“Oh.”
Michael led her into the house, and Bex looked around. Denise was sitting on the couch, pinching the back of her hand while she talked. An officer loomed above her, writing down everything she said in his little black pocket notebook.
“Oh, there’s our daughter now.” She beckoned for Bex to come over, then nearly crushed her in a tight embrace. “We’re so glad she wasn’t here alone.”
Bex didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that both Michael and Denise had referred to her as their daughter before the officer turned his notebook on her.
“What time did you leave, miss?”
Bex looked around her, trying to remember what happened before the bonfire. Then she thought of the detective lieutenant and felt exhausted. She found Denise’s hand and squeezed. “A little after seven, I guess. Is this—did he do this?”
The living room where they were seated was a disaster. Pillows were strewn everywhere, drawers dumped. It was chaos but it didn’t look like anything was gone. Then again, Bex considered, how would I know what Michael and Denise had?
The cops’ eyebrows went up. “Who are you referring to?”
“The…the… Whoever did this… Did they…” She gestured to the mess around them.
“Yes. At nineteen hundred hours—”
Denise stood up, putting her arm lightly on the officer’s arm to stop him. “Are we done here? With all due respect, I don’t want to frighten Bex any more than she already has been. She wasn’t even here.”
The officer looked around Denise and pinned Bex with a stare that made her certain he knew exactly what she was hiding. “Did you notice anything suspicious when you left? Did you see anyone around the neighborhood?”
She wagged her head. “No, sir.” Bex said it in her mind, but wasn’t sure she had actually said the words out loud.
It didn’t take long for the police to file out and the commotion to die down. When the last neighbor left after wanting to hear the story again, Michael closed the front door and flipped the bolt.
“Fat lot of good that thing did,” Denise huffed.
“What happened?”
Michael pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sometime around nine o’clock, someone slipped into the house.” He glanced back at the door. “We’re not sure how. Everything was locked when we came home.”
Denise shuddered, then looked at Bex. “Are you sure you locked the door behind you when you left?” Her stare wasn’t accusatory, but Bex’s blood ran cold.
Bex cleared her throat. “Um…” Did I? It was hard to remember what had happened. The afternoon seemed a million miles away. “I think so.”
Michael snatched up a pillow and handed it to Denise. “The police think it was just some kids or something. Not much was taken. Just a few trinkets, mainly, and some jewelry that Denise had lying around. They didn’t seem to go for any of the big stuff—TV, laptops. Seemed almost like they were just screwing around.”
Denise’s eyes were saucer wide but blank. “Or trying to send a message.”
? ? ?
Bex tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable in her bed. She tried to think of the bonfire, to relish every moment of her date with Trevor, especially their kiss. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw Detective Schuster and that yellowed newspaper clipping.
“He might try to contact you…” Schuster’s voice reverberated through her head. Then Denise’s voice: “…Trying to send a message.”
“No.” Bex gritted her teeth and clamped her eyelids shut. She pressed her palms over her ears, but the voices rolled over and over, slightly muffled by the sound of the waves on the beach and images of Darla.
“They said it was the security guard,” Bex told herself. “It wasn’t him. It was a couple of kids ransacking the house. Not”—she felt the familiar lump growing in her throat—“him.”
Bex was starting to nod off when a gentle rustling made her sit bolt upright. She glanced around the darkened room, sure that the ransacking kids or her father or Detective Schuster or any other manner of boogeyman was waiting for her in the blackness. Bex clicked on her bedside light, and a hollow laugh twittered in her chest. Her bedroom window was half-open, the night breeze whistling in and lifting the gauzy curtains. The wind had peeled a couple of loose pages from the top of her desk.
“I’m so paranoid.”
Bex slammed the window shut and gathered up the fallen papers. When she saw the one on top, her saliva soured. Her head throbbed. She tried to focus on the page in her shaking fingers.
“Black Bear Diner!” Beth Anne slammed the heavy door of her father’s old truck and ran across the dusty parking lot. She pulled open the door to the restaurant and was immediately hit with warm, familiar smells. Waffles. Pancakes. Thick maple syrup. Bacon.