He seems perplexed when he steps into my bedroom, glancing over at me before looking up at Chasm. Chas pauses his podcast and removes his earbuds, dropping his hands in his lap.
“Why is Kimber asleep on the couch with Henry and Amelia?” he asks, his voice thick with suspicion. He looks … well, he looks incredible dressed in tight jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a long, white apron with the words Wright Turn Barcade and Adult Fun Center scrawled across it in green embroidery thread.
“The authorities,” I start, swallowing past a hard lump of emotion. “They discovered two bodies tonight, one male, one female. Tess and Paul went to see if one of them might be …” I stand up suddenly as Maxx’s eyes go wide, wanting to comfort him the way Chasm comforted me. “But we really don’t think it’s him.”
“It can’t be,” Maxx whispers, putting a hand up on the doorjamb to steady himself. His green eyes are wide and staring at the floor. He flinches when I put my hand on his arm, lifting his gaze up to mine. “How can you be so calm?” he manages to grit out, exhaling sharply.
“There’s no way that the Slayer would put Dakota through all of these hoops only to kill Parrish. Like, what has he made her do? Set a fire where nobody got hurt? Smash some car windows? Fuck me? So what? That’s nothing. He’s warming her up.” Chasm shoves up to his feet. He’s angry again, but just like last time, there’s nobody who deserves to have that energy unleashed on them. “Maxx, don’t be an idiot. This guy is going to expect Dakota to kill someone at some point. He’s carefully chipping away at all her barriers, her relationships, her morals.” Chasm ticks off the words on his fingers, just like I did earlier when I was talking to him about kimchi. “It’s a slow, careful game. Parrish is perfect leverage. It makes zero sense to kill him now.”
Maxx just stares at Chasm for a minute before giving a slow, tired nod. He swipes his hand over his face before collecting our phones and briefly dumping them in the bathroom so we can talk. Shower on, fan on, mirage complete. I wonder if it pisses Justin off or if he simply finds our small methods of rebellion amusing? I’ve decided I’ll be leaving my book bag in the dining room downstairs. I mean, it is our study area, so it makes sense.
“This is … I just can’t even believe this is happening. I feel useless. And helpless. And I fucking despise every second of it.” X spreads his hands wide in apology. “Even Delphine was a dead end. She lives in a little two-bedroom mother-in-law unit with her ancient-looking grandmother. While I was there, she did exactly nothing. Through the window, I could see her loading the washing machine. Then folding clothes from the dryer.”
“Whose mother-in-law unit?” Chasm asks because, even though it’s across the lake from Seattle, Medina has a small-town sort of feel. More like, it has an exclusive country club/nobility/royal court sort of vibe. Like everybody that lives here thinks of themselves as superior to the rest of the planet.
“Uh, I don’t know. I’m not a blue blood baby, remember? I don’t have every asshole in Medina’s address memorized.”
Chasm curls his lip at Maxx and then sits back in the desk chair, crossing his arms and scowling.
“Think you could draw me a map, smartass? This could be important.”
X storms over, snatching a notepad from the corner of my desk and scribbling out a crude map with my soot spirit pen. Might be nice to use Google maps, but then Justin would know what we know.
“Oh,” Chas frowns sharply. “This place is owned by some old dude that plays golf with my dad.”
“Your dad?” I ask, my heart beating ferociously. I swear to god, we’re close. I can taste it on my tongue. The look that Chasm throws my way is not encouraging.
“My dad plays golf with everyone in Medina. Like, I mean everyone. The headmistress, Ms. Miyamoto, Tess, Paul. That isn’t much of a clue, I’m sorry to say.” He taps his fingers against the map. “I still say Delphine’s a suspect.”
“Maybe, but we’re going to have to watch her doing laundry for weeks to find anything. Which, you know, I’ll do. But it isn’t a promising lead to begin with. Don’t forget: the gardener is on that list, the Fort Humboldt security guards that are on rotation in the neighborhood, the pool guy. Just because you don’t see all these people on a regular basis doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Any one of them could be involved.” X takes his apron off, draping it over one muscular arm. “I’m not sleeping tonight.”
