Seneca squinted and sounded it out. ‘I’ll … love … you … forever … my … Samurai … nite.’ She looked up and made a face. ‘Okay …’
‘I’m thinking she meant Samurai Knight, with a K, and just couldn’t make it fit.’
‘Do you think Kevin is her Samurai Knight?’ Seneca thought about Kevin Larssen, Helena’s boyfriend. She used to keep a printout of his photo on her desk at home with her other Helena Kelly materials. He had pale skin and wavy light hair. But that was probably too literal an interpretation.
Aerin didn’t look convinced. ‘This one time, we all watched Saw. He hid his eyes through the whole thing. That doesn’t seem samurai-like to me.’
‘Girl, I hid at that movie, too,’ Brett said sheepishly. He struck Seneca as someone who had no filter, who cheerfully blurted out whatever was on his mind no matter how foolish it made him look. She’d always been amazed by people like that, as she usually did the exact opposite, choosing each word and gesture with careful consideration.
Brett pulled up Kevin’s Facebook page, which Seneca knew well. She’d trolled through it regularly, scrolling back for Helena references, though most of Kevin’s posts were about a government club he was part of, Connecticut Youth.
Today, Kevin’s page was all politics; in his main picture, he stood on a podium giving a speech to the Connecticut Board of Education. There was another picture of him shaking hands with Joe Biden. ‘He’s running for state senate, so he tried to delete his posts from high school,’ Brett said. ‘But there are ways to retrieve that sort of stuff if you know your way around a computer. And if you do get into his old page –’
‘– you’ll see he talked to Helena on Facebook,’ Seneca interrupted, suddenly remembering. ‘Helena called him nicknames. Mr. Man, Hottie, but never Samurai Knight.’
Brett raised an eyebrow. ‘You hacked it, too. I knew I was dealing with a smarty.’
Seneca pressed her lips together. Perhaps it was better to let the group believe that than tell the truth – that maybe she’d been a little too obsessed back in the day. ‘Anyway,’ she rushed on, ‘you’re thinking Helena’s referring to someone else in the skip code? A Japanese guy, maybe?’
Maddox laced his hands behind his head, revealing a strip of bare skin above his jeans. Seneca looked away. ‘Or maybe it’s some random joke between the two of them.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Your sister seemed to be big on inside jokes.’
Aerin’s head snapped up. ‘How would you know?’
He sat back in the booth. ‘We talked, sometimes. She was cool.’
Aerin’s eyes blazed. ‘Actually, how do we know you didn’t do something to my sister?’
Seneca widened her eyes. Whoa.
Maddox’s relaxed expression vanished. ‘Excuse me?’ Apparently he didn’t always keep his cool.
‘You had access to my house. And you probably had a thing for my sister – what, did she talk to you, like, once? Oh, you’re cool now, but back then you weren’t. Back then, you –’
‘Aerin,’ Brett interrupted, ‘I really don’t think Maddy would hurt anyone.’
‘Yeah, I don’t know …’ Seneca said. She doubted Maddox could conceal his killer instincts so expertly. And why would Helena’s killer want to solve her murder?
‘I have an alibi,’ Maddox said darkly. ‘I was with my mom. She dragged me to the city that day to look at wedding dresses.’ By his expression, he was clearly wounded.
‘Okay, okay,’ Aerin said sullenly. ‘Everyone stop staring at me like that, all right? I had to ask.’ She looked at Brett. ‘So Helena might have had a secret boyfriend, is that what you’re trying to say? How are we supposed to find out who that is?’
Brett drummed on the plaid place mat. ‘Did your sister … have Japanese friends? Was she interested in anything Japanese? Is there some sort of link?’
Aerin rolled her jaw. ‘Three Japanese people probably live in Dexby, total, and they run the sushi bar. And guess what – my sister hated sushi, so you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
She stood like she was going to leave. Seneca caught her arm. ‘Well, I have a question for you.’ Aerin stopped. ‘I’m wondering why it took you ten minutes to get a purse.’
Aerin looked blank. ‘Excuse me?’
‘In your interviews about your last day with Helena, you said you went inside to get a purse for the snowman and came back out ten minutes later. Five minutes is long, Aerin. Your interviews also say you were grateful to hang out with Helena; you hadn’t connected in a long time. If you were so eager to spend time with your sister, why would you waste time away from her?’
Aerin sat down again, grabbed a napkin from the dispenser, and started to rip it into pieces. ‘I don’t see why that matters.’
Seneca crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I think it does. What were you doing?’
Aerin squeezed her eyes closed. The only sounds were the clinking of cutlery. ‘I snooped through Helena’s room, okay? She sent me in there. I just wanted to see what it looked like.’
Seneca nodded, satisfied. ‘Did you find anything interesting?’
Aerin shook her head. ‘No …’ Her gaze shot to the side. Seneca could tell she was thinking about something, but she decided to hold off before asking.
‘Did anything else come up that day you might want to discuss?’ Maddox asked.
Aerin thought for a while. ‘There was another thing. I told Helena I missed her, and she said, We’ll talk more, but some of it will have to be under wraps.’
Maddox looked intrigued. ‘Like she wanted you to keep things secret?’
‘I don’t know. And besides, she never told me anything again.’ A pained look crossed Aerin’s face. Then she stood. ‘It’s late. Let’s regroup tomorrow.’ She slung her purse over her shoulder, went a few paces, and then stopped in her tracks and spun around. ‘Wait. Origami is Japanese, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Seneca said, cocking her head. ‘Why?’
‘There was a paper crane in her room, when I went in there. It was … weird.’
Seneca knew Aerin had been thinking about something. ‘Did the cops see it?’
‘I took it before they searched her room. I felt like I needed to protect it somehow.’
‘Do you still have it?’ Maddox asked.
Aerin’s eyes darted back and forth. ‘Yeah.’
‘Will you bring it to us?’ Seneca asked.
Aerin blinked. Her bottom lip trembled. ‘Yeah,’ she whispered. ‘Okay.’
‘Great.’ Seneca brushed her hands together. ‘Well, listen. We’ll talk everything over here, and then we’ll meet again in the morning. You name the spot.’
Aerin thought for a moment. ‘Le Dexby Patisserie,’ she said. ‘Nine. I’ll see you then.’
She backed out the door. Everyone else remained where they were. Finally, Maddox stood up, too, and stretched. ‘Paper cranes?’ he asked. ‘You really think it’s something?’
Seneca shrugged. ‘It’s what she wanted to hear. And you never know.’ She picked up her bag. ‘See you guys later. Nice to meet you, Brett.’
She walked toward the door. Maddox leapt up and followed. Halfway down the ramp to the parking lot, he called, ‘Where are you going?’
Seneca pointed to the Restful Inn. ‘I’m getting a room here.’
Maddox studied the hotel’s facade. Seneca hoped he wasn’t going to comment on the fact that several of the overhead bulbs had burned out and that the shrubs looked very untended. Then he shifted his weight. ‘I didn’t do anything to Helena, you know.’
‘I know. I don’t think Aerin really meant that.’
He nodded, seeming relieved by her answer. ‘You can still stay with me if you want.’
Seneca shrugged. ‘I’m okay here.’ Maddox’s house would probably be more comfortable than the hotel, but she didn’t really want to hang around and watch him play Madden NFL. Besides, she needed to be completely alone so she could go through everything they’d learned that day without
distraction.
Her brain hiccupped, and she recalled an email he’d sent about his favorite books. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Márquez. Underworld by DeLillo. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They were some of her favorites, too. Had he really read them?
Then she had another thought. ‘Anyway, now you won’t have to put Austin & Ally on mute.’
At the same time, Maddox blurted, ‘At least tomorrow morning I can gargle.’
They stopped and exchanged a glance. Seneca smiled. During one of their chats, Maddox had told her that to fall asleep, he needed to watch the Disney Channel. She’d told him gargling was one of the worst noises ever. She couldn’t believe he remembered that. Strangely, he was smiling at her as if he couldn’t believe she remembered.
She realized she’d been staring at Maddox for way too long. This fresh Dexby air was messing with her brain.
‘See you tomorrow,’ she said primly. And then, giving him a wave, she turned on her heel and sauntered into the hotel.
CHAPTER 7
A few hours later, Seneca was watching the news on the barely working TV. It was a story about a party in Dexby that had gotten busted; apparently tons of the kids had been arrested for underage drinking and drug possession. As she turned over, the remote dropped onto the carpet, which had a trippy, swirly pattern and looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed since 1972.
Then she heard a knock on her door. She frowned. Who could that be?
There were more pounds, each one more insistent. Finally, she stomped to the door and peered through the peephole, but the thing was so clouded over she couldn’t see much more than the outline of a figure in the dark. ‘Hello?’ she whispered.
She heard shifting in the hallway. Then a thin, high voice hissed, ‘Go home.’
Seneca recoiled. Maybe this place was really haunted? Or maybe this was her recurring nightmare, finally becoming a reality. There was a dark figure in those dreams, too. Hands reaching out for her, grabbing her, dragging her to a dark, damp place …
‘Go home,’ the voice said again, louder this time, high and grating. Seneca’s doorknob started to rattle.
‘Go away!’ she screamed, backing hard into the sideboard. ‘I’m calling the police!’
But as she dived for the hotel phone, she tripped over the carpet and accidentally wrenched the cord out of the wall. As she ripped apart her purse, scrambling to find her cell, she realized that she could barely breathe. She looked around, confused and anxious. Smoke was suddenly filling the room. And on her next inhale, her lungs burned.
Heart hammering, she finally noticed her phone where it had fallen under the bed. She crawled toward it as more smoke billowed toward her, growing blacker. Somewhere in the distance, a fire alarm screeched. ‘Help!’ she cried weakly. Her hand finally closed over her phone; she held it to her face, swiping at the screen, trying to dial for help. Her fingers shook, and she kept pressing the pound button instead of nine for 9-1-1.
Through the crackle of the fire, she heard the same insistent, angry banging from before. The thin door gave, cracking on the hinges, and a hooded figure shot inside. Seneca screamed. She fought as the figure scooped her up. ‘Hey, it’s okay,’ a familiar voice said. Seneca stared at the face under the hood. It was Brett.
Seneca vaguely registered that he was carrying her through the hotel corridor. He pushed through an emergency exit and into the parking lot. Outside, the air was deliciously clean but frigid. Brett set her down, and Seneca coughed and coughed. The sky was purplish-pink overhead. She rubbed her eyes and oxygen rushed back into her lungs.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ she asked.
Brett gestured toward the hotel. ‘Maddy told me you were staying here. I took a room here, too, remember?’
‘Was that you whispering to me through the door? Telling me to go home?’
Brett gave her a crazy look. ‘No …’
A fire truck roared up, its sirens blazing. As the firefighters hopped out of the truck, Seneca stared through the open door into the hall. Her door was the only one with smoke pouring out of it.
Brett was looking at her door, too. ‘You don’t think this could be … intentional?’
Seneca flinched. ‘Because we’re looking into Helena?’
‘Yeah. Maybe. I mean, you said someone was whispering for you to go home … and then there’s a fire in your room, specifically. Think that’s a coincidence?’
Seneca watched as the firefighters’ shadowy figures moved in her room. Then she looked at Brett. ‘You dragged me out. Did you see someone?’
‘No, but they could have run away before I got there.’
A chill ran up her spine. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, infusing her voice with a confidence that she didn’t feel. ‘It’s late, and I was tired. I must have fallen asleep and had a nightmare. I get them all the time.’
‘You do?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Seneca said stiffly, wondering if she’d revealed too much. And then she shot him a tight smile as if to say, Subject closed.
CHAPTER 8
At 7 a.m., Maddox’s mom, Betsy, pulled into a parking space at the Dexby Recreational Center, which featured an Olympic-length ten-lane swimming pool, an ice rink, state-of-the-art weight facilities, and indoor and outdoor tracks. Normally, Maddox drove himself to practice, but his mom’s car was getting serviced this week, and she needed the Jeep to go to yoga.
She ruffled Maddox’s hair. ‘How’s practice been going?’
‘Good,’ Maddox said, noticing Catherine sitting on the bleachers by the starting line, dressed in a pink sleeveless shirt and a short white running skirt.
‘You working on 800s? The Oregon coach wants you at sub 1:50.’
Maddox resisted the urge to groan, instead focusing on the University of Oregon lettering on his mother’s sweatshirt. She’d purchased it on the school’s online bookshop after Maddox had received his scholarship letter. She was psyched, that was all. A free ride to the best track-and-field school in the country was a huge deal.
Maddox’s mom had always been supportive of whatever he was into, even when that had been eBay toy auctions and video-game conventions. He’d always been pretty close with her, but he knew she’d get weird about him nosing around the Kellys’ affairs. After Helena went missing, he’d asked his mom if she’d noticed anything weird about her. She’d rubbed her chin and said, ‘Helena’s like that optical illusion where one way you see an old lady, and the other way you see a young girl. More than she first appears.’
He made a mental note to tell that to the group today.
‘Tell Catherine I said hello.’ Mrs. Wright leaned over to peck his cheek. Maddox squirmed and jumped out of the car.
‘Hey, mama’s boy,’ Catherine said with a smirk as Maddox approached.
Maddox smiled confidently. ‘What can I say? My mom’s a kisser.’
‘I thought we’d do mile sprints today,’ Catherine said. ‘We need to get you under four minutes if you’re going to be competitive. You up for it?’
‘Absolutely.’ Maddox grabbed his foot for a quad stretch and faced the rec center. In the distance, he could see Waterdam Street, where Le Dexby Patisserie was. He was meeting the group there in two hours. It was an easy walk from here.
Catherine started around the track for a warm-up. Maddox jogged behind her, watching the ends of her skirt lift in the breeze and show off her upper thighs. She glanced over her shoulder and winked at him, but Maddox pretended not to notice. He knew how to play hard to get, too.
This was his sixteenth private coaching session with Catherine. He’d always been decent at running. As he got older – but before he got cool – it was like he needed to run. It made him feel like a guy. Powerful. Strong. Important. Then, in ninth grade, he grew six inches. Got his braces off. His mom remarried, so he was able to afford better clothes. His first year in cross-country, his times were amazing, and just like that he was invited to sit at the popular table. Maddy, the loser who scraped toget
her cash to go to Antiques Roadshow in Farmington, who farted when he drank regular milk, and who collected Pokémon for way longer than it was socially acceptable, had changed. He got rid of his Pokémon cards immediately. Forgot that kid entirely. Well, almost – except when no one else was around, when he binge-watched Doctor Who and posted on Case Not Closed.
Every year, his running had improved. He made it to states, nationals. People talked scholarships. It was clear that the track coaches at public school weren’t equipped to coach a runner at an elite level, so his stepdad suggested he look for a private coach.
Of course Maddox was going to pick Catherine. Not only was she an amazing runner, but he already knew her coaching style: she’d been an assistant for his school team his freshman year, a freshman herself at UConn. Maddox had such strong memories of that first year of track: the guys trash-talking each other in the locker room, him beating out seniors for coveted relay spots, and beautiful Catherine, with her long chocolate-brown hair, heart-shaped face, sapphire-blue eyes, and perfect boobs, cheering from the sidelines. Every guy on the team talked about how they wanted to do her. Maddox had never been ballsy enough to tell his teammates, but sometimes, in practice, he swore he saw Catherine gazing at him like she was into him. No doubt he’d been imagining it – as if she’d have been interested in a dorky freshman! – but he developed a raging, bona fide crush on her anyway. He spent hours imagining what it would be like to be her boyfriend, what kind of sexy underwear she probably wore, what she might say if he ever worked up the courage to ask her out.
Much to everyone’s disappointment, Catherine had only coached for one year, but Maddox never forgot her. He kept up with her race times, followed her on Instagram, even reached out to her when he won the 800 in the state meet. As the years passed and he got more experience with girls, he’d wondered if his intuition about her had actually been right. Maybe she did see something in him – besides just his blazing times. And since they’d started training together? Well, let’s just say she still gave him those special looks.