AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Did she contact you at all? A DM maybe, something you didn’t respond to?”
Keelan shook his head again.
Theo glanced at Auggie, who made a face and nodded. When Theo checked Emery, the dark-haired man made a sharp gesture with one hand.
“If you think of something else,” Theo told Keelan, “please let us know.”
Keelan gave him stone-faced unconcern.
“And if we have any questions, we know where to find you.” Theo waited a moment, but Keelan’s expression remained smooth and untroubled. “You can go.”
With a final dirty look for the Scoobies, Keelan grabbed his hockey bag and padded toward the door. It clicked shut a moment later.
“You should have taken a DNA sample—” Arthur began, but when Emery looked at him, he stopped and tried to turtle inside his shirt.
“Now,” Theo said, “the four of you.”
“We were trying to help—” Dot began.
Theo held up a hand, and she stopped. He counted to ten in his head. Auggie, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, was trying to keep a straight face. “Tell me about Shaniyah.”
Arthur, Dot, and Stevie looked at Lorcan.
“What?” he said and plucked at his shirt.
“You two were dating,” Stevie said.
“We weren’t dating; we were just hanging out.”
“Fuck that noise,” Dot said.
“You told me,” Arthur said, “Shaniyah was, quote, ‘theterra novaof my Magellanesque voyage of sexual discovery’.”
“Dear Lord,” Emery muttered.
“Theo was myterra nova,” Auggie said.
Theo decided maybe he wasn’t such a bad boyfriend. He decided maybe Auggie constituted a perpetually extenuating circumstance.
“Probably because you were a virgin,” Arthur announced. “Did you choose him because he’s so much older than you and therefore sexually experienced?”
Theo had never seen Emery Hazard choke on his own spit before, but it was hard to appreciate it when he himself was in the process of dying. Auggie, God damn him, only widened his eyes as a huge grin stretched across his face.
“If we could focus, please,” Theo somehow managed to say. “You and Shaniyah were involved, Lorcan. It doesn’t matter what you call it. I’d like you to tell us what you meant earlier when you said you believed Keelan had killed Leon and Shaniyah.”
The four Encyclopedia Browns stared at each other.
“Let’s start with Shaniyah,” Theo said. “You think something bad happened to her?”
Three sets of eyes swiveled to Lorcan, and he swallowed. “Well, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because she disappeared.”
“Nobody else seems to think she’s gone,” Auggie said. “Her aunt and uncle said she went back to Kansas.”
“She didn’t go back to Kansas,” Dot said. “She fucking hated Kansas.”
