Lady wondered if she would have picked up a hobby like this had she had a stable home life. Moving from family to family hadn’t really been conducive to amassing a collection.

  “If I bought one of these, could you show me how to paint it?” asked Otsuya. She both sounded and looked completely serious.

  “I-I guess.” Agnes stared. After a moment the idea seemed to resonate with her. “Actually, I have some stuff from a kit that I haven’t painted yet. You could—I mean, if you wanted to, I could walk you through painting one of those.”

  “Yeah!” Otsuya didn’t even hesitate.

  “Okay.” Agnes beamed back at her. Otsuya’s enthusiasm was infectious, it seemed. She went to her bed and dropped down to her knees so she could rifle around beneath it. A few seconds later she came out with a big box. Otsuya went down beside her while she opened it up. “You could do one of these,” she said, taking out a few plastic figures that fit into her palm.

  “Yeah,” Otsuya said brightly, taking one from her.

  It occurred to Lady that this was a good way to spend more time around Agnes. She still needed to meet her father, and that didn’t seem likely to happen unless she was hanging around her during her hours off work. “Do you think I can do one too?” she asked, going to sit beside the girls as well.

  Agnes’ smile widened. “Sure!” She hesitated then, catching herself being a little too enthusiastic, perhaps. “I can bring this stuff to the library tomorrow. I know you need to be getting back there.”

  Doing this at the library would defeat the purpose. “Crispin probably wouldn’t want us doing this sort of thing there,” she said quickly. “I mean, it can be messy, right?”

  “Right. I didn’t mean, um—”

  “We don’t have to be anywhere,” said Otsuya. “You could show us now.”

  “If you have time,” Lady added. “We could always come back later if you’re busy.” She recalled that Agnes had implied some urgency in needing to get back home.

  “Um.” Agnes looked to the door. She frowned thoughtfully. “Sure.” She said finally. Gradually, she began to smile again. “I mean, if you don’t need to be anywhere… Sure. Why not?” She picked up the box and stood, carrying it over to a desk.

  Lady pulled out her phone and typed out a text to Dom as Agnes began pulling art supplies from drawers. She hoped Crispin wouldn’t mind them stealing his car away a little longer.

  A “little longer” turned out to be another two hours. Lady wasn’t quite as into the whole figurine painting thing as Otsuya was. She had only asked because she wanted to stick around a little longer and see what she could find out. That said, she was enjoying herself. She wasn’t very good at it, but there was no denying that it was enjoyable. It was certainly more enjoyable than shelving books at the library.

  Not that her figurine looked particularly good. She didn’t have steady enough hands to pull off the fine details Agnes was putting into the figurine she was painting as an example for both of them. “That’s really good,” Agnes kept telling them charitably. To her credit, she sounded like she meant it. There was something incredibly endearing about how happy sharing her interests was making her.

  When they finished their first figurines, she let them start on a second. Lady was halfway finished with hers when she heard a car door shut outside. She looked up and toward the sounds, wondering who it was. It took a moment for her to recall why she was here in the first place.

  Otsuya kept right on painting as if she hadn’t heard anything. Either she had completely forgotten their ulterior motives or she hadn’t had any going into their little arts and crafts project.

  Agnes put down her own paintbrush as she looked toward a clock on the wall. “That’s probably my dad.” She stood. “I’ll be right back.”

  Lady watched as she left the room, closing the door behind her. She nudged Otsuya with her elbow.

  “Hey!” snapped Otsuya, shooting a glare at Lady as her paintbrush slipped. “Watch it. You’re going to mess me up.”

  “We need to go talk to her dad,” Lady hissed.

  “But I’m working on this.”

  “You can work on it later. We’re here to solve a mystery. Remember?”

  Otsuya sighed and looked back at her figure with a pout. “That’s not our job, though,” she said, sounding terribly put out. “That’s the police’s job. You didn’t even like the guy. Let’s finish this. We can solve mysteries later.”

  “Come on.” Lady stood and headed for the door, trusting Otsuya to follow her. It might not be their official job, but they had both resolved to help out Crispin. He needed to know what had happened to his former employee. She opened the door and moved into the hallway.

  There were voices coming from the direction of the living room. It sounded like Agnes was explaining that they had guests. A man grunted in response, not sounding terribly interested in the news.

  Lady put on a smile and walked forward. Agnes and her father were both standing in the kitchen. Her father was someone she thought she vaguely recognized from the time she had spent at the Dark Lake police station. He looked a lot like his son and daughter, thin and with mousy brown hair. His posture was a little slouched and he carried himself like a man who was ready to sit down after a long day at work. He was pulling a beer out of the open fridge when he noticed the guests Agnes had been speaking of were nearby.

  He straightened up. “Oh! Hey, there.” He passed the beer bottle into his left hand so that he could hold the other out for a handshake when he stepped forward. “You’re from Agnes’ new job, right? At the library?”

  “More or less,” said Lady, taking his hand and giving it a shake. He didn’t have an especially firm grip.

  “Yeah,” said Otsuya, shaking his hand next. Answering in the affirmative was probably the better answer. The truth about whether or not they worked at the library was a bit murky.

  “Well, it’s nice to have you over.” It was difficult to tell whether or not he actually meant that. “I’m Lawrence, Agnes’ old man. Can I, uh, offer either one of you a drink?” He opened the fridge a little wider. “We have beer, apple juice—I’d offer you a soda, but those are my wife’s so—”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Lady assured him with a smile.

  “I’ll take a beer,” Otsuya said without a hint of shame.

  Lawrence took a second bottle of beer from the fridge and handed it over to Otsuya. He hesitated after handing it over, his eyes landing on Lady again. “I’ve seen you two around, haven’t I? Both of you?”

  Lady nodded. “Probably. I’m friends with Conners.”

  “Oh.” Lawrence straightened up. The mention of his boss put him on guard. “He’s a really good guy. Best captain we’ve ever had.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” said Otsuya, prying off her bottle cap. “We’re all off the clock here. No one is going to snitch on you if you want to complain about him.”

  Lady nodded in agreement. She didn’t want Lawrence on guard. That didn’t seem like a good way to get answers out of him. “He’s kind of got a stick up his butt, if you ask me.”

  Lawrence didn’t relax completely, but that did get a smile from him. He took a drink of beer. “Well, I’d offer to let the two of you stay for dinner, but—”

  “We’d love to stay for dinner!” Otsuya grinned at him, either not taking the hint or purposely ignoring it.

  Lawrence took a deep breath, he glanced to his daughter. “We’re just ordering pizza, right?” she asked. “We can eat in my room. I’m showing them how to paint miniatures.”

  “Ah.” Lawrence didn’t sound like he cared much about his daughter’s hobbies. “Yeah, of course.” He sounded uncertain. A moment later he nodded with a little more conviction. “Of course you two can stay, if you want.” Either he was glad his daughter had friends or he wanted her to get along better with her coworkers, have a job long enough to move out. Maybe it was a bit of both.

  “We’ll pitch in for the pizza,” Lady said, taking out the wad of cash Ms. Poole had given her to spend at the store.

  “That’s all right,” said Lawrence, but he didn’t argue with her when she handed over money anyway.

  “I’ll go ahead and order it,” Agnes offered. “Do you know what you want?” she asked Otsuya as she headed back toward her room.

  “Just order the usual,” Lawrence called after his daughter.

  Lady hung back. She didn’t really care what kind of pizza they got. She was more interested in getting answers. “So, that murder, huh?” she prompted, following him into the living room as he went to sit on the sofa. “Pretty crazy, right?” It was a lame way to fish for information, but it still got Lawrence’s attention.

  “I don’t—” He stopped, realization coming over his features. “Oh, the library. That’s right.” He took a drink of his beer. “Did you know him?”

  “As well as any of us knew him, I guess.” Lady leaned against the back of the sofa. “How’s the case going?”

  “I can’t really talk about it.”

  “Right. Duh.” Lady pried anyway, taking a different approach. “How are the parents doing?”

  Lawrence shrugged. “About as well as you would imagine. I don’t think you can ever really prepare for that sort of thing.” He shook his head. “I hate it for them. I really do.”

  “Did you know him? Chad, I mean. I know Dark Lake is a small town and all. I didn’t grow up here, but everyone seems to know each other.”

  “I’d seen him around,” Lawrence said with a nod. “I saw more of him when my kids were younger. There’s only the one high school, so he was a classmate of Ben and Agnes’. I think he and Ben hung out some.”

  “Really?”

  “It was hard to keep track of all the kids Ben hung out with. Agnes has always kept more to herself, but Ben—Well, he took after his mom.”

  Lady assumed Lawrence meant Ben’s birth mom. He hadn’t said it like it was a good thing either. “That’s crazy. Is he okay? Ben, I mean. It’s gotta be weird to lose a childhood friend.”

  Lawrence threw a look down the hallway, toward what must be his son’s room. “Oh, I think he’s all right.” He didn’t sound like he knew that for sure. “They hadn’t seen each other in a while. We talked about it some right after they found—Well, you know.”

  Lady was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t Ben she needed to be talking to. It didn’t sound like Lawrence here knew a whole lot.

  “Hey, Lady!” Otsuya called loudly from down the hall. “Agnes wants to know what you want on your pizza!”

  Lady felt her face heating up. It felt like she was a teenage girl at a slumber party rather than an adult guest in someone else’s home. “I’m sorry about her,” she said quietly to Lawrence before heading in that direction. She was in the hall when the front door opened.

  “Whose car is that out front?” asked a woman’s voice. She sounded exasperated. “You’d better tell Ben’s friends to leave. I’m not dealing with that tonight. I’ve got to pick up a shift tonight. I need to get a few hours of sleep while I can and—Are you seriously drinking already?”

  “It’s just a beer,” Lawrence said, dropping his voice down to a loud whisper as if in the hopes that it would indicate the woman should do the same.

  “And how many have you had, huh?” She huffed. “And you wonder why Ben won’t listen to you, why he acts up like he does. Some example you set for him. You—”

  “Kate,” hissed Lawrence.

  “What?!” she hissed back.

  Lawrence nodded down the hall in Lady’s direction. “Agnes has friends over. They’re staying for dinner.”

  “What?” Kate finally dropped her voice.

  Lady continued on to Agnes’ room. She didn’t want to get involved in that. As much as she wanted information, she wasn’t keen on the idea of getting in the middle of family squabbles. She slipped into Agnes’ room.

  “You’re too late,” said Otsuya, glancing up from the computer. “I already ordered for you.”

  Lady didn’t care about any of that. “I think your mom’s home,” she said to Agnes.

  “Hmm?” Agnes looked up from her desk chair, a frown on her face like she was confused. “Oh,” she said finally. “You mean Kate. She’s my stepmom.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s home.”

  Agnes nodded. “Sounds about right. She works at the hospital. She gets home around now some days.”

  “You two aren’t close, huh?” It wasn’t really any of Lady’s business, but she asked anyway.

  “Not really.” Agnes didn’t seem to have any reservations about opening up to Lady. She did so casually. It hadn’t taken them long to warm up to one another.

  “What about your brother?” asked Otsuya. She went to Agnes’ bed and sat down there. “Are the two of you close? I didn’t really get to meet him.”

  Agnes took a deep breath and looked to the door. She hesitated like she wasn’t sure how to answer. “We…” She trailed off, sighed, then started again. “We used to be a lot closer. Don’t get me wrong. I love him, but…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

  “How is it complicated?” asked Otsuya.

  “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Lady added quickly. She wanted answers, but Agnes was a nice girl. She didn’t want to pressure her into anything. There was a friendship sparking between them. She wanted to nurture that.

  Agnes hesitated again, her gaze going distant like she was thinking carefully about what it was she wanted to say. “He’s got his own issues, you know?” she said finally. “I try to help him where I can, but… There’s only so much you can do for a person when they don’t want to help themselves.”

  ***

  That was all they got out of Agnes. Lady let her know that if she wanted to talk more about it, she could. It wasn’t even a matter of finding things out. She wanted Agnes to have a shoulder to cry on if she needed one.

  Agnes didn’t want to talk about it though, and Lady wasn’t going to push her. They talked while they ate pizza, discussing nothing in particular. It was a nice evening all things considered. Lady had lost track of time when she got a text from Dom asking for an update.

  She said her goodbyes then. It wasn’t like they were getting valuable information anymore. At this point, she and Otsuya were just hanging out with Agnes.

  “Tonight was fun,” Agnes said after she had walked them to the door.

  Otsuya nodded in agreement. “We should hang out again.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Tomorrow?” Otsuya suggested.

  Agnes’ smile wavered. “Maybe… a little later than that. I’ve got other stuff I need to do. Definitely soon, though!”

  They said their goodbyes. The front door closed and Lady and Otsuya headed down the driveway. “She’s nice,” Otsuya said aloud.

  Lady nodded in agreement. “She is.” She certainly liked her a lot more than she liked Chad.

  “I don’t think she had anything to do with this,” said Otsuya. It was difficult to tell whether she actually believed that or if she simply wanted it to be true because she had decided she liked Agnes.

  “I hope she didn’t,” Lady said, but she wasn’t so sure. “I mean, I doubt she did herself, but… I don’t know.” She still didn’t know the rest of her family that well.

  There was no point in fretting over things now, though. They had done enough for one day. Lady opened the driver’s side door. She was about to get in when movement caught her eye.

  “Did you see that?” asked Lady.

  “See what?” Otsuya was already in on the passenger side. She squinted out into the darkness. The sun had set some time while they were inside eating pizza.

  Lady squinted into the darkness as well, looking to the spot at the side of the house where she was sure she had seen something. “I thought I saw…” There was movement again, and this time she made out a flash of color with it. Whatever it was, it was small and red.

  “Hang on.” Lady left the car door ajar and moved toward the side of the house. She walked slowly, doing her best to keep quiet. She hoped no one was looking out a window right now. Her sneaking around the house would look awfully suspicious.

  Lady didn’t see any more movement, but she knew the direction she had seen it go in. Against her better judgment she moved through the carport, around the house, and into the backyard.

  There was a light on out back. It looked like one of the motion sensitive ones, though she doubted it had picked up the movement she had seen. More likely there was already someone out here. She took a few steps further out into the backyard to try and get a better look. That turned out to be a mistake.

  “Hey,” said a man’s voice.

  It was Ben. Lady could see him squinting out into the darkness. She could also see that he had put on pants. And a shirt for that matter. The pants were baggy and hung low on his hips. He was a skinny dude with a skater style of dressing. It didn’t look like he had evolved much as a person since high school. Not that Lady had any right to judge people by their fashion sense.

  It wasn’t like she could hide in the shadows and slink off pretending that she hadn’t been seen. Maybe he hadn’t seen her face, but it would still be weird. Wouldn’t take much deduction to figure out who it was. Besides, the salamander had led her over here for a reason. She could only assume that was what the movement had been. Either that or she had followed a squirrel over here like it had been some sort of cosmic sign.

  “Hey.” Lady moved forward and into the light, raising a hand in greeting. “Sorry, I thought I heard something back here.”

  “Like what?” asked Ben. There was a cigarette between his fingers. He brought it to his lips and took a drag.

  “Like a raccoon,” Lady ventured lamely. “I… um… like raccoons, so… I wanted to see if it was one.”

  “Okay,” Ben said slowly. He sounded more collected and sober now. That wasn’t great for Lady. His being sober meant he could probably see through that lame excuse. “Not really many raccoons here, I don’t think. Possums. We get possums.”

 

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