Chapter Thirty-Three

Ryan dropped Annie off at her place, saying very little as he watched her walk to the door. He’d be back tomorrow, and they’d share whatever information each of them had been gathering. She wanted to check on Bob or Mira but didn’t know if going to either of her neighbors was a good idea.

Taking a glass of wine, she went outside to sit with the sound of the ocean. The stars dotted the sky like miniature beacons. The moon was hidden by a hazy cloud that seemed to fade in and out, making the brightness do the same. Her heart hurt. She didn’t know how to help Tate. Something told her that he wouldn’t do this, if for no other reason than she truly believed he didn’t want to let his pops down.

You promised him. What were you thinking? She stood, leaving her wine on the arm of the chair so she could lean on the porch railing. The rocks below were barely visible as the white foam of the turbulent sea crashed against them. Her brain wouldn’t settle any more than her pulse.

Stop. Go back to the beginning. Mystery books and television shows, had a formula. She figured out the culprit in many of the books she read because she logged the clues, looked for subtle nuances in the characters’ actions. Gill was dead because…why? That was the billion-dollar question hanging over everyone’s head.

She took her wine, downed it quicker than she should, and went back inside. She’d visit the cats. Maybe Shelby could shed some light. Annie smiled at her own ridiculousness. If nothing else, looking at kittens had a way of changing a person’s mood.

The air felt more static when she let herself out the front door. She started when she saw a figure outside her house until she saw it was Joseph.

He stopped walking and waved. “Hello, dear. How are you doing?”

“I’m good,” she said stiffly, staying on her porch. “What are you up to?”

“My nightly walk. I’m surprised you haven’t seen me out here before. I can’t sleep without it.”

Annie’s muscles seized. Maybe you got it wrong. “Oh, I thought you walked with Margie in the daytime.”

“Good lord. No. I love her, but she has her own nighttime routine. It’s one of the reasons she’s using to keep us from moving in together.”

Okay. Weird. On so many levels. Why would Margie lie? The look on her face when she saw the photo kept flashing through Annie’s brain. “You want to move in together?” Was that what they’d been arguing about at the funeral parlor? How could Gill have gotten in the way of that? He’d said Gill was the one thing holding them back.

He nodded. There were white stripes on his jacket that reflected in the darkness. She noticed he marched in place. “I’m a traditionalist. When you love someone like I love her, you want to end each night together, start the new day beside them. You’ll see, one day, when you find the right one.”

The words were nice, but her mind buzzed. She was missing the connections. Something needed to snap into place. “I need to check on the cats.”

“Right. Gill’s cats. I wonder what Mira will do. If she’s staying. Even if she does, you’ve got what, a half dozen of them, I heard?”

She smiled, continued to stick close to the door because at this point, it felt as though she didn’t know any of her neighbors. “Four kittens and Shelby.” Annie looked over a Gill’s house. The lights were all out. “I’ll talk to her soon.”

“You can ask her bright and early Monday morning. That’s the next Homeowners’ Association meeting. It should have been in your welcome notes from Margie. On the back of the calendar.”

There was a back side? Annie held back her groan. “I remembered all of my pickups and deliveries but didn’t see a back side.” She felt no guilt for using Raj’s suggestion of Costco muffins.

“What time is the meeting?”

“Eight a.m. See you soon, dear. Rest tomorrow. You’ve hit the ground running since you moved in. Awful things happening, but I can assure you, usually, it’s a quiet and lovely place to live.” Joseph lifted his hand and power walked away, heading past Margie’s house and back to his own.

Annie locked her front door, let herself into the garage, and locked it, too. Shelby looked up from where she slept.

“Hey. How was your night?”

The cat let out a contented sigh. Annie was jealous.

Annie pulled the soft bed the cat never used—Ben had brought it—to use as a cushion. She set it next to the box Shelby continued to use with her babies. When she needed a break from them, she hopped into the bed Annie brought from Gill’s. She had her own little kitty apartment right here with the beds and toys, her food dishes, and a litter box. Annie didn’t want to admit it, but she’d miss Shelby when Mira was ready for her to come home.

“How am I supposed to know who’s telling the truth?”

The cat looked at her like, I’m a little busy here.

Annie sighed, her fingers itching with desire to touch the kittens. She could hear Ben’s voice, Not yet.

“Yeah, yeah.” She pet Shelby instead. “You let Ben pet them. Him, you like.”

Shelby looked up and purred softly. Annie smiled. At least she and the cat were in agreement on one thing.

When Annie returned to the house, she texted Ben but didn’t get a response. Grabbing a stack of sticky notes, she cleared off her parents’ coffee table. On one sticky, she wrote Gill’s name. On the others, she wrote out here possible suspects with a reason on each. None of her other methods of sorting through her thoughts were working. This way, she could move suspects around.

At the moment, the list was:

Ginger—found creeping around; no one seems to believe she and Gill were an item Joseph—Margie lied about him; they were arguing at the funeral Margie—she lied and was in the house right after me; her response to the photo Raj—arguing with him? His car? More than one heated argument according to the others, and whose cat scratched his hand?

That one didn’t feel right, but she left the sticky.

Tate—avenging his pops Conway—said he’d do anything for Mira. Mira thinks he’s guilty.

The list was too long. She needed to narrow it and didn’t know how. Her phone buzzed with a text at the same time someone knocked on the door. She glanced at her phone as she stood up.

Ben: Hey. I hope you’re okay. I’m going into a surgery. Neighbor’s dog ate something he shouldn’t have. I’ll call you when I can. Stay safe.

She winced and typed: Good luck.

When she looked through the peephole, she saw Ryan on her doorstep. Pulling the door open, she glanced back at the coffee table.

“Hey.” He looked tired.

“Hey. What are you doing back here? Come on in.” She shut the door behind him. Maybe he’d learned something else.

He walked to the table. “Good. You’ve already started.” He glanced at her. “I couldn’t sleep. Too many things running around my brain, and none of them will settle.”

Like they planned to do this very thing, he grabbed the sticky that said Raj. “He’s got an alibi. It’s solid. He’s on security footage at a casino.”

Annie kneeled on the floor next to the table. “You want a drink?”

Ryan looked at her, and beneath the fatigue, she saw the sadness. “I just want to figure this out. Tate shouldn’t be at the station. He showed me that photo. I sent it to the detectives, thinking it might make them loop me in.”

That answered one question but gave her more. “I’m sorry I didn’t show it to you. At first, I told him I wouldn’t, and then I kept getting sidetracked.” She leaned back on her heels. “You’re close to him.”

Ryan sighed, leaned back against the couch cushions while running one hand over his face. “When he first moved here, a few of the people in this complex called in complaints every time the kid breathed. It was hard on him and Bob. He was here trying to start over, but no one would give him a chance. Except Margie. She said her teaching days introduced her to more than her fair share of Tates.”

Ryan sat up, letting his hands hang between his knees. “We were having trouble with vandalism up near Rainbow Lodge. Don’t know if you’re heard about it yet. It’s a tourist spot at the far tip of the peninsula. Some kids were goofing around near the boat launch. One of them fell into the water, hit her head. The other kids helped Tate get her out of the water, but they got scared, took off. Tate didn’t. He could have done what the others did—called 911, left an anonymous tip. But he stayed. I showed up, and the kid was so scared. He’d grabbed a blanket, wrapped her up; he was holding her, talking to her, telling her everything would be okay.”

Annie’s throat tightened. “Was she?”

Ryan nodded. “He did the right thing. When everyone around him didn’t, he made the hard choice. I check in with him, take him out to the driving range or the batting cages in Trenton. He didn’t do this.”

Because she trusted Ryan’s gut and her own—she didn’t think Tate was behind this, either—she took the sticky note with his name and crumpled it.

Ryan gave her a small, tired smile. “We need to talk to everyone else. I’m going to go talk to Conway. He’s been in love with Mira since high school, so I have a hard time seeing him do something that would end things between them for good.”

Annie’s legs started to tingle so she stood, switched her spot to the chair next to the couch. “Unless he thought this was the way to make her happy. Weren’t she and her father estranged?”

Ryan gave a rough laugh. “Gill was estranged from most of the people in his life. I suppose there could be something there, but it doesn’t feel right. When they broke up a couple years ago, Conway went to Gill, tried to ask for her hand in marriage. Rumor has it Conway sank a ton of cash into Gill’s failing business in exchange for his blessing.”

Annie felt her forehead wrinkle. “That sounds pretty antiquated.”

Ryan smiled. “Hence the reason Mira didn’t get back together with him. She was mad. Stopped talking to both of them. Gill tried to get her to come work for him. He liked to control the people in his sphere.”

“Maybe Conway got tired of being controlled.”

Ryan tapped his fingers on the table. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. It’s too late to do it tonight.” He picked up Joseph’s sticky, reminding Annie of earlier that evening.

She filled him in. “He’s such a sweet old man. We can’t forget that whoever did this had to have the strength to actually sink a knife into a man.”

Ryan gave her a grim smile. “Fury makes you strong. I can’t see Joseph hurting anyone, either, but he has the strength. The guy was on a championship rowing team for years. He went to the Olympics. He’s no slouch.”

Annie sighed. “How do you do this all the time? It’s not nearly as satisfying when it can’t be wrapped up in a nice bow.”

“I don’t have to do this all the time. This town doesn’t often see this sort of thing. Even the surrounding towns are fairly low-crime areas. I’d like to think that’s why the detectives are botching it so badly, but in truth, I think they’re just really bad at their jobs. If they get the chance, they’ll pin this on the wrong person just to wrap it up like a good Sandra Brown.”

Annie grinned. “You’ve read Sandra Brown?”

He shrugged. “Among other things. Some of the shifts can be long.”

“I have a meeting with the Homeowners’ Association first thing Monday morning. I’ll see if I can get anything out of anyone.”

Ryan stood up. “I wouldn’t normally invite a civilian to dig into something like this, but with those two jerks chomping at the bit to blame Tate, I need all the help I can get. Just stay safe. Don’t be alone with any of them.”

She nodded. “I’m not looking to be a martyr. Everyone needs closure on this. Until Tate is home and Mira knows who killed her father, that can’t happen.”

She walked him to the door where he paused on the porch. “You’re a good person, Annie. I’m glad you came to Rainbow Falls. I’m going to enjoy watching you keep Ben on his toes.”

Laughing, she let that go without a comment. She waved him off when he got in his vehicle. The sun had set long ago, and the night was dark with secrets and the scent of the ocean. She inhaled deeply but didn’t find the calm that usually came with the smell of the sea. It was hard to find a sense of peace when she was almost positive one of her neighbors was a murderer.