Dare You

  Outside, the building was institutional as hell. Inside, it was almost worse. Ugly, graying tile led the way to an office filled with even grayer walls, which colored over with baby-vomit yellow as I walked by. This had to be the most depressing place I’d ever walked into. Or maybe I was just projecting that.

  A receptionist sat at a squat metal desk right up front. She looked up when I came in.

  “Help you?” she said in a bored voice. Her lips changed to the same sickly yellow when the words slipped through them.

  “I’m here to see Blake Willis?” I said. It came out as a question, and I dug my fingers into my palms to remind me to stop being such a baby and do this with confidence.

  The receptionist consulted her computer screen, clicked a few things, then looked back at me. “And you have an appointment with her?”

  “Uh, no. I don’t,” I said. “I only need to talk to her for a minute.”

  She rolled her eyes, and I could practically feel her hating her job from all the way across the desk. “She doesn’t see people without appointments. Nobody here does. For obvious reasons. We don’t do surprise visitors here.” I wondered if the receptionist also kept a handgun in the top drawer of her desk and 9-1-1 on speed dial, for the same obvious reasons. I probably couldn’t blame her if she did.

  “Can you just tell her Nikki Kill is here, please?” My voice had gone from whiny to impatient. Not any better than whiny. Impatient always made things harder on me. Impatient made me have to kick people and break things. This was the last place on earth I needed to be kicking people and breaking things. “If she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll leave. Promise.”

  But the receptionist’s eyes lit up like I’d said something that changed the game completely. Of course I had. I’d told her my name. There was no way anyone in this office would have not heard of me. For some crazy reason, I felt a tangerine pride that wet my mouth with citrus. That’s right, I’m Nikki Kill, bitches. Of course, the pride was swept away when I saw the wry grin pulling up one half of her face. A grin that said, We’re going to get you, Nikki Kill. Pride zapped.

  She picked up her phone and mumbled into it, then waved toward a bank of empty metal folding chairs on the other side of the room. I had barely lowered myself onto one when Blake Willis came around the corner. She looked alarmed.

  “Nikki?” she said.

  I stood. “Hey. Um, can we talk?”

  She squinted at me, and then looked uncomfortably around the room. “Okay, yeah. Come on back.” She gestured toward the hallway she’d just come out of. I followed her, noting how easily and confidently she glided along in her skirt and heels. It was no wonder that Detective Martinez would be attracted to a woman like her. She was polished and mature. And she had a plan for her life. Or at least she looked like someone who would have a plan for her life. Walking behind her, I realized that I couldn’t blame my lack of life plan on what had happened with Peyton. I would never be someone like Blake Willis, even if Peyton had never existed. I would never own a hallway the way she did. I would never walk with her poise. I would never be able to get out of my prism long enough to even try. Some people just weren’t life-plan kind of people, and I was one of them. Hell, I was their queen.

  She disappeared through a doorway without looking back. She waited by the door for me, and then quickly shut it when I’d followed her through. I sat in a beat-up leather-upholstered chair, my hands tightening around the armrests. I took a breath and loosened my grip.

  She didn’t sit behind her desk but rather rolled her chair around to one side of it, so that we were closer. If her intention was to intimidate, it was working. She sat, crossed her legs, pushed a curtain of red hair over one shoulder. “I definitely didn’t expect to see you here today.”

  “Me either,” I said. I rubbed one of the brass upholstery brads on the chair arm with one finger.

  “And you came because . . . ?” She sat so rigidly, like she was being graded on posture. My colors picked up nothing about her, though. She wasn’t putting off a bitchy vibe. Or even an aloof one. Not a particularly friendly vibe, either. She seemed to be pretty much a . . . void. It was weird.

  I licked my lips, pressed on the brad harder. “I was wondering . . . I mean . . . How close are you?”

  She furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head to one side. “How close? To what?”

  “To putting me away,” I said. “To proving that I was Peyton’s murderer. How close are you? Is there a case? Do I still have time?”

  She shifted, uncrossing her legs, and then crossing the other one, which she held in place by clasping both hands over her knee. “I guess I’m not following. Time for what?”

  Finally, a glimmer of suspicion, coming at me like spearmint gum.

  “Time to get the evidence I need to prove that I didn’t do it,” I said. “I’m almost there. So close. All I need is a few days—I can feel it. Can you slow things down? Just, you know, as a favor? Since you have . . . theories. And since, you know, you’ve been helping Detective Martinez a little?”

  She thought it over for a minute, that crease between her eyebrows deepening. She chewed on the inside of her cheek. Finally, she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands together with fingers tented. “Nikki,” she said softly. “You know I can’t discuss this with you, right?”

  “I don’t want discussion,” I said. “I just want . . .” God, I didn’t know what I wanted. I wanted the train to stop moving and let me off. I wanted the world to slow down. I wanted to go back seven months and not answer my phone when the hospital called. I wanted out. “The witness. The one who told you guys I’d been fighting with Peyton. Did she have black hair? Kind of spiky? Was she Luna’s friend? It was Shelby Gray, wasn’t it?”

  “I can’t . . .” Blake trailed off, pressed her lips together.

  “Right. You can’t.” I didn’t know why I’d thought I might be able to get answers, or help, or a break at all, much less be able to get any of those things from Blake Willis. “This was stupid,” I said. “I should go.” I stood. Blake reached out and grasped my wrist lightly.

  “Listen,” she said. “We have reason to be looking closely at you. That’s really all I can tell you, and you already knew that. I can’t give you any specifics about where we are with it or what we’re doing. But I can tell you that if you can clear your name, you should do it. I would love to hear what kind of evidence you have to prove someone else did it.”

  I pulled my hand away from hers, my heart beating quickly. “Martinez wouldn’t like me being here by myself at all,” I said. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  She gave a wan smile, nodding her head a little. “Yeah,” she said. “He probably wouldn’t, especially if it could come back on you somehow. Because he’s smart and you should listen to him. And I probably shouldn’t know about his involvement, either.” She gazed up at me, and the world turned icy white. “Whatever it is.”

  “He’s helping me,” I practically whispered, feeling small and stupid and wishing more than anything that I’d just U-turned past this place and gone back home; just concentrated on getting to Bakersfield.

  “He’s very helpful,” she agreed. “A little too.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  She patted her knees contemplatively, two, three times. Then stood, this time crossing her arms over her chest. We were only inches apart now. I could smell her perfume, which was sweet and flowery like an island in summer. “I know what it’s like,” she said. “It’s like he just can’t help himself when it comes to saving people. He can’t get out of his own past. The big mystery that he keeps locked up tight inside himself.”

  I didn’t know why, but I had for some reason imagined them sharing every little detail of their lives. Legs wrapped together on his couch or her bed, fingers entwined, whispering secrets, understanding each other. But if I was hearing her right, he hadn’t told her about his past. He hadn’t even told her the things he’d told me.
br />   “All I know is he won’t ever get over whatever it was as long as he’s so focused on being everyone’s savior.”

  “He’s not everyone’s—”

  “You’re right,” she said. She huffed a chuckle of air through her nose, shaking her head at the ground before leveling her eyes at me. They didn’t look threatening or even hard. They looked . . . hurt. Worried. “He’s only focused on being your savior.”

  “I don’t need a savior,” I said. I edged my way toward the door and opened it a few inches. A man in a suit walked briskly past, not even so much as looking in my direction, but seeing him gave me a jolt anyway. I was not in a place that would be friendly to me. I was stupid for coming here. “I didn’t ask him to save me.”

  Not entirely true. I did ask him, in the Hollis backyard, when I’d been hiding from Luna behind a trash can outside the pool house. I’d called him and begged him to come. And he’d done so. And we’d somehow been entwined in this mess ever since. I was the one owning his mysteries. I was the one on his couch.

  “That’s the thing,” she said, following me to the door. “You didn’t need to ask him.”

  It wasn’t worry I was seeing in her eyes. I could see a magenta creep into the baby blue, and turn it to turquoise. The colors swirled around her pupils, a sherbet of jealousy. She was in love with him. And she felt threatened.

  I didn’t know what to say. I was too entranced by the swirl, which had leaked out of her eyes and pooled over her face.

  She sighed. “Listen, Nikki. This isn’t someplace you should be hanging around. Do yourself a favor and stay off our radar for as long as you can.” She pushed the door just enough to close the gap. “Lie low,” she whispered. “Let us get distracted by other cases.”

  “Cases more important than the murder of a Hollis?” I whispered back. “What does that even look like?”

  She eased her hand away from the door and let it fall to her side. “Tell Chris I said hi,” she said.

  She moved to her desk, sat behind it, and opened a huge book, then began writing down something into a legal pad as if I wasn’t even there.

  Dismissed.

  I started through the door.

  “Oh, and Nikki?”

  I turned. She laid her pencil down on the pad and shook her head, rolling her eyes at herself, as if she couldn’t believe she was even talking to me.

  “It wasn’t a girl with spiky hair,” she said. “The witness? Was a guy.”

  32

  BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, I need food,” I said, as soon as I got into Detective Martinez’s car. I’d made a promise to myself not to mention my little meeting with Blake Willis. She was right—I would be wise to stay off their radar, and the last thing I needed was a lecture from him telling me the same thing. It had been foolish to go there. I didn’t need another reminder. Besides, there was that whole awkward swirl going on. I didn’t want to have to tell him what she said . . . and what she didn’t say. And I didn’t even know where to begin with the revelation that my so-called witness was a guy. Who could it have possibly been? Surely not Rigo himself. Maybe one of his brothers, though? Who could the Hollises have paid off to sink me? “I don’t care where, just hit a drive-through somewhere.”

  He gave me a look over the top of his glasses.

  “I’ve got money,” I said.

  Again with the disapproving look.

  “What? I haven’t eaten today.”

  “You don’t think you should maybe tell me what this is all about? Out of the blue, you need to go to Bakersfield. And for some reason you need me to go with you. And now I’m supposed to just grab a burger and drive three hours out of town like this is some high school road trip, no questions asked. I need more than that. Are we going to do something illegal?”

  I clasped my hand to my chest. “Why would you assume I would do something illegal?”

  He didn’t respond. Just gave me The Stare. “Okay. Fine. But only if you drive while I talk.” I didn’t want Dad getting curious and seeing me taking off. Granted, Detective Martinez’s car wasn’t a cruiser with lights on top, but it still screamed police. “It’s not illegal,” I added. “Jeez.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, he pulled away from the curb.

  “And I don’t want a burger. What about tacos?”

  “Not in my car. You want to eat in my car, you get a burger. No ketchup.”

  “Wow, Captain Clean. Control issues much? You should add OCD to your list of things you need to mention to your therapist.”

  “Talk or I stop again.” He let up on the gas to show me he was serious.

  “Okay, okay. Remember the letter from Peyton? She talked about a woman in it.”

  He nodded. “Brandi. Courteur or something like that.”

  “Good memory. Yes, but her name is actually Brandi Carter. And she was friends with my mother.”

  “How do you know?”

  I sank down in my seat, trying to look nonchalant, but knowing that I was going to hear it no matter what. “I’ve been sort of investigating on my own.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” he muttered, shaking his head. His jaw worked angrily as he stared out the windshield. I felt the car speed up. Finally, he looked over at me. Not being able to see his eyes under his glasses was driving me crazy. I wished he would just take them off. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

  “Do you know how dangerous I am?” I countered.

  He brushed just under my collarbone with his forefinger. “Dangerous enough to get attacked in your own home?”

  “Come on, that’s not fair. They took me by surprise. Plus, I held them off, right?”

  “You’re not invincible, Nikki. I know you think you are, but you’re not. Am I going to have to have you tailed? Is that what you want?”

  I made yak-yak-yak motions with my hands. “You sound so official. Have me tailed. Whatever. You know if you could have me tailed, you wouldn’t be the one following me around everywhere I go.”

  “Not true,” he said, but then the air in the car got awkward and we both just sat there in the feathery fern feeling.

  “So this woman—Brandi—has answers, I think. About Peyton. About my mom too, maybe. I’m not sure. All I know is I need to talk to her so I can get to the bottom of things. Maybe she’ll be able to give us something that will prove the Hollises were behind Peyton’s attack. Or lead us to Rigo. You never know. I can’t rest if there’s a stone unturned.”

  He guided his car into a parking lot where a taco truck was parked. Such a pushover. “But you don’t think you should be a cop.”

  “Oh God, don’t start that again. No. You will never convince me, so stop trying. N-O. No. Got it?”

  He parked, and I practically bolted out the door before he’d even come to a full stop. “Got it,” he said to my back. “Let’s get tacos and talk to Brandi Carter.”

  LIGHTHOUSE DIMENSIONS CHAPEL, aside from being all kinds of aqua in my mind, was a modest brick building set on a large, tree-lined plot of land. A couple of cows grazed in a field behind it, kept out by a simple white slat fence. It was all very Norman Rockwell. If Norman Rockwell housed secrets of hookers and mystery children.

  Detective Martinez parked the car and we both stared at the front of the church. “You’re sure she’s here?”

  “There’s one way to find out,” I said. I licked my lips, suddenly nervous. I wished I hadn’t ordered such a large drink, or so many tacos; my stomach sloshed around disagreeably.

  “The office is over there,” he said. “There’s a sign.”

  “Okay.” But still I didn’t move.

  “Hello?” He leaned toward me, waved his hand in front of my face. “You change your mind?”

  “No way,” I said. “I just realized I have no idea what I’m going to say. I’m trying to formulate a plan.”

  “We’ve been driving for three hours and that wasn’t enough time for you to formulate a plan?”

  “I was listening to your riveting talk radio.”

/>   “I like to be informed,” he said. “And I like the company. It’s a habit. You could have interrupted. Three hours and you spent most of it eating tacos and browsing the internet on your phone.”

  “It seemed shorter than that. I don’t know. I just didn’t think about what I would say, okay?”

  “How about we go in there and just start talking?”

  “Well, barging into places asking questions hasn’t exactly worked out real well for me lately,” I said. “And I can’t even believe that you, of all people, are suggesting it.”

  He held up a finger. “Correction, barging into places by yourself and asking questions hasn’t worked out for you. But you have me this time.”

  “Because you’re so good at getting answers? Need I remind you who got to Hollis Mansion first?”

  “Need I remind you who had to go to Hollis Mansion to help you out?”

  The air felt weird. Charged and angry—rusty gold fireworks that died in tiny puffs of smoke as they trailed into my lap. I didn’t like being reminded of that night. “Let’s just go,” I said.

  We pulled open the door and found ourselves inside a musty-smelling office, staring at a blond woman who was sitting behind a desk, holding a phone. The blood drained from her face when she saw us. Even if I had never seen a photo of Brandi Carter, I would have known it was her by her reaction. “I’ll need to call you back,” she said, and hung up. “Can I help you?” Her voice wavered. She knew damn well who we were. I could see it on her.

  Brandi Carter definitely looked older than she had in the video, and of course she wasn’t pregnant, but the face was the same. Kind, soft, full of wonder. And, right now, also full of fear.

  She knew my mom. This woman had been friends with my mom. A piece of my mother that hadn’t died. Part of me wanted to hug her, to let her hug me and see if any tiny leftover piece of my mom rubbed off between us.

  “Actually, I imagine you’ll be a lot of help to us,” Detective Martinez said.