lori’s hopes and her lungs. “Hi, Mr. Cromley,” Ken began, overly respectful.
That felt like a bad sign.
“We were wondering if we could ha
ve a few words with you.”
“I already know about Trey.”
The chief and Ken exchanged a solemn glance. “Can I ask how?” Chief Branson said.
“Mrs. Keyes came and told me.”
Ken and Chief Branson craned their necks in opposite directions to see past him. Lori stood up from the couch and offered a polite little wave.
The look on the chief’s face in response was something short of polite. “Come here, Mrs. Keyes.”
Lori complied, trying not to act the part of the disobedient daughter. They hadn’t told her to leave Brett alone or not tell him. They hadn’t told her anything.
Lori scooted past Brett and stepped out of the screen door, onto the Cromleys’ narrow porch with the chief and Ken.
“Do I need to arrest you for interfering in a police investigation?” Chief Branson asked.
Lori’s back straightened. She didn’t think he was serious — but jail was not an experience she ever wanted to repeat. “No, sir.”
“Great. Get out of here.”
“We have the freedom to peaceably assemble,” Lori tried.
He fixed her with a do NOT try that on me, young lady look, and Lori shrank back a step without even trying. If she didn’t know better, Lori would have thought the chief must have been a parent too. “Are you trying to ruin our investigation?” he asked again.
“No,” she murmured. She couldn’t back up any further without hitting the steps. “I was just leaving.”
“Good.” The chief turned back to the door for a second, but whirled back on Lori, stepping closer and lowering his voice. “I want you to understand exactly how serious this is. Being able to surprise a suspect with information is a valuable interrogation tactic, and you just stole it from us. I’d best not hear about you ruining another investigation.”
Lori declined to point out that catching the actual killer was far from ruining an investigation, opting instead to simply nod.
“I’m very serious about interfering in a police investigation,” Chief Branson concluded.
“Yes, I picked up on that.” Lori tried to keep the sarcasm in her voice to a minimum.
Chief Branson fixed her with a serious look. “I don’t know if you know this, but we’ve got a budding serial killer on the loose here. I, for one, would like to catch him before he kills again.”
She bowed her head but managed a nod before turning back to Brett.
Lori felt terrible abandoning the boy to the wolves, but clearly she didn’t have another choice other than to continue her investigation somewhere else. Brett might be as unlucky as she’d been last year when she was in his position.
Lori drove back to the Mayweather House, ready to march straight to her office — until she saw the huge vase sitting on the porch’s side table. Giant yellow daisies, white and pink and purple tulips, pink carnations, white and yellow lilies, and even a few roses.
Had someone just left these flowers here? Lori glanced around, as if the sender would jump out of the shadows.
No such luck. She scanned the arrangement and finally found a card. For Lori was all it said.
For . . . her?
She refused to allow herself to think about what it might mean. Maybe they were from Doug. Or Adam, trying to make sure he wasn’t forgotten while she bonded with Doug and his soon-to-be fiancée.
She’d think about all this later. She picked up the glass vase and carried it in to the coffee table.
Now she marched straight to her office — okay, well, first she took a detour to make sure the sodas in the sideboard fridge were still stocked.
All that was left was one Diet Coke.
Had someone hung a sign out that said Free drinks! Get your free drinks here! outside? They were going through a ridiculous amount of refreshments this week.
Grumbling to herself over the delay, Lori hurried to her big fridge — she’d learned last festival that sticking room-temperature sodas in the fridge in the middle of the afternoon led very quickly to unhappy guests. She grabbed a tray and loaded it with a good selection of cold cans. A basket of grapes and a few types of crackers would have to do for snacks at the moment. Maybe when Annie and Doug came by they could set out more.
Once the sideboard and fridge were stocked, Lori texted Doug to ask for a little help. Although having family in town during her most hectic week wasn’t the way she’d like to spend her time with her son, at least having him around to help was a little convenient. Especially since Serena had decided to become extra undependable.
Not that Lori blamed her entirely. Losing an old friend wasn’t easy. Although Serena never seemed all that sad about it.
It was utterly ridiculous that Lori hadn’t been able to pin Serena down long enough at work to get her cell phone number. Lori hurried back to her office for the pad where she’d saved the fivesome’s phone numbers. Why hadn’t she taken the time to save them all in her phone last night? That would have made her day easier today.
Lori opened the drawer where she’d stored the notepad. But no notepad stared up at her.
She furrowed her brow. It had to be here. She was sure she’d stuck it in here. Lori lifted up the legal pad that had been underneath the notepad. Nothing.
The inn and the office doors had been locked when she arrived. Guests had keys to the front doors, but nobody except her had a key to the office and the rest of the inn’s private area, off-limits to guests.
Brett’s keys might have been taken from his house, but another key theft? Seemed unlikely. Certainly less likely than her forgetting to lock up.
Unless this was all related.
Even if Eddie took the numbers last night, all of the fivesome knew that she had the notepad. Val might have oversold her skills last night, but those kids — adults — could have figured out she might have recovered the numbers too.
Were they trying to stop her from investigating? Seemed like a pretty weak attempt. She could get Serena’s number from Brett still.
Maybe. It seemed the friends Serena had kept in touch with were both dead.
That didn’t do much to help her look innocent.
Lori fired off a quick text to Brett to get Serena’s number, sure to include an apology. Hopefully the police would be done with him soon. It seemed pretty obvious that he was innocent.
Obvious to her. She knew what Chief Branson could be like when he’d made up his mind about a case.
Brett’s car being used in the crime and his weak alibi didn’t bode well, but they didn’t see how he’d reacted when she told him about Trey. And that was also her fault.
Was she ruining the investigation, like Chief Branson said?
A knock at the door startled out of her thoughts and Lori turned around. Doug stood at the door to her office. “Hey, Mom,” he said with a smile. “Scare you?”
Oh, they were home already. “No, no, I’m fine.”
“You got some flowers?” Something about Doug’s voice was a little off — too high. Too guilty.
She tried not to show what she knew and changed the subject. “How was the memorial?”
Doug shrugged a shoulder. “I wasn’t exactly the guy’s biggest fan.”
Lori raised both eyebrows. She expected a bit more from her son. That comment alone made him a better suspect than Brett.
“Sorry.” He held up both hands defensively. “Not like I’m glad he got hit by a car or anything.”
Lori nodded slowly. “You’d better not be.”
Doug laughed. “Anyway, people there liked it. I didn’t really know him, so tough for me to comment. Lots of tears, lots of smiles, too.”
She craned her neck to see past him — no sign of Annie. “How did Annie take it?”
“I don’t actually know. She sat with some other friends from high school. Took me a minute to find her afterwards, but I figured she needed that today more than anything. I tried to talk to some people, see if I could help.”
Lori tried to hold back her smile. “Smart man. Learn anythi
ng?”
“Not really, unless you want to hear more stories about Nate from high school.”
Maybe she did. She hadn’t really ruled much of anything out yet.
Before she could ask, Doug pressed on: “Need any more snacks set out?”
“Yes, please. I just put out fruit and crackers, but cheese and cake would be good, like yesterday.” Right after Nate had bothered Annie, and Doug had taken care of him for them. Lori pushed that thought away. “Can you handle that?”
“Oh yeah. If I could handle it yesterday, after . . . everything, I’m sure I can do it today.”
“‘Everything’?” Lori asked before Doug disappeared from the doorway. “Sweetie?” she added belatedly to soften the sound of her own doubts.
“Yeah, I mean, after that scene with Nate. That was right before we did the snacks, wasn’t it?”
Lori nodded, quiet again. “What did you say to him to get him to go away?”
“Told him to get off the property or we’d call the police, and that he’d better stay away from Annie, or else.”
Lori flashed a frown at him. “Unfortunate to threaten a man on the day he’s murdered.”
Doug conceded his mother’s point. “Not my finest moment. But you should have heard what Serena was saying — he needed to get out of here if he knew what was good for him, et cetera.”
Lori definitely needed to talk to that girl.
“Still,” Doug said, “I guess it’s a good thing I was with you at the time of the murder.”
“Not the second one,” Lori murmured, turning back to the desk.
“What?” he said. “Second one?”
She looked back to him. Great, now Chief Branson would get in her face about telling her own son about a stranger’s death. “Nate and Annie’s friend Trey was run down today. I don’t know if he survived or not.”
Doug’s eyes grew wide. “Does Annie know?”
“I haven’t told her — I haven’t seen her.” Lori leaned forward in her chair. “She isn’t with you?”
“No, she wanted to do some shopping. Said she was getting me a surprise. Why?”
