“We have to go get my dog!” Daisy yelled as we pulled into the driveway. “I need my Musty!”
I cursed under my breath, then said, “First, she’s not yours. She’s not a chew toy. Second, Trevor is going to be here at any moment. We don’t have time to get her.”
“Nooo! Mustard! My Mustard!”
Shutting my eyes for a long moment, I tried not to lose what little was left of my patience.
Daisy continued to wail. “Mustard! My friend! I’m coming for you!”
Just as I was about to back out my car, Trevor pulled in behind me.
“Trevor’s here, Daisy. I can’t leave.”
“Dang it!”
“Besides, with Mustard gone, you’ll get all of Trevor’s attention. I thought you’d appreciate that.”
Her tail swished back and forth. “I do! I do! Trevor! Trevor! Hi, Trevor!”
As he exited his truck, I studied him in the side mirror. The flexing and stretching of his hand was a good indicator he was quite angry, which didn’t bode well for either of us. Usually, if one of us was having a bad day, the other was able to soothe over the emotions. But with both of us furious, we may ride into the afternoon and burn buildings.
“Hey,” I said, opening the car door. “I can tell you’re in a horrible mood, but just to warn you, so am I.”
He stared at me a long moment, then shook his head and chuckled. “Okay, I get it. I’ll try to keep my composure.”
“Good. I don’t think I’ll be able to.”
Trevor followed me into the house while Daisy jumped around his feet. “Hi, Trevor! Pet me! I’ll make you feel better!”
“Where’s the puppy?” he asked.
“You don’t need that stupid puppy!” Daisy said. “You have me, Trevor! Whatever Gina tells you, I’m the best dog!”
“She’s at Annabelle’s,” I replied. “I needed a babysitter, and Annabelle offered.”
As we sat on the couch, Daisy took her place at Trevor’s feet and stared up at him adoringly. “I love Trevor so much,” she said. “He’s my favorite. And I bet he’d understand the squirrel situation. He wouldn’t be mad at me.”
I rolled my eyes, not in the mood for her chatter.
“So, what’s got you upset?” I asked, knowing full well Oliver not showing for his appointment fell somewhere in the conundrum of his bad mood.
“Well, Mallory is really on my butt about this case,” he said. “Specifically, about you and Jacob. She’s convinced you know exactly where he is and she wants him.”
“She’s wrong. I don’t know.”
“Can you reach him?”
I shook my head, hoping the lie didn’t show on my face. The little phone—my lifeline to Jacob—burned in my pocket. I tended to lie pretty well most of the time.
Trevor cleared his throat. “I get the feeling you aren’t being truthful, but I get it.”
I remained stone-faced and said nothing. I’d go to jail myself before giving up Jacob.
“Moving on, Oliver didn’t show up for the interview, so that’s got my feathers ruffled.”
“I can help you with that one,” I said.
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I went to Flagstaff today to talk with Zoe and—”
“You went without me?”
“Yes, I did. I was feeling useless, so I decided to do something to clear my son’s name.”
He cursed under his breath, then returned his attention to me. “Okay, so what did Zoe have to say?”
“First, her family has a boat. She’s spent a lot of time on it so she knows all about ropes. Second, I found her kissing Oliver.”
“What?!”
“They were sucking face, Trevor,” Daisy chimed in. “Sucking faces hard.”
He leaned back against the cushions and stared up at the ceiling for a while. Despite my desire to spill everything I knew, I allowed him to simmer and take in the information and what it meant to the investigation.
“Well, I didn’t see that coming,” he muttered.
“Neither did I.”
“The boat is interesting, but it doesn’t mean she’s guilty.”
“I know, but she and Oliver making out… that’s something that needs to be considered.”
“Absolutely. What did they say when you caught them? And where did you find them?”
“They were in the park at the end of the street sitting on a bench,” I replied. “In a nutshell, they’ve been together for a couple of months.”
“Then why was Oliver ready to fight Gabriel for being at Ava’s? Why did he care?”
“He didn’t say,” I replied. “My guess is he liked having two girlfriends who weren’t particularly fond of each other. He liked the attention.”
Trevor shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
I pulled out my phone and went to the school’s website. “Look at him.” I placed the screen in front of his face. “He’s not some ladies’ man. He’s not some high-ranking athlete who’s got a Rolodex of girls waiting to get into bed with him.”
“Rolodex?” Trevor snorted.
Where in the world had that come from? I hadn’t seen a Rolodex in two decades.
“Okay, so I’ve just dated myself, but you know what I mean,” I huffed. “This is Oliver from Heywood with two pretty, smart, women who want to be with him. Why wouldn’t he want to keep them around?”
“Going by that theory, he didn’t kill Ava.”
“I didn’t say that. He could’ve started the night wanting both women. Maybe he saw the way Ava treated Zoe and he decided who was his top girl, and who he needed to eliminate.”
Trevor gently stroked Daisy’s head. “The way Ava treated Zoe? What does that mean?”
I repeated what Zoe had shared with me. “Ava wasn’t a nice person.”
“Okay, I can see Oliver being the killer, especially if Ava was as terrible to Zoe as you’ve described.”
“Have you looked at Ava’s social media?” I asked. “Her mom said she had an online stalker.”
“It’s on my list of things to do, but stop right there. When did you talk to Ava’s mom?”
“I was at Sage Advice and she came in,” I said. “We started chatting.”
“Did you tell her who you were and what your son has been accused of?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t totally lie. She suggested I was a true crime investigator, which isn’t completely false, so I went with it.”
“Oh, that’s a lie,” Daisy said. “Bad dogs lie, Gina. I bet Trevor doesn’t lie. He’s such a good dog.”
With a long sigh, I ignored her.
“Tell me about the social media deep dive that is on my list of things to do,” Trevor said.
“Well, put a checkmark by it because it’s done.” I tapped on my phone, then brought up some of the posts. “Check it out. Obviously, someone didn’t want to be identified. That’s a throwaway handle.”
He took my phone and scrolled through. “These are pretty awful. And why did she keep them up? Why not call the police?”
“Look at some of the responses from her friends, and then the way she answered them. I think she liked the attention.”
After giving me a doubtful side-eye, he returned his focus to my phone. “Really? You think so?”
“She’s been described as the center of everything more than once,” I said. “She liked people noticing her. This falls within that line of thinking. Someone is horrible to her online. Her friends all come to her defense. The spotlight is on her.”
“I wish I knew who this stalker was,” he muttered. “I have some questions.”
“Me, too.” He handed me my phone and we sat in silence for a long while. “Have you looked at her texts? I was told she received some awful pictures of male genitalia.”
“I have looked through her phone, but I haven’t seen anything like that. They’ve either been deleted or they never existed.”
Interesting. Had Ava lied to her mother about the photos? Or had she received them and gotten rid of them? For some reason, the online harassment I’d witnessed on her account didn’t feel male to me, although I couldn’t explain why. Sending crotch shots and calling someone’s butt big didn’t seem to fit as one in the same person.
“What are you going to do about Oliver?” I asked.
“That’s already in the works. He made me so angry today, I put out a BOLO for him and said his butt better be in a chair in the Sheriff’s department before tomorrow morning.”
“You put out a necktie on him?”
He rolled his eyes, my attempt at humor failing. “Be on the lookout, Gina.”
“I know, I know. I wish you were in charge there,” I replied. “You’re honest and fair, unlike your boss.”
“Running against her would be professional suicide. You know that. The second I announced my candidacy, she’d fire me.”
“And maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing because you’d win against her.”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I like having a roof over my head and food in my fridge.”
For a second, I almost suggested he move in with me if it came to him being homeless and hungry. The thought terrified me to the point my heart began racing. Trevor and I had a good thing going and I didn’t want to do anything that may mess it up. Could we live together? We’d both been single for a long time. I was pretty set in my ways, and he seemed to be as well. Once when I was in grade school, I’d received a note I was supposed to take home to my father. It had read, Gina doesn’t play well with others. I’d never given him the note, but the theme had continued to run through my life.
“I wouldn’t mind my pretty Trevor moving in,” Daisy said. “He’s the best human. Trevor loves me so much.”
Her upper lip moved, revealing some teeth. Was she trying to smile at him?
“Maybe I should convince Trevor to adopt me. He’d understand the things you don’t, Gina. Like squirrels teasing me and the need for me to teach Mustard about bunny pee. Gosh, maybe he’d take both Mustard and me in! We could live without your tyrannical rules. I bet he doesn’t care about pillows being torn apart.”
I could only stare at her. A tyrant? Really? Maybe I’d been a little cranky the past few days, but that was because my son had been accused of murder. When Trevor left, Daisy and I would have a few words, and I really needed to collect Mustard from Annabelle. She’d most likely overstayed her welcome.
With a sigh, I picked up my phone again and went back to Ava’s social media. The stalker’s name still bothered me. 4Zr54Og9yt9E. A typical throwaway account for someone who didn’t want to be recognized.
I gasped and shot to my feet. “Oh, my gosh,” I whispered.
“What’s wrong?” Trevor asked.
I slowly sank back to the cushion and sat next to him, shoulder to shoulder so he could share my screen. “Look at the stalkers’ handle. What do you see there?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I see random letters and numbers.”
“Look at the capital letters,” I urged.
After a few seconds, he inhaled sharply. “Zoe? Am I seeing that right?”
I nodded. “What do you think? Is she Ava’s online stalker?”
We stared at each other for a long moment. “It makes sense,” he replied. “Ava’s rude and nasty and Zoe gets back at her online. It seems like it’s someone anonymous, but Zoe’s left a clever clue, as if to tease Ava.”
“But what about the nude texts Ava claimed to have received? If we’re right and this is Zoe hassling her online, who’s sending the pictures?”
“Like I said, I didn’t see anything like that on her phone. If they were real, there must be two different people stalking Ava,” Trevor said. “We need to talk to Zoe and ask her about all of this.” He continued to stroke Daisy’s head as he furrowed his brow. “Ava invited Zoe to the party where she belittled her. If Zoe’s the online stalker, could she have graduated to killer?”
“If she got pushed hard enough,” I said. “She already tried taking Ava down a peg or two online. If Ava was as terrible to her as she told me… I’d say she just jumped to the level of number one suspect.”
“And what do you think? Was she working with Terry? Terry drugged the kids and Zoe finished her off?”
“I’m honestly not sure about Terry being involved in the murder at all,” I said.
“That’s quite the change of heart. Why? She admitted to buying the drugs at Hold Your Horses and using them at the party.”
“First of all, Neither Zoe nor Oliver seemed to know her when I asked them about Terry today. Both looked confused.”
“They could be playing dumb.”
“Maybe, but it seemed genuine. I think Terry was honest when she said she’d tried to drug Ava so she could have time alone with Oliver. She knew nothing about Oliver and Zoe. Then when the kids started playing their water bottle game and she realized what was happening, she left.”
“And the killer saw a perfect opening to get rid of Ava for good.”
I nodded. “Yes, the night didn’t start with Ava’s death being planned.”
“But was Zoe the killer?”
“Or maybe Oliver?”
“Probably both, Gina,” Daisy said. “The face-suckers killed Ava.”