My Killer Vacation

“Good.” He kisses me, too—twice—looking like he wants to say more. Instead, he shoves out of the car with a curse, rapping his knuckles on the roof once. “Climb into the driver’s seat. Go Taylor.”

“Okay.” My eyes are watering, hands shaking, but by the time Myles disappears around the side of the house, gun drawn, I manage to put the car in drive and pull away from the curb, Lisa’s house growing smaller and smaller in the rearview. There’s a pulse pounding in my ears and my stomach is folding in on itself. Oh my God. Oh my God. I don’t want to nose my way into any more murder investigations. I have officially gotten my fill. Is Myles all right? Yes. Yes, he knows what he’s doing. For all we know, the mayor is long gone, anyway. Or we misinterpreted the threat. Even if Rhonda Robinson is inside that house with the real murder weapon, ready to use it, I’m pretty sure a bullet would just bounce right off of Myles. Right?

Wrong. He’s a human man. Flesh and bone.

The odds of him and Lisa surviving are a lot stronger if they have help and the sirens still sound like they could be a good two or three miles away. I can help. I can do something. What did my parents always say about being scared? That it’s healthy? Yes. They used to say that anything worth doing inspires fear. Consider me inspired.

“I’m going to drive to the end of the block, away from the house,” I murmur shakily. As soon as I reach the stop sign, I whip a U-turn and floor it back in the direction of the house. “I didn’t say I would stay there.”

What would my parents say if they could see me right now? I spent the last hour making love in a church vestibule and now I’m gunning it down a residential block in the direction of a potential crime in progress, hoping to assist my bounty hunter lover. This might be shocking even by their standards. Oddly enough, though…I’m not really concerned at all with my parents’ opinion about what I’m doing. If they would think me brave or be pleasantly surprised to know I inherited some guts, after all. In that moment, I’m only concerned with how I feel about my actions. What my conscience is saying and what my intuition is telling me.

I’ve been brave all along.

I just had to stop accepting others’ definition of it to know how much.

Parking the car in the exact same spot as before and leaving the car idling, I take stock of what I can see. All the blinds are drawn on the house. Various vehicles are parked all over the block, but I have no way of knowing if one of them belongs to the mayor. There is no sign of Myles. My scalp prickles with cold at the last part. Where is he? Is he inside yet?

Myles and Lisa are in potential danger. There has to be something I can do. I chew the inside of my cheek for a moment before rolling down the driver’s side window. That’s when I hear the shouting coming from inside the house. Women’s voices. Two of them. One belongs to Lisa. The other…I think it belongs to Rhonda Robinson, although she is not using the professional voice I’ve heard at press conferences.

It’s panicked and high pitched. And imploring.

“Please. Please. Listen to me. I did not kill your brother!”

“Like I said, I believe you! Just get out! The police are coming.”

“Don’t you understand? I can’t be interrogated by the police. There are eyes everywhere in this place. Nosy retirees and busybody mamas who would love nothing more than to knock me from my perch, and oh believe me, this would do it. Oh, this would definitely do it. The mayor being investigated for murder? Do you think my career would survive that?” Several seconds tick by, a murmuring of voices. “I have no way of knowing you’ll keep my name out of this. Why would you?”

There is just a hint of movement on the left side of the house. It’s Myles with his back to the wall, peering into the side window, gun pointed at the ground between his feet. My wild rush of relief to see him still unharmed is quickly marred by his dark expression when he notices me sitting in the parked car. Teeth gritted, he jerks his chin down the road. “Go, Taylor,” he mouths. “Now.”

There’s a loud crash inside the house.

Myles jerks backward, then slowly peers inside, but I can tell he’s also watching me out of the corner of his eye. I’m distracting him. I can see that now. As much as I want to help, the best thing I can do in this moment is get my butt back to the end of the block and flag down the police. Putting my car into drive, I start to edge away from the curb.

The front door of the house flies open. Rhonda Robinson comes running down the steps, a knife in her hand. A knife? Considering the way Oscar Stanley was murdered, I expected a gun, but I don’t have time to consider this now. She’s running toward a black sedan, which is parked at an angle and partially blocking the driveway of Lisa’s neighbor. Clearly she parked in a hurry and she was definitely rushing again now. Trying to make a run for it before the cops arrive?

Myles steps out from the shadow of the house, gun trained on Rhonda.

“Stop where you are, Rhonda. Get down on the ground.”

The mayor jerks around with an expression of shocked dread. She starts to go down on one knee and Myles approaches slowly.

“Hands behind your head. Do it.”

Another, louder siren is added to the cacophony of sound and it seems to spook Rhonda. She springs back up and sprints for her vehicle, knife in one hand, keys in the other.

My eyes search the rearview, praying for red and white lights. Where are the police?

It feels like we’ve been waiting on them for an hour, when in reality, it has probably only been three or four minutes. Too long, though. Rhonda is going to get away—and she is clearly the murderer. Her name is on the property records, along with Oscar Stanley. She was profiting off vacation rentals while lying to voters about eradicating rental homes from Cape Cod. Her motive was to keep Oscar silent. Those threatening notes, written by Oscar, were intended for the mayor. She was on the verge of being outed. Her motive is rock solid.

Meaning she’s the one who threw a buoy through my window.