My Killer Vacation

While I was reading through reviews of the house, I saw pictures of a guest book. Obviously this makes me a total dork, but I was looking forward to writing our own message on one of the pages, for future guests to read. I was going to draw a squid in the margins.

Sliding open the drawer or the table, I spy the white leather book with gold, embossed lettering. Guest experiences. I’m not sure what possesses me to take it. To quickly slide it into my purse and cover it up with my hand sanitizing wipes and sunglass case while Jude rapidly shakes his head at me. Maybe I’ve surprised myself by being so coherent tonight after discovering a body…and I want to know what else I can do. If I have what it takes to solve a mystery and locate the mettle I’ve always been missing. Or maybe I’m dubious of the police’s motivation to inspect this murder beyond their original theory. And let’s face it, Lisa’s lack of emotion won’t stop poking at my sixth sense. I didn’t even know I had a sixth sense.

Whatever the cause of my impromptu evidence heist, I’ll return the book tomorrow after I have a little peek. No big deal, right?





Chapter 3





Myles





* * *




I climb off my bike and pop an antacid.

Well isn’t Cape Cod just cheerful as hell on this sunny Thursday afternoon?

Little signs hanging from every door proclaiming that life is a beach. Beach life. Life is better at the beach. Seas the day. How anyone can be passionate about a place with so much fucking sand is beyond me. I already want to get back on the road. Unfortunately, I’ve turned my back on a lot of things, but I couldn’t seem to do it with my friend, Paul. Not while he’s deployed and unable to fix this mess for his girlfriend in person. Paul once refused to rat on me when I shattered a stained-glass church window with a line drive.

I’m here because I owe him one and we grew up together in Boston—but then I’m gone.

Until then, my job is to find Oscar Stanley’s “real killer.”

This happens a lot in my line of work of bounty hunting. The family is in denial. Their son violated his parole, but he’s trying to turn his life around. Their daughter is on the lam, but only because she’s innocent of that drug charge and no one believes her. I’ve heard it all before and it goes in one ear and out the other. My job is to bring bad people to law enforcement’s door and walk away whistling with a check, without having to deal with any of the red tape or paperwork.

This case is slightly different in that there is no bounty to collect. There is no criminal at large. I don’t have a name or a face or a prison record at my disposal. All I’ve got is a big question mark and a favor to return. However, after Paul gave me the rundown on Oscar Stanley and how his peeping Tom ways got the snot beat out of him prior to the murder, I’m inclined to agree with the local PD on this one. The father of that girl came back to finish the job. It should take me one or two days to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt and get back on the highway, my slate wiped clean of any favors or responsibilities to anyone.

On my way here—to Coriander Lane—I stopped at Lisa Stanley’s house and picked up the set of keys I’m holding. Technically, this is a crime scene and there is yellow caution tape across the entrance, but obeying rules isn’t really my strong suit. Never has been. That’s why I was a shit detective and an even worse husband. Might have been faithful, but loyalty only goes so far when a man leaves out the cherishing part of his vows.

Laughter kicks up down at the beach, voices intermingled with the sounds of Tom Petty. A bumble bee kite dips and whirls in the sky. The smell of hot dogs and burgers carries in thick on the breeze. This is where people come on vacation with their families. To be happy.

I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.

I toss up the keys and catch them in my hand, continuing across the street to the house where the murder supposedly occurred. I haven’t seen crime scene photos, but I have the victim’s description and it’s unlikely that a man of Oscar’s stature would have been transported by the perpetrator post-mortem. Furthermore, why would the murderer make it easier for the body to be found? No, this was a crime of passion. Anger. Cut and dried.

Get this over with.

I’m halfway across the street when I sense eyes on my back.

Slowly, I peer back over my shoulder and find a young woman, brownish-blonde hair, maybe in her mid-twenties, watering a flowerpot on the front porch of a house. She’s completely missing the pot, though. Water is pouring from the spout straight down onto the floorboards, splashing up onto her bare calves. And she doesn’t seem to notice at all.

“Can I help you?” I bark in a hard tone.

She drops the can with a loud clatter, spins on a toe and runs head on into the front door, bouncing right off the damn thing. Even from a hundred yards away, I can see the canaries spinning around her head. That’s what you get for being nosy.

I dig another antacid out of my jeans pocket, pop it and continue on my oh-so-merry way across the street, ripping the caution tape off the front door and letting it flutter to the ground. I’m halfway over the threshold when I hear footsteps approaching from behind. Nimble, girly ones. In the reflection of the storm door, the nosy neighbor approaches. And boom, I’m already annoyed. “Listen, you want to call the cops?” Scowling, I turn around partially to face her. “Be my…”

It’s extremely weird, the way I just sort of forget what I’m saying.

This has never happened to me before. Every word out of my mouth has a purpose and whoever I’m talking to better damn well listen. I just…don’t really know why I was planning on being so mean to her is all. Didn’t she just run into a door? That had to hurt. Plus there are water splatters all over her legs and she is…