The coffeepot gurgles. Droplets splash and sizzle on the warming plate as Rowan lifts the carafe and divides its contents into two mugs, leaving an inch of space at the top of one for Axel. She takes the half gallon of skim out of the fridge and sets it on the countertop for him. There’s an orange Halloween bowl filled with the purple and orange Sour Patch Kids she picked up from the store the other day. What had she been thinking? That she could lure Chloe home with her favorite candy?
“Thank you.” He slides the milk toward him and pours it into his coffee.
She takes a sip of her own, then, coaxing the caffeine to do its magic, and watches Axel work before climbing up on the barstool next to him. She’s missed being a front-row observer into how his mind works. He’s a fascinating study. His hands move gently and expertly, sorting the evidence that’s spread across the countertop: photos of the victims, autopsy results, and the yearbook. He touches each piece as though asking its permission to be committed to his memory. Rowan steals a secret look at him and sees the gears turning behind his vivid blue-green eyes and the million-dollar question they churn out: How do they all connect?
Because they do. There is no way in hell these are isolated incidences.
She reopens the yearbook to the faculty page and finds Eddie Taylor’s picture again. As she set to making the coffee, Axel filled her in about his conversation with the Pumpkin Lady, and how she indicated that a man with either grey or very short hair had left Sari Simons for dead Saturday night. A cold needle drills into Rowan’s spine. Could he have Chloe? Could he have killed her along with Sari Simons and Madison Caldwell?
“I saw him at the grocery store,” she says, her voice quiet as though she’s unsure whether or not it really happened. “Sunday morning. He bought a bag of these for his sister.” She points to the sweet-and-sour gummies in the bowl, and as she talks through it, the realization sets in.
“Chloe’s favorite,” says Axel, smiling sadly. “Of course she couldn’t love a candy that was out year-round, right? Always had to have this special zombie edition…”
But Rowan hardly hears him. She’s riffling through the archives of her mind, searching for evidence the way the police would riffle through a drawer. Had she seen Eddie Taylor the night of the play? She can’t remember, and yet, it was dark and there were a lot of people. He could have been sitting behind them, watching and waiting for them to leave—
“Axel?”
“Hmm?” He’s got one of the little brightly colored baggies in his hand, studying it as though the answers to this investigation could be spelled out in the fine print.
“What if killing was just a means to an end?” The revelation slips out into the universe and hangs in the sliver of space between them. When Axel regards her quizzically, she explains: “What if Eddie knew a dead body meant you and I would both respond to the scene? And he killed Madison Caldwell on the night of the play … so Chloe would be left alone?”
Axel drags the corner of the bag along the edge of his jaw. “But how did he know Chloe would walk home instead of getting a ride?”
She’s considered this, too. Rowan remembers back to that night and the text she sent that Marnie never got. She puts herself in Chloe’s shoes. Something she’s never been good at doing. Not like Axel. The adage of walking a mile in other people’s shoes has always been a natural response for him. She tries it on for size now. Chloe was upset. What did she do when she was upset?
She left.
Without saying a word to anyone about where she was going. “He didn’t,” she thinks out loud. “But he would have taken her one way or another. He was her teacher, so it’s not like she wouldn’t have trusted him if he showed up at the front door. He knew we were tied up with Madison’s murder. Because he’d planned it that way.”
“What about the window?” Axel reminds her. “It was open.”
A frantic knock sounds at the front door. Rowan jumps and throws her gaze over her shoulder. Axel goes to answer it, his right hand touching the gun holstered to his side.
A moment later, Libby Lucas and Reeves Singh are in her kitchen. Marnie appears behind them. Rowan feels the sudden urge to go to her but wills herself to stay put, on the other side of the quartz countertop. What they have right now is one theory among many. Their daughters may not be entirely innocent in all of this. One could still be hunting the other.
By the way she remains next to Libby, shoulders pulled back and arms stiffly at her sides, Marnie seems to have arrived at some of the same hypotheses.
Axel steps aside and lets the kids have the floor.
“We found something that … well, we think you need to see.” Libby’s eyes dart from Reeves to Rowan to Axel. There’s something pleading about the way she says it, and she can imagine it’s because the girl is desperate to clear her name, and Reeves’s. But Reeves wasn’t the one keeping Madison Caldwell’s teeth in a locket.
Reeves steps forward and extends his arm, offering up the papers they brought. They’re computer printouts of articles. Rowan takes them and reads the headline at the top of the first page: GIRL, 15, DIES IN TRAGIC 30-FT FALL OF DEFUNCT FACTORY.
She recognizes the building as the old tannery, but, “Who…?” Rowan is shaking her head. What can this possibly have to do with—
“Who does she look like?” prompts Libby, and Rowan flips to the next page. There, in black-and-white, Chloe stares at her.
No, not Chloe. Not quite. Here is a teenage girl with her dark hair cut in a severe asymmetrical bob, wearing slashes of eyeliner and a safety pin necklace. Her eyes are a little closer together than Chloe’s, her face less heart-shaped. Still, they could be sisters.
The next page is an obituary. A different picture of the same girl looks intensely at her, daring her to keep reading. “‘Aurora P. Blum,’” she reads, “‘born in Black Harbor on April eleventh … beloved daughter of Patricia Blum and dear sister of Edward (Eddie) Blum…’ I don’t…” She looks up at the anticipatory faces, and then back to the printout.
“Edward Blum is Mr. Taylor,” Reeves explains. “Or … Eddie Taylor. He teaches English at our school.”
“He came to the garden center on Sunday to pick up a bunch of rosebushes,” says Libby, stepping forward, and Rowan doesn’t know if she’s ever heard the girl string so many words together before. Apparently, Libby has the same realization, because she pauses and bites back a breath before continuing. “He said they were for his sister. Aurora.”
Rowan and Axel exchange a look. “He said these were, too,” says Rowan, sliding the bowl of Sour Patch Kids toward them.
“These are Chloe’s favorite,” says Libby, echoing Axel from just a few moments ago. “The zombie ones.”
Rowan and Axel both nod.
“How do you know that?” Marnie’s brows are knit. She edges forward, eager but trepidatious at being fully part of this conversation.
Libby takes in a deep breath. She lets it out slowly. “We were friends,” she admits. Her gaze falls to the floor, as though she’s just spilled a secret.
“You and Chloe?” asks Reeves, incredulously.
Libby nods. “I come over here at night, whenever you two are working.” She looks up guiltily under dark lashes to regard both Rowan and Axel. “About a year ago, I saw her crying by her window, so I opened mine and we started talking. Then I figured I could get to her by climbing the sugar maple and…” She shrugs.
“Why was she crying?” asks Axel.
“That night?”
Those two words break what’s left of Rowan’s heart. They imply there were multiple nights Chloe cried, alone in her room.
“She was lonely,” says Libby, and Rowan can tell by the cadence of her words that she is treading carefully. The girl is smart enough to know not to say too much, however, and Rowan knows better than to pry, at least in this moment. They can resolve things with Chloe later, if they ever get her back.
Rowan revisits the printout of the obituary. Aurora Blum died eighteen years ago.
Axel reads over her shoulder. “I remember her.” He shakes his head. “I was on patrol at the time. God, that was tragic.”
“What about him?” Rowan points to the picture of Aurora and Eddie together.
Axel works his jaw. “He would have been at the scene, yeah. But I was manning the perimeter, making sure no one crossed the tape. Even if I had encountered him, he was only sixteen. He looks different now.”
Rowan does the math. Eighteen years ago was right around the time she ended up in Black Harbor. It would be another four years before she completed her training and certifications to become a medical examiner, and another twelve before she started running the show. “How do we find him?” she asks, uncertain of everything, but certain that they need to amplify things if they’re going to have a chance in hell at finding Chloe, dead or alive.
“Guys.”
All heads turn toward Reeves, who wields his phone. “The zombie edition of this candy didn’t come out until four years ago.”
“And yet…” starts Rowan.
“They’re his sister’s favorite,” Libby finishes.
Rowan feels charged. She needs to move. Now. But the exhaustion of the past several days suddenly slams into her like a freight train, and she can hardly muster the strength to stand. It’s too heavy—everything. “How do we find him?” she asks.
“He lives on Rainbow Row,” says Reeves, his voice laced with what she recognizes as shame. “Over by me.”
Marnie’s voice is small and uncertain. Her composure has eroded to reveal raw terror. “Row? What’s going on?”
Rowan edges toward her and slips her fingers through hers. She will tell her everything, soon, and their friendship will survive or it won’t. But first, she has to find Chloe.
Marnie’s question dissipates, drowned out by Axel speaking into his phone. “Activate SWAT,” he says.