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I don’t get it. Why would she run? Was she responsible? Was it something she did that caused the explosion, and she didn’t want to claim responsibility? She moved to California, changed her name, and kept a low profile. The Sarah Matthews I knew didn’t call attention to herself. She didn’t have credit cards. She paid cash for our apartment. Nathan Matthews, my father, was the janitor at the motel where she worked. They lived a simple life. Surfed when they could. Did all the free things. We walked. Attended town festivities. Laid under the stars at night while my Father pointed out the constellations. It wasn’t strange to me, it was just life.
Staring at this article, I can’t help but wonder if my father knew. If she ever told him. Was he as oblivious as Paige and I, ordid he just not care? I flip back to the picture of her surfing, sadness tugging at my heart for the Mom I knew, and the Mom I never did.
“Sienna Lassiter? Going way back in the town archives, huh?” A woman asks, and my gaze jerks up to meet hers. Alice stands over me, a clipboard tucked under her arm as she balances a stack of white pool towels in her hands. She chews her bottom lip, her eyes glued to the screen. “I haven’t seen that photo in a long time.”
“I saw some old articles on the wall at Kaos, and figured I’d look into Pelican Beach’s surfing history,” I attempt to explain, my heart hammering in my chest. I didn’t even hear her approach.
Alice nods, and drops her pile of towels onto the table. “She was the youngest competition surfer in North Florida back then, and a girl. So she made huge waves around here, pun intended. She had quite a following.”
“Did you know her?” I ask, curiously watching the shift of emotions on her face.
She nods again. “I knew her. We were friends, actually. She had a shitty family. Hustlers and drug addicts. Her father and her uncle were regulars at the local lock-up. A day here, two weeks there. Sienna was always out running the streets, picking up odd jobs, doing anything she could not to go home. But she wasn’t like her family. She was a straight-A student, and always made it to class. She was saving money, and she was on track for a scholarship. She was getting out of this town. She always wanted to go to California.”
I swallow hard. I want to tell her that she made it, but Ican’t. “Did she have any siblings? Cousins? Any family still in Pelican Beach?”
Alice shakes her head. “She was an only child. As you can see, she passed in the fire at the Pier. A week later, her family home burned to the ground off Millcreek Road. Police said it was a chemical fire from a drug lab. Nobody was hurt, but they moved away after that. I have no idea where.”
“What about Dylan?” I ask. “Does he have family around here?”
She nods. “He does. Dylan had two older brothers, Stephen and Harley, and one still lives in town. Stephen Knight owns Cut Crew, a local landscaping business. They do our landscaping, actually. Stephen is amazing. His daughter Mia went to school with Raven, and they’re really close. Both Dylan’s parents still live here too.”
Full stop. “Mia Knight, like server at the Sandbar Mia Knight?”
She nods. “I wish all of y’all would work somewhere else. Anywhere else, except at a Cyrus Jacobson business. I tell Raven this daily, but she’s a grown woman and won’t listen to anything I say.”
“You don’t like Cyrus?”
She shakes her head. “I do not like Cyrus. Once you’ve been around this town long enough, you understand the kind of man he is. Like this instance with Pier 34. It burned to the ground, and he used the insurance money to further his business ventures. He should have paid out more to the families. Instead, he paid bottom dollar to get the Knights’ off his back, bought the Sandbar and moved his seafood business, expanded the seafoodbusiness, and built a nightclub where two kids passed away. The next year, he was Pelican Beach Businessman of the Year and had a plaque on the wall at city hall. I don’t get it.”
“It’s political,” I offer with a shrug. “There’s nothing to understand. It just is.”
“Sometimes I wish I had gone to California,” Alice says, glancing down at the floor. “The way Sienna always talked about it made it sound like the most magical place on Earth. I just never got my shit together enough to leave. As a single mom, I did the best I could. We struggled. We lived in this motel for years until we moved out into the RV park. And here I am, still living paycheck to paycheck, twenty-five years later. Time moves so fast sometimes. You think you have a good grip on it, but it always gets away.”
I nod, my eyes searching for the clock on the computer screen. “It sure does.” Just like the time I have left until the start of my shift, and my date with Evan.
I have questions now that only one person can answer. Paige. I have to get into her apartment. I have to see if something can explain all of this.
I glance back over at Alice. “Speaking of Mia, she actually asked me to stop by her place and pick her up a change of clothes for this afternoon. You wouldn’t happen to know her apartment number, would you? It would save me a trip back down to the Sandbar.”
“Yeah, it’s building G, room 204,” Alice answers.
“Thank you,” I tell her, closing the screen down on the computer and standing from the table. “And thank you for the history lesson. Growing up in large cities, I forget the best wayto learn anything about a small town is to talk to the people who live there.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, picking up her pile of towels from the counter. “And I’m sorry about your room. Just know that there was nothing Raven or I could do about it.”
My eyes narrow. “My room?”
Her head tilts to the side in question. “Didn’t you talk to Raven?”
I shake my head.
“She’s in your room right now with the plumber.”
My room. There are people in my room, right now. “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I’ve got to go. Thanks again.” I turn and jog out of the office, the wind rustling my hair as I take the concrete stairs two at a time to my room. As I reach the second floor, I see the door propped open with a brick and stop short. I hear voices inside and carefully peer through the doorway, recognizing one as Raven.
I stride through the main room, spying the photo of Paige and Evan lying on the nightstand, barely obscured by a bottle of water and a paperback novel. I quickly shove it into my pocket, hoping no one saw it. With a quick check at the closet, I see the door open and the murder mirror concealed. I curse silently. I wasn’t at all ready for unannounced company.
“Hey,” I say casually, glancing between Raven and the maintenance man, kneeling with his hands buried inside the wall. “Anything I can help with?”
