Better left buried, p.17
Better Left Buried, page 17
I raise my hand and knock.
Lucy pokes her head out a moment later, her red hair wild and tangled. She looks charmingly disheveled and sleepy, and I can’t help the grin that tugs at my mouth. She’s wearing dinosaur pajama pants and a flannel shirt.
“Morning, beautiful,” I say.
She blushes beet red.
“Who,” she says, then stops herself. “I mean yes. I mean hi? Whatever. Just come in.”
Lucy is charming every way I have seen her—in floral dresses or dinosaur pajamas, flustered and fearless all at once.
“Is your mom here?” I ask.
“Nope,” she says. “Come in and sit on my bed. Or, you know, the floor’s okay. You don’t have to sit on my bed or anything, just that you can. If you want. God. Let me get my case notes.”
I grin at her again, and her blush deepens, redder than the roots of her hair. I think about her coming-out-of-the-closet joke yesterday, delivered at the most inappropriate time for a joke in the history of inappropriately timed jokes.
“Lucy,” I ask as she sips from her glass water bottle, which is covered in stickers from various art museums, “did you mean what you said yesterday? The not a heterosexual or a brain cell in sight. And also the coming-out-of-the-closet thing?”
Lucy spits water out so hard she drenches her mom’s pillow. “Shit,” she says. “I—What? Uh. Is it okay if I am? A non-heterosexual with absolutely zero brain cells?”
I inch closer to her.
She scoots back, eyes finding the floor.
“It’s definitely okay,” I tell her. “Haeter Lake decided it was okay with gay people when its favorite family had a gay daughter.”
“Oh, I heard them mention Blake’s wife.” Lucy grins. “Of course she is. She had a vibe.”
“Are you saying you believe in gaydar?” I tease her.
“I can say I have gaydar because I am gay,” she tells me. “It would be different if I said that you—”
“If I what?” I lean forward, until I’m closer to her face than I had planned. And oh. She has exactly eight freckles, one at the very end of her nose. “If I was gay?”
“I didn’t want to assume anything,” she says.
“Your gaydar was right.” I poke her playfully in the ribs.
This is better than thinking about my blood-drenched house or Pierce’s falling body or the knife in my mother’s hand. I know Lucy isn’t thinking about her shitty day, either, and that’s enough for me.
She squeals, batting my hand away. “Sometimes my gaydar is wrong just because I’m hoping someone is—I mean, not that I was hoping you—whatever, are you trying to throw me off my game?” She glares at me.
“I would never,” I say. I lean forward, drop my hand on her thigh, knowing my hands always make her fall apart. “We should look at your case notes.”
I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.
Everything is crumbling. Everything.
This town, my mom, my whole entire life. It’s coming crashing down around my ears, and still I am perfectly content to flirt with this girl on the shitty motel bed.
To my complete shock, she leans forward, closing the gap between us. “The hell with the case,” she says, and then kisses me.
The kiss lasts less than a second, though, because in her enthusiasm she misjudges many things, including her distance from me and the balance required to stay upright. She tumbles to the floor before I have the chance to catch her, sending her case notes flying.
She pops up again, scarlet down to the roots of her hair, and turns away from me so fast all I see is her auburn hair.
“Shit,” she says loudly. “Goddamn. Where is my case notepad?”
I stand more slowly. “Are you okay?” I reach out a hand to grab hers.
She lets me take her hand, and then she squeezes it in return, but she doesn’t turn to look at me. “I’m great,” she says too cheerfully. “My notepad—”
“What happened to the hell with the case?” I ask her softly.
She still doesn’t look at me, but she releases my hand and steps past me. “I didn’t mean it,” she says, her voice still too loud. “Also, I fell off the bed. It’s better if we just forget that ever happened.”
I spin her around so she’s facing me, until we’re inches away from each other again.
“I don’t want to forget it,” I tell her fiercely. “I don’t want to forget any of this.”
This time, when she leans in to kiss me, I make sure I have both hands braced on her hips. Just in case.
Lucy. 11:44 a.m.
Okay, so there was some kissing.
Maybe a lot.
We kept trying to work on the case, to sort out all our notes, but there was this other thing to do that seemed more distracting.
Even though I fell on the floor the first time I tried to kiss her.
Jules and Amy and Nora would die laughing if they knew that, but Audrey didn’t even smirk at me.
Not that I mind when she does smirk at me.
Anyway.
She has a shift at the diner, so she took us there on her motorcycle, but everything felt different. Everything, including wrapping my arms around her waist. I wanted to keep kissing her, and also have my arms around her waist, and also, maybe, do a few other things. Things like kissing, but with less—
“Lucy?” Audrey is staring at me.
And okay, so I’m still sitting on the motorcycle, staring dreamily off into space. And okay, so maybe I’m a little distracted.
Because Audrey is a good kisser.
She takes my hand and helps me hop off so that I don’t kill one or both of us doing it myself. She knows me well, even though we met only a few days ago. Is it stupid, to go this fast with someone you’ve only just met? To be this smitten by someone you’re going to leave behind at the end of spring break?
But it feels like I’ve known her forever, like we’ve been bound together by something more than just chemistry. The way this town is wrapped around both our lives, the way the Anselms thread through them, the way the park and the town and the loss have shaped us. I don’t believe in fate or destiny, I don’t think.
I do believe in Audrey—and the way her hands and the corded muscle of her forearms look in those fingerless gloves she wears when she drives the motorcycle. Yeah. That’s something.
She doesn’t let go of my hand, not even when she pushes open the door to Mickey’s diner and guides me through.
We pass under the flashing neon sign that reads MICKEY’S. The bulb in the M is burnt out, so it actually just says ICKEY’S, which seems more appropriate anyway.
I like letting her lead, I realize. Even though I’m definitely the one in charge of this case we’re solving together.
It’s exactly the way I imagined based on the outside, and if I had to guess, it has been exactly this way for the last fifty years. It is a narrow room with off-white walls that look as if they were probably white before the layer of grime, a few booths with torn leather seats, and stools at the bar with aged red leather.
I plop into a booth on the east side. Sunlight streams in through the dusty windowpanes, and I draw a breath, letting the warmth of the spring sun seep into my skin.
Gus looks up from the counter, and his expression turns into a scowl when he sees Audrey. “Nice of you to show up,” he says. “Hi, Lucy.”
I lift my hand in a little wave at him. “Um?” I say. “Hi?”
“Hey, it was fun seeing you at dinner,” he says, sliding into the booth next to me despite Audrey’s glare. “But I didn’t get the chance to ask about you snooping around my grandma’s house yesterday.”
“You don’t hate me?” I ask him. “For making family dinner terrible?”
Audrey shoots me a look, and I realize I had never actually told her.
“I mean, it’s usually me picking at my aunt or my grandma, or them nagging at me,” Gus says, a flicker of sadness in his eyes. “But you made both my grandma and my aunt mad. And that part was kind of awesome.”
“Oh,” I repeat. “Gus? Are you okay?”
He hesitates and then shakes his head, his eyes looking suddenly wet. “They all hate one another,” he says softly. “Especially my fucking grandma.”
“Do you not get along with your grandma?” I ask stupidly. It’s not as if anyone in that family seems to like one another.
“Does anyone get along with my grandma?” he asks. “Not even my grandpa gets along with my grand—Oh. I mean, he didn’t used to.”
Not for the first time, Gus looks gutted. But he shakes his head as if clearing the emotion away. He scuffs the toe of one of his running shoes against the floor of the diner, and a little piece of caked mud tumbles off onto the linoleum. “Do you want food?” he asks me. His lip curls when he looks at Audrey. “And you. Are you here to work or just to be an asshole and then ditch me again?”
“I’d be happy to do both of those things if you’d like,” Audrey tells him. “But no, actually I am here to work. Because I have a shift. On the schedule. Which you’d know if you bothered to read it. I forget, can you read?”
I press my hand over my mouth. “Both of you stop,” I say.
They ignore me, Gus rolling his eyes at Audrey. “As if I care about your schedule.”
“Can I get something to eat?” I call after him as he turns back toward the kitchen.
“Maybe,” he calls back. “If you’re nicer to me than Audrey is.”
She grins at me as she ties her apron on. “Veronica used to complain to the school that I was bullying her precious little Gussie,” she says. “But I mean, maybe I kind of was.”
“Seems like he’s into it, though,” I say, and then my own words make me pause. “I mean, actually, maybe he is into it.”
She shrugs. “We were friends, like I said. But I also kissed him once,” she says. “Before—before everything happened.”
I sputter on my water bottle, though at least this time I don’t spit it halfway across the room. “You kissed—him? A boy?”
She shrugs again. “Everyone makes mistakes,” she says. “I didn’t know I was gay until I kissed him. That still pisses him off.”
I snort with laughter. “Okay, go work, or harass Gus, or whatever you usually do for a living,” I tell her. “I’m going to sort through my notes, and then I’m going to go sneak around town a bit. How late does your shift go?”
Audrey sighs. “Seven,” she tells me. “I’m sorry. If I can get part of it covered, I will, but I really have to be here for the lunch rush. I need the tip money.”
I lean in and kiss her cheek. She blushes just a little, and it’s satisfying to see that I have some effect on her, too.
The thing I don’t tell Audrey is this: I am going back to the amusement park.
Yesterday, when we went there together, she told me about the worst day of her life. She let me hold her. And I was grateful, for the chance to know her and the chance to support her.
But I still have a case to solve. A case that involves her and me and so much more. And I need to visit the scene of the crime if I have any chance of solving it.
And there’s that nagging memory of what my mom said about the Anselm family. That no matter who they might hurt, they would never, ever, ever hurt their own. No matter how angry they were.
Anything for family.
But Curtis, nice as he is to me, wasn’t really treated as if he was part of the family.
They all have their own story about why: his band, his abdication of responsibility, his refusal to fit in with the family image. But he was rejected by his family, whatever the reason. And he was one of the last people to see Arthur alive at the library.
And then of course, there’s the person the police have interviewed.
Langley is furious, too. Of course she is. She deserves to be.
It would only hurt Audrey to know that I’m even considering her mom.
The park is almost three miles outside of town, but I don’t dare ask anyone else to drive me—not Audrey on her motorcycle, and certainly not Katy. The hike up there takes me almost two hours in the increasingly windy weather, and I am by no means the most fit person in the world. Audrey would probably get here faster even without her motorcycle.
I’m still so damn scared of the forest, the way the trees seem to be constantly reaching for me. And if, say, for instance, a branch brushes against me and I turn around and spray my Mace, in a panic, that’s no one’s business but my own.
The tree probably had it coming, anyway.
When I arrive in the parking lot, I am struck again by the strangeness of this place. The forest around this area is so thick—around the town, too, even in the middle of it, like the forest is just waiting to take everything back.
A chipped sign advertises cotton candy, and my mouth waters automatically in response. In the bright light of day, I notice the carnival piano, the keys rusted and mossy.
Like yesterday, the roller coaster looms large above me.
I force my feet forward, fighting the dread spreading through my body. As I draw closer, I can see the yellow crime scene tape around the base of the roller coaster. Wooden steps lead up, up, up, winding around and around until they reach a platform high above me. On the concrete below the platform is a dark red stain.
My stomach flip-flops again.
Because suddenly that bloodstain isn’t just Pierce’s.
It belongs to him, but to Audrey’s dad, too. To Arthur, who tried to warn me. To my grandparents.
This place is fucking cursed.
I almost turn to run. But then a ray of sunlight hits something on the ground near the place where Pierce’s body landed, something that glints and shimmers.
I force my feet forward again and dig in the pocket of my dress for the plastic bag I brought. Evidence collection. I pull on plastic gloves because I know at least a little bit about preserving evidence.
It’s an earring. A small, delicate gold stud with a diamond at the center.
Veronica’s, maybe?
It looks a bit conservative for her taste, but I’ll chase down any lead at this point.
I don’t want to think about any other possibilities, or any chance that this earring could belong to Langley, or even Audrey.
Or could all this be about something else entirely? Could there be other deaths covered up by this family? Audrey did say they have parks all across the country. An empire, born here. But if this park has been shadowed by four deaths, isn’t it possible that their other parks are, too?
I nudge the earring into the bag and stare up again at the imposing wooden platform, the winding metal bars of the roller coaster. It makes my head spin, even imagining being up that high. What was in Pierce’s mind when he walked up those stairs for the last time? What was the last thought that ran through his mind?
A tear cuts down my cheek, and then another.
What did Audrey’s dad think about, high above me on that roller coaster with no one to help him?
What did my grandma think when she fell? My grandpa?
I want to take a match and light this whole thing on fire. I want to get in my mom’s Jeep and drive and drive until this whole horrible town is far behind us. I want to chop down the dam they built and let the old lake reclaim this place.
I wish we had never come here.
I try to summon the determination I had just a moment ago to solve this case, to clear Audrey’s name, to find my own family. But most of it has slipped away, bleeding into the stained concrete.
I just want to go home.
Mom tried so hard to escape this town but ended up right back here to solve a case that might break her heart. I think of the look in her eyes, sadness and secrets, when she turned away from me this morning. I think of Audrey, standing paralyzed beneath this roller coaster just yesterday, telling me about the worst day of her life.
So I keep going.
Because this is more than just a spring break trip, more than just the boredom and curiosity and selfishness that I started with.
This is the history of my family, the history of me. It’s like this place, this empty, haunted park, filled an empty place beneath my ribs that no spring break beach trip ever could have.
I circle the base of the roller coaster, though my gaze keeps drifting back to the bloodstain on the concrete. On the opposite side, the concrete is almost entirely corrupted by roots, leaving behind thick, packed mud in the widening gaps.
I know Katy and Cliff must have already been here, studying the scene, but I snap pictures with my phone anyway. There are lots of footprints, though apparently local kids hang out here often.
I can see why—it’s a good place for dares or drinking or hooking up. Not that I would ever be brave enough to do any of those things, but most teenagers probably would. Or maybe I would, here. Maybe a version of Lucy Preston who grew up here, who knew her roots, maybe that Lucy Preston would do those bold things.
Maybe I would have been like Katy, smuggling vodka in Gatorade bottles and getting in trouble with my friends.
Maybe the person I’m becoming, a person who gets angry—maybe that person could learn to be bold.
A fearsome woman, the kind Katy has always wanted me to be.
Still, I pore over the footprints, careful to balance on the remaining concrete islands and not to add my own to the mix in the mud.
There are a few similar to the footprints on the footpath to the Anselms’ mansion: the heavy sole of a man’s dress shoe, the lighter imprint of a woman’s narrow boot. But there are more than that, too, and it is impossible to tell which of these prints was from the night of the murder, and which were here earlier. Even if I were to check when it last rained, there are too many to differentiate.
One of the footprints looks like running shoes—a man, maybe a teenage boy. Another is flat like a sandal. The rest are far too scuffed to tell.
Except—there.
There at the edge of the sidewalk is one deep indent, circular and sharp. Like someone jammed a stick down deep—or the spiked heel of an expensive shoe.
Perhaps it was Katy, slipping off the sidewalk and regaining her balance in the mud as she studied these footprints.
