Good Girl, Dead Girl (Valencia Lamb Book 1), page 13
“Yeah? Then maybe this will help.” One hand on the car’s roof, he rests his other on the top rim of the door, cocooning me in the small triangle of space. His chest brushes against mine as his fingers slide up my neck. Leander cups my jaw, searching my eyes for approval. The corners of my mouth turn up in tacit agreement, and his lips brush over mine. It’s the perfect first kiss--so gentle, so sweet, but firm enough that there’s no mistaking that it is really happening. I, Valencia Katharina Lamb (not my real middle name), am kissing Leander McCandles in the diner parking lot.
Leander and I part, smiling. “That definitely cleared it up,” I whisper, clutching at his shirt with one hand. No idea when I put that there.
“Glad I could help,” he murmurs.
The air is still. A gentle peace mantling our little corner of the world.
An engine roaring interrupts as a vintage car guns it through a yellow light. In the split second before it’s too far away, I catch a glimpse of Rock Agani staring at me and Leander from the passenger seat. Rock texted me a couple times, but I ignored it, unready to call in my favor.
Leander’s hands run down my upper arms and drop to his sides, reclaiming my attention. “Hey, before you go, I brought you something.” He jogs to his truck, grabs a sheaf of papers from under the bench seat, and returns.
Not a sheaf, a manila folder. My eyes widen, but I resist the urge to snatch it. “Is that what I think it is?”
Leander nods slowly. “You know it. Only problem is, I’m running out of files to bribe you with so you’ll go out with me again. What does a guy have to bring you to get a third date?”
I laugh, my eyes notching boldly into his. “How about one more kiss?”
Leander obliges, giving me another short but sweet-as-candy kiss. The sadistic pixies strike up a table tennis match in my belly.
“So, third date?” I quip when he shifts away.
“Definitely. Have a good night, Valencia.”
I wave goodnight, smiling until he gets to his truck. Leander leans back against it, not climbing inside until I’m snug in my own vehicle. Exhaling a giddy breath, I turn the key. My mental space is a battleground. Half of me wants to fangirl over the two (TWO!) kisses he gave me. My first and second, thank you very much. But my other half wants to tear into the file burning a hole in my passenger seat. It’s the department’s investigation of the car thefts. With any luck, the file sitting will divert my attention from the darkest corners of the resort, where my dad spent time with a now-dead teenage girl.
My phone goes off.
Portia
Destin had an accident
Meet me at his house?
Guess that file will have to wait.
Portia’s car is parked in front of the Court place when I park and hurry up the walk. I knock with a single knuckle.
Mrs. Court’s smile is wan as she welcomes me in with a quick hug. “Thanks for coming. It means a lot to me that you and Portia are such good friends to Destin. He loves you both so much. He’s resting, but Portia’s with him. Go on up.”
Destin is an only child, and Mrs. Court is wildly overprotective. Part of the reason they got Bert was so Destin would never be alone. Luckily for Des, the chonky furball took well to skateboarding and surfing.
Our boy looks stoned when I peek into his room. His eyes are glazed, and there’s a dopey smile twisting his lips.
Bert is in his usual spot: on a bright blue dog pillow right beside the queen-sized bed. The little furball’s eyes are closed and his pink tongue pokes out between pointy teeth. I lean down and give the good dog a pat.
Portia is sprawled out beside Destin on the mattress, propped on her elbow. Her fingers brush through the hair over his forehead. Destin smiles at me through half-lidded eyes, barely awake. He’s got a goose egg on his head the size of a softball.
Spotting me, Portia sits up, a little too quickly. “You’re here.”
Eyeing the bed, I sink onto the edge on Destin’s opposite side. “Yep, I’m here. What happened?”
Des shifts under the blanket, exposing his arm for my examination. There’s a soft cast encasing it from wrist to elbow. “Looks worse than it is,” he rasps. “Just a cracked bone and a bump on the head, but you know my mom. I was working with some younger kids at the skate park. They were scared to drop into the bowl, so I showed them a couple times. On the last one, bam. It would have been so much worse without Bert, but the dog’s a champ. Aren’t you buddy?”
Bert perks up when Destin leans over Portia’s lap to greet him. Bert puts his front paws on the bedframe and lifts enough to run his tongue over his boy’s cheek. Destin gives his doggie companion a couple of love pats before settling back into his pile of pillows.
I pat Destin’s uninjured arm. “Glad you’re okay.”
Destin grins when I pull his favorite Sriracha-flavored chips from below the side of the bed where I hid them. “You rock, Val.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Kicking off my shoes, I stretch out, careful not to jostle Destin. Portia snuggles in on his other side, and I’m a little surprised when he puts his uninjured arm around her.
We watch videos of people not recognizing Destin’s favorite pro skateboarder until the guy falls asleep. They’re Destin’s favorite thing to come out of the internet, so I’ve seen pretty much all of them. My friend’s chest rises and falls slowly as he sleeps. I wish, in these quiet moments, that there was more I could do for him, even though he’s told me a bunch of times that simply being here is the absolute best. Sighing, I close my eyes.
“You still awake over there?” Portia whispers.
I lift my head enough to catch her eye.
“How was your date?” she whispers.
“Fine.”
“Valencia Mercutio Lamb.” Oh, I’m in for a scolding. Portia doles out fake middle names when she’s gearing up to scold me. I’ve been on the receiving end once or twice. Okay, maybe twelve times. My personal favorite iteration was Valencia Agamemnon.
I make a dramatic, googly-eyed face, and she pretends to swoon. Portia will kick my butt from here to Shakespeare’s England if I leave anything out, so I tell her everything. We squeal silently at the kisses, and she makes kissing faces. It’s kind of fun to overshare about my dates with Leander, since there is so much I’m keeping from her.
I shudder at the doomed middle name she’d give me if she found out.
All That’s Left to Do Is Jump
A loud crack against the Corvette’s rear window makes me slam on the brakes. A smear of yellow oozes down the glass. A second egg connects, shattering.
Throwing the car into park, I lunge out the door.
A couple of elementary-age boys yelp and take off running toward one of the ranch houses lining the street.
My breath huffs as I give chase, gaining ground. I’m not normally a fast runner, but I’m motivated. Reaching out, I swipe at the slower boy’s shirt flapping behind him, but my fingers only graze the fabric. I try again and almost run smack into a paneled wood door as it slams in my face.
“Cowards,” I yell. “Come out and apologize to my face, or I’m calling the sheriff.”
Footsteps approach and the door opens. A woman opens it, hair up in a messy bun. Yoga pants smeared with what looks like yogurt. “Can I help you?”
“Your kids threw eggs at my car.”
Mouth pursing to the side, the woman leans past me. Her eyes widen, and then narrow. Sniffing, she looks down her nose at me. “Must have been an accident.”
I gape. “Your kids regularly play catch with raw eggs?”
She shrugs. “Have a good day.”
Anger rises like molten lava up my throat as I stare at that closed front door. Wow. Just, wow. I convince Mom to let me drive the ‘vette to school, and someone eggs it yet again. This town, I swear.
Fuming, I drive to school. The lot is packed with cars and people this close to the bell. Leaning my head back against the rest, I take a few deep breaths. I don’t want to walk in there all hot under the collar. I’m liable to get in a fight if anyone looks at me sideways, which I guarantee will happen within the first five minutes.
The hot flush of anger receding from my skin, I lean over the center console to scoop up my backpack. There’s a cell phone I don’t recognize on the floorboard. Sitting up, I look around stupidly for the culprit. When would someone have had the chance to toss a phone into my car? The only time I’ve been away from it this morning was when I chased those two kids, but there wasn’t anyone else out. It’s still early.
Picking up the phone, I turn it over. No identifying marks or cases of any kind. Looks like a burner.
Where did this come from? I power it on, and am surprised when it unlocks without a passcode. There’s not much on it but the basics. Definitely a burner.
I open the email, and stop cold. The only name in the inbox is one I recognize: GCuoco@Stvivian.com. An associated file is empty.
Blood throbs in my ears as I open the messaging app. Multiple threads are open, with several messages unread.
You okay, chief?
Where’d you go?
You there?
My veins go rigid as I open one that contains hundreds of messages. I scroll through, eyes widening with each text read. Whoever these two people are, they chatted a lot. Most days, it looks like. Meet me at 8. I’ll be there. You here yet? I’m outside.
The very first message in the thread is just one word: Jack? My dad’s alias again.
During the egging incident this morning, I slammed on the brakes pretty hard. Is it possible this phone was hidden under the seat, and the violent stop dislodged it?
Breathing hard, I scroll to the bottom of the thread. The most recent message. It’s dated more than six months ago, sent the night Gracia was murdered. The night my father disappeared.
I need you
Hold on.
I’m coming.
The phone is white hot, burning my palm. I drop it to my lap. My mind scrambles. This is the smoking gun. It’s the proof I was looking for but desperately hoped I wouldn’t find. Gracia and my dad arranged to meet that night, at the resort. In a hotel room he reserved under a different name.
A rap on the window nearly tears my soul from my body. I yip, looking up into a pair of sharp brown eyes.
Janice. “Whose phone is that? It’s not yours.”
I stare at her. “Yes, it is.”
The newspaper editor straightens, rolling her eyes. “No, yours has that book cover on it. You know, the one with the house in black and white.”
“In Cold Blood by Truman Capote,” I spout, immediately wishing I hadn’t.
“That one.” Rounding the car, Janice grips the passenger handle and glares until I unlock it. She’s not going away. I’ve been ducking her messages about my investigation, and now she’s got me backed into a sports car-shaped corner.
The warning bell rings through the lot, and a crowd of people eddies around the car, flooding over the sidewalk and up the stairs into the building. Janice stands, hand on the door, waiting for a break in the current. Sliding into the cab, she snatches the phone out of my hand and starts scrolling.
I hold my breath, wishing I could rewind this morning and change its course. If I had never gotten out of bed. If I hadn’t gotten dressed, eaten breakfast, and driven to school. If I had ignored the egg splatters instead of chasing those kids. Coulda shoulda woulda, my mom would say.
Janice’s fingers scroll at lightning speed. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was going to ask you about Destin, but this is so much better. Where did you find this?” She looks from the phone, to me, gaze sharp and observant. When I move to swipe it, she holds it against the far window. I’m antsy to get it back, but not enough to crawl into her lap.
Dropping my head on the steering wheel, I squeeze my eyes shut. This cannot be happening right now. I’m asleep in my bed, having the most vivid, heart-scalding nightmare of my life. All I have to do is wake up.
Wake up!
Hitting my forehead against the sculpted rubber does nothing but give me a vicious headache.
“Hey, knock it off!” Janice scolds, putting her beautifully manicured hand between my brow and the wheel.
Everything I’ve been working toward the past few weeks has been leading to this. When I began looking into Gracia’s murder, I knew beyond any shadows of doubt that I would find something, some clue, that would exonerate my dad in the eyes of the law. In the eyes of the entire town. There had to be something Interim Sheriff McCandles had missed that would solve the murder and clear my dad’s recently maligned name.
But every scrap of information I’ve found has done the exact opposite.
The image of my dad and Gracia in his SUV.
Her name in his address book.
The alias he used to reserve a hotel room and paid for with cash from an ATM in town.
Messages spanning the weeks leading up to her death, ending the night she was killed.
It would have been better if I’d kept my nose out of it. I would have been ignorant of all the shady crap my dad did. He would still be missing, but his image would be untarnished. Now, it’s too late. The damage has been done, inflicted by my own curiosity and a newly discovered knack for unearthing trouble.
Every cell in my body goes numb as I sit up and look at my frenemy. I expect to see malice in her gaze. A smirk of triumph as she gloats. She was right all along. Every instinct I have screams that my dad was innocent, but I’ve just proven him guilty.
Instead of malice, there’s something softer in Janice’s gaze. It’s a hundred times worse. Ego I can fight against, but this? I don’t know what to do with the sympathy in her eyes.
The tardy bell rings. I don’t move.
Janice doesn’t either. Handing me the phone, she hunkers down in the seat. “You’ve been holding out on me,” she says, but there isn’t any bite in the words.
I run my hands up the wheel to meet at the top. I’ve climbed the mountain, pulling myself over rocks and boulders that should have stopped me. I’ve followed the trail to its end at the peak. I look out over the valley below, littered with ugly truths I wish I’d never set eyes on.
All that’s left to do is jump, and let the truth of that night billow around me as I fall.
Swiping at the dust on the dashboard, I wipe it on my jeans. My body feels tight and bruised, as if I really have fallen down a mountain.
Janice stares out the windshield, her breathing is coming faster and shorter. She’s trying to hide it, but she’s upset by everything I’ve told her. And why shouldn’t she be? She probably didn’t expect to start the day by hearing all about how her best friend got involved with a grown man, and ended up tossed like garbage.
Uncrossing her arms, Janice swipes a finger under each eye. Tightens her ponytail. “You have to go to Sheriff McCandles.”
“Yeah,” is all I can manage.
“Want me to come with you?” The offer is stilted and unsure, her fingers gripping the seat belt.
Igniting the engine, I can’t look at her. Not sure how to react to our unspoken truce. Backing out of my spot, the Corvette points toward the department. “Let’s go.”
“Hey. Hey,” Janice says, gathering my attention. “He was a good dad, right?”
My throat closes around my answer, sharp corners tearing as it breaks loose. “I thought so.”
She gives a decisive nod. “Hold on to the good memories. No matter what happens. It helps.”
I think about it all the way to the department. Wonder how often she thinks about her dad confined to a jail cell. Throwing the car into park, I unbuckle. Find the courage to meet her eyes. “Is that what you do?”
Lifting her chin, Janice says, “Every damn day.”
Fine, I’ll Talk to McCandles
Janice marches with me into the sheriff’s department. The front desk is unmanned, so I tap the bell on the desk, and wait.
After a minute, Jonesie comes out. He takes one look at me and his smile falls. “What’s wrong, Val? Would cookies help? Sykes’s wife brought ‘em in, and if I eat any more I’ll need to order a new uniform.”
“No, thanks,” Janice says with a pointed look at her smart watch. “I’m just here to make sure Val talks to the sheriff sometime today.”
“You need a word with the sheriff? Come on back.” Jonesie lifts the pass-through panel to let me by.
“Text me as soon as you’re done,” Janice orders, shouldering out through the front door.
The sheriff is working on his laptop, but his shrewd eyes meet mine. “Valencia.”
Sliding into McCandles’ office, I close the door. My breath snags as I take in the space. It’s changed a lot since my dad disappeared. McCandles has photos and certificates displayed on the wall behind the desk. A couple of dingy rectangles mar the paint where my dad’s awards used to hang.
All of my father’s plaques and photos are propped in an open cardboard box in the corner. A framed one of my parents and me when I was a toddler lies on top. I suck in a breath, trying to re-inflate my lungs, my eyes cling to the image. I tried to convince my dad to bring in a newer photo so many times, but he always said he loved it too much to replace it. It’s easy to see why, looking at it now. I’m in my dad’s arms, smiling at the camera, my pigtails crooked. My mom grins too. Dad is looking at her with such contentment. My hand rises to rub at the spot beneath my collar bone.
Beside the photo is a certificate he received for working with the Drug Task Force to catch Dino Agani and Angus Hall with a truck full of cocaine bricks. Dad told me about it when he got home after his shift that day. They hadn’t had a bust that huge in several years.
“I’ve been meaning to bring that by, but there hasn’t been a good time,” the interim sheriff says, gesturing with an elbow toward the box of my dad’s stuff.
“I can take it. No problem.” I can’t tear my eyes from the remains of my dad’s lifelong pursuit of justice. Stuffed in a cardboard file box in a corner of the room he used to inhabit when he wasn’t patrolling town and making sure its people were behaving neighborly to each other.
