CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Good morning, sunshine.”
Keith Mars stood at the stove, moving eggs across a skillet with the edge of a spatula. He was dressed in a gray button-down shirt and slacks, a black apron tied around his waist. He smiled at Veronica as she padded into the kitchen, barefoot.
Veronica, head still fuzzy with exhaustion, poured herself a cup of coffee from the Krups. At the end of the counter, a small TV was on, set to mute and tuned to the news. Trish Turley’s mouth moved silently, but the curl to her lips made clear she was upbraiding someone.
“You’re cooking?”
“I woke up and felt like I could manage it. Got time for breakfast?” Keith held up a platter of bacon and wafted the smell toward her enticingly.
“Not really, but I’m going to have some anyway.” She pulled out the bar stool at the island and sat. The wall clock read 10:45—she’d had five hours of restless sleep, disrupted by images of bodies hanging from bridges and the nagging of her own brain, fumbling at the details of the case even while she rested.
“So what’d you do last night?” Keith portioned the eggs onto two plates that already held toast, cantaloupe, and bacon. He carried them to the kitchen island and set one in front of her.
She spread jam across her toast. “Well, we started out at Carlos and Charlie’s for hurricanes, but after I lost the wet T-shirt contest we were like, Forget this, so we popped some mollies and headed to the ’09er’s foam party. I don’t remember much, but I did get the digits for a really cute Delta Sig. His dad owns a Jaguar dealership!”
“I thought you already had a boyfriend with a fancy car,” Keith said, taking a bite of bacon.
“You can never have too many fancy cars.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded. “So … how’s the case going?”
“Oh, are we talking about that now?” She kept her voice airy, but her eyes darted to his face. He looked at her with mild brown eyes, his expression disarmingly bemused. It was a look she’d seen before—a look that had lured liars and cheaters into a false sense of security with a man they underestimated. Her eyes narrowed. It was then that she noticed the wooden box on the island, nestled between the salt and pepper shakers and the pitcher of orange juice.
“What’s that?” she asked cautiously.
“I got you something,” he said. There was a faint tension around his eyes that she couldn’t read. She picked up the gift carefully with both hands, testing it. It was lighter than she expected. She unlatched the lid and opened it.
Nestled inside was a revolver so black it looked like a shadow against the red foam holding it in place. It was small, discreet, an investigator’s gun. A gun that concealed easily. Carefully, deliberately, she shut the lid and latched it again and pushed it away, her heart racing in her chest.
“I asked for a pony. And year after year I’m disappointed.”
He didn’t flinch. “Veronica, listen to me—”
“Why would you think I’d want this?” She stood up. “Is this some kind of fucked-up scare tactic? ‘Welcome to the business, Veronica. By the way, here’s your piece. Try not to kill anyone.’ ”
“Veronica.” His voice was louder now, but not angry. She shook her head, mute. But then she met his eyes and suddenly realized what that expression was. It was sadness.
She sat back down at the counter, as far from the box as possible.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night.” He took a deep breath. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you can’t fight against this. God help me, maybe it’s just who you are.” For the first time in what seemed like forever, he looked away. His gaze rested on the wooden box. “It’s my own fault. How were you supposed to see any other options, with me putting our family on the line time and time again over some case or other? With me letting you help?” His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “I accept that you’re here. I accept that this is what you choose. But, Veronica, if this really is what you want, you have to take responsibility for your safety.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to carry a gun,” she said. She realized she was humiliatingly close to tears and bit hard on the inside of her cheek. “Dad, this is ridiculous. Ninety percent of what we do is at a desk. I don’t need this.”
“This is what it costs.” He shook his head. His fists were clenched, twisting a paper napkin to shreds between them. “Veronica, if you want to run with the grown-up PIs, this is what you have to do. You’re going to get your permit, you’re going to learn to use your weapon, you’re going to practice with it, and you’re going to use it if you have to.”
They sat in tense silence for a moment. Veronica’s hands clenched at her sides. She didn’t even want to touch the box again. But a part of her, a part she didn’t want to think about, kept whispering that he was right. She thought of the night two months earlier when Stu Cobbler had hunted her in her old classmate Gia Goodwin’s loft. I could have used it then. But the thought sent a shiver up her spine. Did she imagine she would have shot him? Killed him?
Then she saw something that sent all thoughts of the gun out of her mind entirely.
She lunged across the island for the remote and unmuted the TV. A caption ran across the bottom of the screen: SECOND GIRL GOES MISSING IN NEPTUNE, CALIFORNIA. “… are saying the girl was last seen at a party Wednesday night between midnight and one a.m. Aurora Scott, age sixteen, was visiting a friend at Hearst College for spring break.” Turley’s lips were twisted into what looked like a furious sneer, but it was impossible to mistake the smug triumph in her voice. “No word out of the Balboa County Sheriff’s Department yet; I’m guessing they’re working out how to spin this after ignoring Hayley Dewalt’s disappearance for more than a week.”
A photo of a teenage girl appeared on screen. She had auburn hair with long side-swept bangs and catlike green eyes. Three or four silver hoops lined each earlobe, and the only makeup she wore was heavy black eyeliner. In spite of her hard-edged look, she smiled sweetly at the camera, a dimple in her left cheek.
“Oh my god,” Veronica breathed, so soft she barely heard herself. She shook her head. “I’ve seen her.”
“What? Where?” Her father turned to her, a hound-dog glint in his eye. He’d seen the loose thread of a clue and couldn’t help but grab at it.
“Last night, at the party.” Veronica turned up the volume. Less than twelve hours earlier she’d seen Aurora Scott in a leopard-print bikini, looking older than her sixteen years by far. She’d been showing off her tan lines on a dais while the nephew of a drug lord leered at her—the same boy with whom Hayley Dewalt had last been seen.
“Sheriff Lamb!” Trish Turley stared directly into the camera with wide blue eyes. “It’s time to wake up. You have a predator on the loose in Neptune, California. And until he’s caught, every single girl who goes to Neptune for spring break will be at risk.”
“It’s getting harder to disagree with her,” murmured Keith.
“We now go live to a press conference with the Scott family,” Turley said. The camera cut to a podium where a middle-aged couple stood side by side. The man was thin and wiry with dun-brown hair tinged with gray. He had a kind of ravaged handsomeness, his face tan and craggy. But it was the tall, willowy blonde next to him who caught Veronica’s attention.
Her hair was shorter than it used to be, bobbed around her ears. She’d gained a little weight too, and it suited her. Her large brown eyes pleaded with the camera. For a moment Veronica could not breathe. Her lungs knotted up inside her chest, clenched and useless.
Veronica dropped the remote.
“Holy shit,” Keith swore, oblivious to his breakfast growing cold, his eyes glued to the screen.
“Please,” said the woman, her voice faltering in the microphone. “Please, if you’re watching this. All I want is to see my daughter again.” She dissolved into tears, her hand fluttering up to rest on her mouth.
Veronica knew that voice as well as she knew her own. She still heard it sometimes, in her dreams.
It was Lianne Mars, her mother.