Lance gives Cameron an angry look before chaos erupts again. Andrew starts shouting at Lance. Lance and Taylor shout at their father. Gracie appears next to me and wipes the blood from Jack’s nose with a napkin. Eventually the cops lead Andrew Murray and his son out of the yacht club. I have no idea why Taylor isn’t taken too—maybe because she’s dating the cop? I remember Mia telling me Taylor has a cop fetish. It figures. I want to throw up.
The police make the rest of us stick around to answer questions. I tell them we were investigating Jay’s disappearance for a school project, and that when we came here to talk to Jack about Jay, we noticed Taylor acting strange, so we followed her.
Cameron shakes his head. “Amateur sleuths. It’s always amateur sleuths. You should have left this to the police.”
Gracie shakes her head. “Considering now you have two possible murder suspects in custody, you should be grateful.”
Cameron puts his hands in the air. “Who cares about Stephen’s murder! That’s not even in this jurisdiction! It happened in Grand Cayman! But now we’ll never find out who Andrew is working with.” He rubs his face. “He’s probably already called his lawyer. Months of work, down the drain.”
“So money is more important than people?” Gracie asks.
“Yeah,” I say. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Why does no one care aboutJay’smurder? “Does no one care about getting justice for Jay?”
Cameron looks at me a moment, then snorts. “Jay doesn’t need justice anymore. And believe me, Andrew’s going to pay forallhis crimes. But we’re not going to get more than him now.”
I frown. “What does that mean, Jay doesn’t need justice?”
“It means nothing,” Taylor says. “Are we free to go? I want to be there when you tell my mom and grandma what happened here.”
The cops ask some more questions, take down everyone’s contact information, and let us go. As we walk out of the yacht club, I stop Taylor.
“What’s your role in this?” I ask her. “Were you here that night when Jay went overboard?” I still don’t know why Jay left me that message thatTaylorhad him. Or maybe he didn’t. I could have misinterpreted his note.
Taylor puts her hands on her hips and gives me such a mean-girlish look that I wonder if this is all some candid-camera prank. “Youare the biggest mystery in all this, Azalea.”
“It’sAleeza.”
“Whatever,” she says, waving a hand. “Showing up at the weirdest times. Asking the most inconvenient questions. I’ve never trusted you. You and your Nancy Drew Crew should mind your own business.”
“Why? Because we’re not rich like the rest of you?”
“I’m rich enough to make up for it,” Jack says, putting his hand on my arm.
Taylor shakes her head. “No.” She looks at Gracie a moment, then back to me. “Look, right now I need to focus on my family. Mom and Grandma are going to flip out. Word of advice, though—don’t publish that podcast of yours yet. This story isn’t done.”
She doesn’t say anything else and leaves with Cameron.
I spend the rest of the day with Jack and Gracie in the hospital emergency room holding an ice pack on Jack’s red and swollen nose.His left eye is darkening, and although he’s clearly in pain, he turns down painkillers.
“My dad’s going to murder me,” he says. “He’s going to have to smooth a lot of ruffled feathers at the club.”
“Seriously?” Gracie asks. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Lance and his dad literallykilled people.”
He snorts, then winces in pain. “It’s an old boys’ club. I broke onto another member’s boat. Brought someone in who called the police on a member. We protect our own. We don’t air our own’s dirty laundry.”
“And you brought in some Asians who disrupted their peace,” Gracie says.
He nods. Then winces again. “Whatever happens, happens.”
“Would your father stop supporting you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Nah. Believe it or not, my parentsdolove me. And people like us protect our own, remember? It’s the worst club to be in, but they’ll have my back.”
I’m not so sure. Look what happened to Stephen and Jay.
I take Jack’s arm. “You can be in our club instead. The Nancy Drew Crew.” I frown. “I’m not sold on Taylor’s name for us.”
He smiles and rests his head on my shoulder. “Careful, let me in and you’ll never get rid of me.”
