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“Figured you’d be here.”
Donovan Scott bit back a growl of annoyance as his former best friend and current pain-in-the-ass boss emerged from the winding path onto the beach. He picked up the stick his border collie, Spirit, dropped at his feet and gave it a hard toss. She streaked after it in a blur of black and white and endless energy. “You wasted your time tracking me down. I’m not going to that fucking costume party.”
“It’s not a costume party. It’s a masquerade ball,” Zak Hendricks said as he crossed the sand. His dog, Ranger, raced out in front of him to join Spirit in the surf. “I’m assured there’s a difference. And, yes, you’re going.”
“What are you going to do, Leg-o-less. Carry me there?”
“If I have to. My wife wants all of Redwood Coast Rescue in attendance. The whole team, and, like it or not, you became part of the team when you accepted Spirit’s leash.” Zak stopped next to where he sat in the sand and watched the dogs play. “She’s doing well?”
“She’s perfect.” Nobody would know Spirit had a benign tumor removed from her brain six months ago. It had affected her balance and ability to walk, but she recovered fast as soon as it was gone. Now she was a happy, healthy dog who loved to run and lived to sniff out explosive materials for a bite of her favorite treat: hot dogs. She was originally supposed to be a search and rescue K9, but her knack for bomb detection had been a welcome surprise since Donovan would’ve made a shitty SAR K9 handler. Explosives, he knew. He had been an EOD tech in the Marines, and even though he’d gotten himself blown up, he still liked bombs better than people. In his experience, they were less volatile.
“No more dizzy spells?”
He didn’t know if Zak was asking about him or his dog, so he kept his mouth shut and his gaze focused on Spirit. Still, he could see the shine of Zak’s prosthetic leg out of the corner of his eye. While the guy seemed to have accepted the disability now, it was an uncomfortable reminder of how broken the whole so-called team was.
Of how broken Donovan, himself, was.
Yeah, he had dizzy spells. They were happening more frequently, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it because his brain was Swiss cheese.
When he didn’t respond, Zak turned to study the beach with a faint smile. “Lots of memories here.”
Donovan followed his gaze. The beach hadn’t changed much since they partied here as kids. It was a fingernail of sand tucked against almost vertical cliffs. Someone long ago had dug the fire pit and pulled large driftwood logs up around it to use as seats. He could still see Darcy sitting on one of the logs, her arms crossed, her eyes flashing with hatred. That had always been the problem with her—her line between love and hate was razor-thin, and it was impossible to know which side you stood on at any given time.
Now, ashes smoldered in the pit, sending up a thin curl of smoke. High schoolers had been here partying last night, but there was no other sign of their presence. That was one of the only hard and fast rules of Hidden Beach. You packed out what you brought in.
“Almost fifteen years,” Zak said after several beats of silence.
“How the fuck would you know?” Anger heated his blood, and he welcomed it. Yeah, anger was so much better than sorrow and regret. It was easier. Always had been. He supposed that was the problem with him and why he and Darcy had been doomed from the start. “Weren’t you off saving the world or some shit when it happened?”
Zak had graduated the year before and was already an Army Ranger deployed overseas when Darcy died, or else he might have been a suspect, too.
Or probably not.
Ash Rawlings, the third member of their Terrible Trio, had still been around town at the time—hell, he’d even been at the party that night with his high school girlfriend—and nobody ever considered him a suspect, despite his fling with Darcy the previous summer. But Zak and Ash were both from upstanding, well-respected families. Zak’s mom was the high school principal, and his dad was the history teacher and the lacrosse coach who led the Wildcats to the state championship multiple times. Ash was the heir of the town’s founding family. The two of them always got away with everything, receiving little more than a slap on the wrist for their teenage troublemaking.
Donovan, as the kid from the wrong side of the tracks, never had that luxury. When they got a scolding, he got a beating. When they were grounded, he was tossed in county jail. It was part of the reason he’d grown to hate his former best friends over the years.
Zak’s lips flattened into a grim line. “C’mon, Van. Everyone knows about Darcy’s murder.”
Donovan growled. “That fucking podcast.”
“It started long before the podcast, buddy.”
“Yeah, but it’s stirring up all this shit again.”
Zak said nothing. He just stared out over the waves.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Never thought you did.”
“Then you’re the only one in this goddamn town to think that. If you want people to fork out money at this fundraiser shindig, you’d be better off not inviting the town pariah.”
Zak finally glanced over at him again, one brow arched. “So why come back here at all? You could’ve lived anywhere after your medical discharge. You didn’t have to come home.”
Because his mom needed him. But Zak had been estranged from his family until recently and wouldn’t understand that reasoning. “Because I’m a masochist.”
“Then think of the charity ball tonight as another form of self-torture.”
