“So you…weren’t friends?” Seneca asked in a small voice, feeling disappointed. Suddenly, she realized the possibility that Brett had led them to the aquarium only as a distraction, running down the clock until the deadline was up. Had she made a grave mistake?
Barnes faced the eels again. His shoulders sagged. “Well, I saw her around a lot. And the day she came into the aquarium, last summer? Best day of my life. We talked. Really talked. I told her about all the fish. Afterward, she asked if I wanted to take a walk. Of course I said yes. She told me she was fed up with her boyfriend. He didn’t understand her. He was jealous. At the end of the walk, when we were under this pier, she grabbed me and kissed me hard. It was…” There was wistfulness in his tone, but then his face fell. “I thought it would go somewhere, but I never heard from her again.”
Seneca felt a cold, slimy sensation expand in her gut. There was something so emotionally painful about his words. Something, too, that reminded her of Brett, especially in that last poem he’d left for them. I met her, and it was love. Thought she thought so, too. He hadn’t explicitly stated it, but Seneca guessed her mom had rejected Brett…and Helena had, too. Could they add Chelsea to that list? Perhaps that was Brett’s MO: punishing women who wouldn’t give him what he wanted.
“That must have been hard, huh?” she said softly. “You thought you had a connection. You thought you meant something to her. It was brutal when she ghosted you.”
“I guess,” he said gruffly.
“That’s why you wrote the comments on Instagram. If she wasn’t going to participate in the relationship in real life, at least you could follow through with the fantasy.”
Barnes stiffened. “But I didn’t do anything to her. I swear. If the cops look at my Instagram account, if they see what we wrote, and if they find out she wasn’t writing it, well, I know how it looks.” He shook his head. “I’ve been so on edge. This girl came in here the other day—got trapped in a back hallway where I was working. She looked just like Chelsea. I thought it was someone fucking with me, someone who’d found out that I’d lied.”
“That was just my friend Aerin,” Seneca assured him. “She wants to help Chelsea, too. We won’t tell the cops anything. We think Chelsea blew off someone else, just like she rejected you. But unlike you, this guy snapped…and kidnapped her. We’re worried he’s going to kill her. So I need you to look at something for me. A clue he left. Chelsea needs you, Barnes. And if you help find her, we’ll make sure she knows you saved her life.”
Barnes stared at the ceiling for a moment, then shone his flashlight on the clues Seneca pulled from her pocket. His brow furrowed as he took in the menu, the Target address, and the flyer for the concert at the aquarium. “Oh. Yeah, okay. She’s been to this sushi place. Took a picture there, actually. I still remember it.”
“On Instagram?” Seneca demanded, letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
Barnes reached for his phone in his back pocket. After a few quick swipes, he pulled up Chelsea’s account and selected a photo of Chelsea lying across a table in a dimly lit restaurant. She wore a gold bikini top, hot pants, and white platform shoes. The look in her eyes oozed sexuality, and her lips were parted in a please-kiss-me-now pucker. The photo had over fifty thousand likes.
“This was taken at Sushi Monster?” Seneca asked. The photo wasn’t location-tagged.
“Absolutely.” He tapped the big fish tank behind Chelsea’s head. “That’s a peppermint angelfish in there. Sushi Monster is the only place around that has one. They’re, like, ten grand a fish.”
Madison ran her hand through her ponytail. “What about the other two locations in these clues?”
“No idea about Target, but she did come see this band play once.” He pointed at the Oddly Shaped Men flyer they’d found at Starbucks. His eyes shifted toward the ground, and there was a tiny hitch in his voice. “I was there, too. The very next day was when she kissed me.”
Seneca looked at her friends. “Could these clues be about people Chelsea hooked up with besides Jeff? When we were investigating Helena, we uncovered all her secrets—drugs, Ingram, running away. Our guy”—she paused, not wanting to say Brett’s name out loud in front of Barnes—“seems to enjoy peeling back the layers of people, showing that they weren’t as perfect as they seemed.”
“So you’re saying maybe Chelsea hooked up with someone at that house on Ninety-Third Street?” Madison suggested. “And then was there someone else at the Japanese place?”
“Maybe,” Seneca said.
“So what?” Maddox argued. “Chelsea cheated on her boyfriend. Jeff already told us that. This feels like noise, not a real clue. How does it add up to where he’s hiding her?”
“I’m not sure….” Seneca stared at the Instagram picture of Chelsea again. Something caught her eye: The photo had been taken fifty-two weeks ago exactly. She clicked through to get the precise date and found that it was yesterday, one year before.
She tapped on Chelsea’s next image, also taken a year ago yesterday. Sure enough, it was inside a beach house—maybe the one they’d looked at on Ninety-Third. In the image after that, exactly one year ago today, Chelsea was in a makeup aisle—Target? In the next photo, taken only hours later on the same day, Chelsea made a kissy face on this very boardwalk. Seneca couldn’t make out much more detail when she zoomed in, but she had a feeling that the blurry building in the distance was the aquarium they were standing in.
Connections began to form in her brain. “Last year’s Instagram photos match up sequentially with Brett’s clues. Could today’s date be significant, somehow?”
“Yeah, but of what?” Maddox mused aloud. “July sixteenth. It’s not her birthday. It’s not anything.” He turned to Barnes, who was still standing there. “Do you know?”
He nodded. “It’s her update day.” There was a sheepish expression on his face. “She does an update video on the sixteenth of every month.”
Seneca turned back to the phone. Sure enough, the next post was an update video—Chelsea was thanking all her followers and saying she had “big plans” for the page in the future. “Better photos,” she teased. “Better makeup reviews. And lots more of moi.” She made kissing lips at the camera.
Seneca looked at Barnes. “Do you know where she took this?”
Barnes squinted at the screen. “I’ve watched this one a lot. It’s her friend’s beach house. Her name’s Ophelia something.”
Seneca’s heart started to pound. “Is this house nearby?”
“Sure. Out of town a ways, on a vineyard. But I don’t think her family is here this summer—I haven’t seen Ophelia around at all.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter,” Seneca said dazedly.
She thought of Chelsea’s update videos. Barnes seemed to know every one by heart…and she bet Brett did, too. They were something he probably both loved and despised, fascinated by her beauty, disgusted by her narcissism.
Maddox cleared his throat. Seneca looked up, and he was staring at her, his lips parted, his eyes wide. Seneca could tell he was drawing the exact same conclusions, bridging the same gaps.
“We need to get to that house now,” she said. “Call Aerin and Thomas. Tell them the shack might be a trap.”
AERIN AND THOMAS didn’t say a word to each other on the bumpy drive out of town past a few lonely farms and through the entrance to the wetlands. She tried to distract herself by looking around the interior of his car, an old Ford Focus with window cranks and manual transmission. There were a bunch of library books and DVDs littering the backseat. She spied an Agatha Christie paperback that she’d read, too, and considered mentioning it, but then realized she was way too keyed up to make idle chitchat.
A big sign alerted them that they were now in protected space, so no hunting, littering, or trespassing was permitted. “There,” she said, noticing something brown and pointed just over the trees. As they rounded the corner, a broken-looking house stood down a dirt road, in a clear
ing. The windows were boarded up, and the roof was black with rot. An old pickup truck, long rusted away, slumped in the gravel driveway. So did a big buzzard, chewing on the remains of a dead animal.
Thomas pulled onto the shoulder and hit the brakes. “Let’s park here. This car will get stuck in the mud if we go any farther.”
“Okay,” Aerin whispered.
“Do you think we should call the cops before we go in?”
Aerin rolled her jaw. “What if Brett’s in there and sees the police lights and kills her? Or what if just Chelsea’s in there and Brett’s watching from a remote location and he see the cops and hits some sort of detonator and blows us all up? Or what if—”
“Got it,” Thomas interrupted curtly, seeming nervous, too. He opened the car door. The buzzard lifted from the ground, flapping its enormous wings. The air was so still and quiet, Aerin could hear the thudding of her heart. She glanced at Thomas. His jaw was taut. His eyes focused straight ahead. He was all business.
He started up the driveway. “Stay with me at all times, okay? I’ll lead. You follow. Don’t get out of my sight. Getting separated could be really dangerous.”
Aerin scrambled after him. The air had a strange smell to it—like sulfur, wet asphalt, and burned electronics. The wind picked up suddenly, brushing the blades of tall grass together. There were weeds all around the house, growing into the foundation. As they got closer, the shack creaked and moaned. It was even more dilapidated than she’d first thought—definitely uninhabitable-looking. No one had lived here in years.
Aerin stood on tiptoe and tried to peer into the single dirty window on the first floor that wasn’t covered in cardboard. Was Brett in there? Chelsea? She stared hard, trying to make out shapes. She thought she caught something moving and widened her eyes, but it was too dark to tell.
Something fluttered in the grass, and she snapped up. How long had she been standing here? Thomas was gone. She could hear distant footsteps, almost out of earshot. Her throat felt dry. There was no way she was going to call out to him.
She tramped around the side yard. The grass was even higher, and there was a fence a few feet away that seemed to have been chewed apart by something huge and carnivorous. Part of the shack’s siding had eroded straight through to the fiberglass. There were thick patches of weeds—and probably poison ivy—under Aerin’s feet, but she trudged through them anyway. The wind swished eerily again, blowing her hair into her face.
Clang. She jumped and spun around. In the backyard, a rusted rooster weather vane mounted on a stump swung wildly with the wind, haphazardly knocking into a pile of junk behind it. Aerin’s gaze scanned the heap: There was a rusty saw, some clamps, and an iron mallet that looked like it weighed more than she did. They reminded Aerin of torture weapons. An unsettling frisson fluttered up her spine.
Flies swarmed feverishly around something just out of view. Swallowing hard, she crept around the pile of rubble and looked down. The first thing she saw on the crumbling brick slab was a splotch of blood. She jumped back, bile rising to her throat. When she peered again, she swallowed a scream. Bones lay on the ground, the flesh picked clean away. Aerin raised a hand to her mouth. They looked huge. Maybe someone’s legs. A forearm.
Something flashed behind her again. In the window? Aerin craned her neck, staring hard until her vision blurred. Her fear was doing a number on her balance, and she took a wobbling step back, nearly toppling over. This was a terrible idea. They couldn’t be here. They had to leave, now.
And then she heard Thomas’s scream.
IT WASN’T HARD for Maddox, Seneca, and Madison to track down Ophelia’s family’s house—when Maddox typed Avignon vineyard into Google, it was the only property that came up. He drummed nervously on the steering wheel as they rolled down the secluded dirt road toward the property. Grape vines hemmed them in on either side, dry and twisted and fingerlike, and the clouds were thick and gray above them, threatening more rain.
“Shit,” Seneca murmured, stabbing end on her phone. “Aerin still isn’t answering. Where is she?”
“At least she’s with Thomas,” Madison said nervously. “She’s got to be okay, right?”
There was a break in the road, and a small hand-lettered sign reading Wild Goat Vineyards, with an arrow pointing in one direction. Maddox turned the wheel, and they started up a long driveway. In the distance, a monolithic modern structure of steel, glass, and stone gleamed. “Holy shit,” he breathed. The house had to be at least six thousand square feet.
Halfway up the drive, he slowed the Jeep to a stop. “Do you think we should park in the driveway? Brett will see us.”
Seneca nodded. “At this point, he’s expecting us. I think we should park as close to the entrance as possible so we have a getaway car if we need it.”
Madison looked nervous. “If Brett’s in there, how are we going to fight him? With our bare hands?”
“Let’s call the cops,” Maddox suggested. “Now. I’m not sure I can go in without knowing they’re close.”
Seneca seemed reluctant. “Brett won’t like that…but then, maybe that doesn’t matter. We go in first, but we have the cops close behind. Okay, do it.”
“I’ll say I’m reporting a break-in,” Madison said, reaching for her phone. “That I see suspicious stuff happening at the vineyard’s house.” She pressed the buttons for 9-1-1.
Maddox maneuvered the vehicle in front of the house. There were no typical signs of vacationers—no towels hung on the porch, no beach gear propped against the door, not even rocking chairs on the patio. Everything seemed locked up, almost abandoned. If someone was here, they were hiding it well.
“Cops will be here soon,” Madison said, slipping her phone back into her pocket.
Maddox stared up at the structure. The house was massive. Each level had a large deck, and Maddox noticed a pool off to the left. One of the striped umbrellas looked familiar from one of Chelsea’s update videos. There were a few empty clay pots stacked against the back door; he strolled over to them and cautiously looked inside, finding only a dead spider and some clots of dirt. Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck rose. He wheeled around and squinted into the thick vineyard, sensing something he couldn’t put his finger on.
“What?” Seneca whispered, freezing, too.
Maddox blinked. “I don’t know. It just feels like someone’s…watching.”
Everyone stared at the field. Nothing moved. The dry branches cast long shadows on the ground. If someone was there, they’d turned to stone.
Maddox looked back to the house. “This place probably has a sweet security system. How did Brett override that?”
“You’re forgetting Brett figured out how to break into the Dakota in New York City,” Seneca muttered.
Maddox inspected the area under the porte cochere for anything that might indicate Brett’s presence. A dropped gum wrapper. A sneaker print. One of Chelsea’s long blond hairs. His heart was racing, and any moment he expected an alarm to go off, or a car to roll up, or a bullet to shoot him dead. Then, as he turned, another strange sensation washed over his skin.
“Guys.” When the others were by his side, he sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”
Madison shook her head. Seneca breathed in and frowned. But all sorts of synapses fired in Maddox’s brain. “It’s Brett’s cologne.”
“Would Brett wear the same cologne as he did in Dexby?” Seneca asked.
“It was distinct.” Maddox was heady with the smell now, even though it was faint. “But I can smell it for sure.”
Something in the vineyards rustled again. Everyone whipped around and stood straighter. A bird with a bent wing lifted above the branches. Maddox stared at its reflection against the window, then noticed something incongruous. The blinds were pulled down tight, but it seemed like there was a light on inside.
“We have to figure out how to get in,” he said to the others. “A window? One of the patio doors? There’s a little door on the widow’s walk on t
he top floor….”
“What are we supposed to do, scale the house?” Madison went to the garage door again and twisted the knob. Then she stepped back and gasped. Maddox rushed over, afraid something had happened to her. Another blast of cloying cologne assaulted his nostrils.
“It’s…open,” Madison whispered, pointing. And indeed, the door was unlocked, pushed ajar a few inches. Maddox peered into the dark room. There was only one thing to do now. Go inside.
“THOMAS!” AERIN SCREAMED, crashing through the weeds. Her foot caught on an exposed piece of pipe, and she flew into the dirt. When she stood, another screech pierced the air. There was a pounding sound, too, like metal against bone. Aerin thought of the pile of twisted objects in the backyard. The bones on the ground. What was Brett doing to Thomas?
She leapt to her feet and ran. As she circled to the front of the house, she caught sight of Thomas on the porch. He was standing, but his body was contorted, and there was blood on his arms. “Thomas!” she called again.
Thomas turned, his eyes full of warning. “No!”
Aerin darted forward anyway. She wasn’t going to let Brett hurt him. He’d hurt too many people already. She was only a few feet away before she realized something was scuttling on the ground, a tail swinging, teeth gnashing. She stopped short, disoriented. This wasn’t Brett…but an animal.
Thomas raised a rusty shovel over his head and smashed it down, crushing the creature’s skull. The thing let out a wail and flattened to the ground, and a bald, pale tail whipped back and forth. Aerin screamed and covered her mouth. Two other rodents lay near a dilapidated porch swing. One had a gaping wound in its side. The other was missing half its head.
“Oh my God,” Aerin gurgled.
Thomas stared at her from the porch. He was breathing hard, and his shirt was spotted with sweat. “Jesus.” He sounded freaked. “Those were the biggest rats I’d ever seen.”