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Jude is nodding along with me. “You’re damn right.”
I pick up a handful of sand and throw it. “Shoot. I didn’t mean to bring him up. I don’t want to talk about him.”
“We don’t have to.”
“But since we’re on the subject, I hope his long hair gets stuck in a toaster.”
“Savage.”
“I mean, not in a way that he gets electrocuted,” I rush to clarify. “Just in a way that is inconvenient and embarrassing.”
“I’ll see what can be arranged.”
“Maybe I should look at this whole torrid affair as a positive thing. He shook me up. Make me realize what I need to be…to feel. To feel. And now I’m determined to expect more out of my future real, functioning relationships.”
“Gratitude is a healthy way to approach anything.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Gratitude is a little bit of an overstatement. Maybe once the hostility fades.” We share a laugh and I reach over to squeeze his hand. “Are you all right?”
He blows a long breath out at the ocean. “No. But I will be.”
We sit in silence for several minutes, watching the sky turn from pink to orange to cerulean and finally, midnight blue. Stars wink to life on the canvas of the sky, the brush blowing behind us on the hill. Laughter reaches us from backyards up and down the beach, fire pits glowing and barbeques smoking.
I’m unsettled—and I know it’s because of Myles. The way things ended. The way everything feels so woefully unfinished. I miss his big, grouchy ass. But there’s more. There’s a little niggling sensation buried in the nape of my neck that won’t quit. I tell myself the itch comes with the territory of being hit over the head with an encyclopedia, having the best sex of my life and catching a murderer all in one day…but the worry just keeps churning. Eventually it moves to my stomach. I’m getting ready to voice my—probably—unfounded concerns to my brother when a wind rolls off the turbulent Atlantic and lifts the hair off my neck, making me shiver.
“Hey, I’ll go grab us some blankets and beers from the house. Sound good?”
“Sounds great.” I fall back onto my elbows, watching him plod through the sand toward the stairs. “Hey, can you bring my phone down? I left it charging in the kitchen.”
“Yup.”
After a few minutes, I let myself melt back completely onto the sand, not caring if it gets in my hair or into my clothing. It’s cooled down from the day’s sunshine and from here, I can look up at the gigantic sky above. Me and my problems are miniscule compared to it—
There’s a metallic click behind me.
It’s a gun being cocked.
My muscles tense up, my mouth going dry, but I don’t move. I’m frozen.
“You’re pretty relaxed for someone who goes around ruining lives.”
I know that voice, but it’s not overly familiar. Belonging to a young man.
Where have I heard it before?
Footsteps approach, then I’m kicked in the ribs. Not hard, but forceful enough to make me cry out. Hand pressing to the throbbing spot, I sit up and scramble backward awkwardly on my elbows, heels shoving at the sifting sand.
The man comes into view.
The mayor’s assistant. Kyle?
No. Kurt.
Kurt is pointing a gun at me—and of course this is the moment everything clicks into place. Very convenient.
The assistant just barely tops five feet. Everything has happened so fast since this afternoon, I haven’t stopped to review all of the evidence and reconcile it with the mayor’s guilt. But of course Kurt was involved. He’s always at her side, ready to serve. He would have spied on Oscar for her, easily fitting into that area behind the bedroom wall.
“Piecing it all together? Took you long enough. Maybe you and your boyfriend aren’t as smart as you think you are.”
Myles.
He’s going to flip out.
For some reason, that’s really comforting.
Or it will be, if I don’t die.
He’s also going to be so hard on himself when he realizes this oversight. Who could have seen it coming, though? Rhonda didn’t implicate Kurt at the scene. She only denied her own guilt.
Wake up. Think.
Hostages usually survive by keeping their captor talking. Personalizing themselves. I’m not technically a hostage—yet?—but the same logic should still apply, right? Although, if I keep Kurt talking and Jude comes back, my brother will be in danger, too.
No, I can’t have that.
My pulse is almost deafening in my temples, but I force a deep breath.
“Did she know?”
“Who?”
“Rhonda. The mayor. Did she know you were spying on Oscar?”
“No,” he spits, as if I’m an idiot for asking. “Do you think I wanted to watch a live feed of that sad sack while he binged Bake Off all day? I didn’t. Although it was better than keeping tabs on him from the closet.” He shivers. “Oscar Stanley. What an idiot. Did he really think Rhonda was actually going to pass any laws to restrict him from renting? She was telling people what they wanted to hear to secure reelection. That’s what we do. We stay in office at all costs. And it’s my job to make sure the mayor doesn’t have to worry about the details. That’s what makes me the best. After one more term as mayor of this middle-class hell hole, she was going to run for state senate and I would have been right there, indispensable. No one overlooking me, like I’m nothing but an inconsequential flea.”
