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“It’s burnt.”
Kennedy woke up to the grating sound of a high-pitched whine.
Pots crashed and clanged against one another in Nick’s kitchen. “Woong, I told you, Miss Kennedy and Mr. Nick are trying to get some sleep. They had a long night ...”
“Yucky!”
Kennedy opened her eyes in time to see a dark brown pancake flying through the dining room and landing beside Nick’s trash can. She heard Sandy muttering under her breath but couldn’t make out what she said.
She sat up on Nick’s couch and stifled a groan. Every muscle in her body was stiff. She could only guess what time it was. Had she slept another day away? Sandy was cooking breakfast, so it couldn’t be too late, could it?
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Sandy called from the kitchen. “Sorry about the noise. We were trying to be quiet.”
“Yucky!” Woong screeched.
Sandy’s hair was falling out of her French braid in small, frizzy strands that made the gray stand out so much more than the brown. “I already told you. Mr. Nick didn’t have the same ingredients we use at home. They’re different pancakes. Different.” She spoke the last word slowly and deliberately.
“It’s burnt.” Woong pouted.
Sandy sighed and pointed to the stove with a spatula. “Would you like a pancake or two, hon?”
Kennedy wasn’t sure why she didn’t feel hungrier. Something from the kitchen didn’t smell quite right.
“I’m sorry.” Sandy leaned over the stove to flip her pancakes over. “All I could find was flour and salt. It’s, well, it’s not how I’m used to ...”
“Yucky!” Woong screamed.
Sandy sighed and took a small bite from the pancake. “I know, son. Maybe when Dad wakes up we’ll go out to Rusty’s, or ...”
“I’m already awake.” Carl sat up with a loud succession of groans. “I’m awake,” he repeated, as if he needed to convince himself. He turned to Kennedy. “How’d last night go? Did you and Nick get much sleep?”
Kennedy tried to remember the chronology of last night’s events, starting at the time the Lindgrens went to bed.
“Carl, darling, she just woke up.” Sandy stepped into the living room to give her husband a kiss on his cheek. “And Woong’s starving. We better find someplace we can eat, and then Kennedy can tell us about her night. It was two by the time we got here. I’m sure not much more could have happened between now and then.”
“You’d be surprised.” Kennedy glanced down the hall, where a few straggling dreadlocks were all that could be seen sticking out from a camouflage sleeping bag.
Sandy was rubbing Carl’s back. “Well, let’s let Nick get some more sleep. We can find some place around here that serves breakfast, and you can tell us all about it.”
Kennedy sipped her hot cocoa at Rusty’s Diner and hoped she’d gotten all her facts straight. She’d started the story as soon as the waitress took their order, and their food arrived when she got to the part about Drisklay arresting Noah.
“So Vivian’s not the suspect?” Sandy asked and tucked a napkin on Woong’s lap.
“No. She never was, really. I think she was afraid they’d go after Noah, so she turned herself in.”
Sandy stripped the paper off a straw and slipped it into Woong’s orange juice. “So what made them decide it was really Noah?”
“I don’t know.” Kennedy strained, trying to read Carl’s and Sandy’s faces. Did they think he was guilty?
Carl dipped his biscuit into the gravy. “Drisklay doesn’t have to tell everything he found in his investigation.”
“I know that,” Sandy said. “I just thought maybe he gave some sort of clue ...”
“I really don’t know what made him come after Noah.” Kennedy’s mind was still spinning. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Hate can make people do some unthinkable things,” Sandy mused.
Carl frowned. “Nobody’s saying Noah really did it.”
“I know that. I’m just thinking ...” Sandy shook her head. “Poor Vivian. First her husband gone. Now her son ...” She clucked her tongue.
“Now, what about that guy who was stabbed? What did you say his name was?”
When he wasn’t looking, Woong tore off a big chunk of Carl’s biscuit and shoved it in his mouth.
“Marcos Esperanza,” Kennedy answered.
“Why does that name sound so familiar?” he asked.
“He’s some kind of counselor,” Kennedy answered. “Works with teens who are struggling with homosexuality, or something like that.” She remembered how angry Nick got learning about Marcos’s work and wondered if Carl held different opinions.
Sandy smothered strawberry jam on a piece of her toast and set it on Woong’s plate. “Who does Drisklay think stabbed him?”
Carl didn’t give Kennedy the chance to respond. “He’s a detective, babe. He’s not gonna share all his research and fact-finding with a college girl. No offense,” he added with a nod toward Kennedy.
“I know that.” Sandy pouted and stopped Woong from stuffing the jam packets into his pockets. “I just wondered if maybe he said something ...”
“No. Nothing.” Kennedy wasn’t the only one looking for answers.
“Marcos Esperanza,” Carl repeated. “I’m sure I know that name.” He pulled out his phone. “I think I’m supposed to be able to get internet on this new thing. Can I do that even if I’m not at home?”
Kennedy reached out her hand and took his cell. “What are you trying to look up?”
“That Marcos guy. I need to remember why he sounds so familiar.”
Woong knocked over a water glass, and Sandy reached for a pile of napkins to wipe up the mess. “It seems to me like that counselor is the key to everything. Once the doctors wake him up, he can tell Detective Drisklay who attacked him, and that should take them to the real murderer. Sounds simple enough, don’t you think?”
Kennedy’s gut twisted and her heart dropped in her chest when she clicked on the Channel 2 link that her Google search brought up. She shook her head.
“It’s not going to be that easy.” She handed Carl back his phone. “Marcos died from his stab wounds sometime during the night.”