Page 7

I made it to the Pilot and got behind the wheel before I started to cry. At first, they were tight, furious tears. Tight because I was trying so hard to hold them back. And furious because—well, because I was furious. At myself, most of all. For being so stupid. And for crying, because it was so embarrassing. Then the dam cracked, and I cried harder, and some of it was for Keme, and some of it was for myself.

The door clicked open. I blinked stinging eyes at Bobby. His face was grim and drawn, but it softened when he pulled me into his arms.

He let me cry, and he rubbed my back and made soft, comforting noises. And after a while, I was better. Or I stopped crying, at least. My eyes were hot and itchy. My nose was clogged. My cheeks felt sticky with salt tracks.

Bobby found tissues in the pocket of the door (I told you it was a mom car), and as I pressed a wad of them to my eyes, fighting an aftershock of fresh tears, I said, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Bobby said. He was rubbing my shoulder, and he paused now to squeeze for emphasis. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well, I did. Obviously. But I mean for crying. I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

It took Bobby a second before he said, “Why would you need to apologize for crying?”

And, since he was Bobby, it was a real question.

I didn’t answer right away. The late October day was thinning around us, and the gloom made the distances grow. A Schwan’s truck rolled slowly past, the rumble of its engine swallowing up smaller sounds, and it felt like it was miles away instead of a few yards. Even farther off, the last of the light came through the branches of a crimson-tipped strawberry tree. It set the little red berries aglow, and the peeling, cinnamon-colored bark looked like paper about to burn. Then the Schwan’s truck moved on, and the rumble fell away into the gathering shadows.

I rubbed my chest without really thinking about it. Keme hadn’t shoved me hard enough to hurt, but when I tried to take a deep breath, it felt like I couldn’t. Like the muscles were too stiff—bruised. But, of course, they weren’t. That was only in my imagination.

“Do you want me to drive you to Dr. Xu?” Bobby asked.

“What? Oh. No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

His hand slid from my shoulder to the back of my neck. With his other hand, he brushed my hair away from my forehead. It wasn’t anything you couldn’t do in public, but it also felt intensely intimate, like I was naked in the sheriff’s station’s gravel lot. I caught myself glancing around to check if anyone else could see us, but we were alone. A little, squirming part of me told me to shift, fidget, move in some way that would make him drop his hands.

But Bobby spoke first. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. And then words came tumbling out. “It’s all so awful. I was over at Keme’s mom’s place. Have you ever been there?”

“Not inside.”

“But you know,” I said. “Does everyone know? Does Indira? Does Millie?”

“That they live at the RV park? Yes, everyone knows.”

“Not that.” I tried to think about how to put it into words. “It would be so much…I don’t know, simpler, I guess, if his mom was just this outright awful person. But she’s not. She actually seems sweet. And she’s totally incapable of taking care of herself, much less Keme. I don’t know why. I don’t know if that’s how she’s always been, or if it’s like a learned helplessness kind of thing, and at some point, she decided to be that way because she thought it was easier. But that’s how it is. I mean, Foster is obviously the one making all the decisions, and before him, there was somebody else, wasn’t there?”

Bobby nodded.

“And there’s this part of me that sat in that stupid camper and wanted to scream at them. Wanted to shake September. Because even though I feel bad for her, I feel worse for Keme. I mean, it’s like she doesn’t care about him at all. No, that’s not right. It’s like—it’s like he’s somebody she knows, and she likes him, and she hopes everything turns out all right for him, but that’s as far as it goes.”

Brushing my hair away from my forehead again, Bobby said, “That sounds like a defense mechanism. She hasn’t had an easy life either, from what I gather. At some point, it was too hard or too much to worry about Keme. And so she stopped.”

“But how? I mean, he’s her son. If we have kids, I’m going to duct-tape them to chairs and not let them out of the house until they’re forty. Do you know what happens to kids in this world?”

On the strawberry tree, a squirrel scampered up a branch, making it sway. A second squirrel chased after it, chittering.

“Also, please stare into this memory wipe device,” I said, “and forget I said anything about having kids.”

For an instant, the whole world lit up with Bobby’s big, goofy grin. Then he swept his fingers slowly across my forehead again. “I’m more worried about the duct-taping-them-to-chairs part.”

“Wasps, Bobby. Trampolines. Middle school locker rooms. Do you know they expect you to shower ? And don’t get me started on organized sports.”

That white slice of his grin broadened again. But then it faded, and he said, “For some people, it’s easier to put up walls than to keep being hurt. And the walls look different for different people.”

Leaning into the warmth of his touch, I let myself relax a little. “I know. It just—it just broke my heart. And then they found those bloody clothes, and as soon as I saw them, I knew they were Keme’s. I mean, I’ve seen him wear that stupid hamburger T-shirt so many times I’m surprised it hasn’t rotted away to nothing. In medical terms, I freaked the freak out. And then I came here, and the sheriff is actually thinking about arresting him, and he won’t say anything, and he’s clearly been in a fight—”

I touched my chest again without thinking about it.

This time, Bobby’s hand wrapped around mine, and in an unfamiliar voice, he asked, “Did he hurt you?”

It took me a moment to register that new note as anger. Tightly controlled, yes. But definitely there, and shaded with protectiveness and something else, something even scarier, a matter-of-factness that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Like Bobby was going to handle it—permanently—if anyone hurt me.

(And yes, I kind of liked it.)

“No,” I said. “And knock it off. I don’t want you going in there after I leave and beating him with wet towels or rubber hoses or, um, ladies’ swimming suits.”

It took about two seconds before “What?”

“They’re kind of like the intersection of wet towels and rubber hoses, right? An all-purpose, leave-no-marks torture device? You could really whip him with a bikini top.”

Three seconds before “Dash.”

“And I know this part is dumb, but it was weirdly embarrassing to fall on my butt in front of the sheriff. I know she didn’t care. I know it doesn’t matter. But it hurt, and then I started to cry and that was even more embarrassing.” The rest of it flowed out of me, and I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to. “And the worst part is I thought I was being brave. I thought I was doing, you know, something good. Going outside my comfort zone. Showing him how much I cared about him. I mean, Bobby, my God, I was going to hug him, and it wasn’t a funeral or National Taco Day. We weren’t even shipping him off to war.”

“What war?”

“And instead, I was just…wrong. I mean totally, completely, humiliatingly wrong. He didn’t want a hug. He didn’t need a hug. He definitely didn’t—I don’t know what I was thinking. At the best possible times, I’m the most annoying person he’s ever met. I should have remembered that.”

“Dash,” he said softly.

“That’s all,” I said.

The hum of tires came from the next block.

“The end,” I said.

I thought, maybe, I could hear the ocean, but it was probably just the blood in my ears.

“I’m done emoting,” I told him.

He didn’t actually say, Thank God , but sometimes you can tell.

Then I asked, “Are you okay?”

In the strawberry tree, the squirrels were still playing tag, barely more than shadows chasing each other now. The hum of tires faded. The light faded, and the world grew thinner.

“Yes,” Bobby said.

Because he was Bobby.

“I swear to God, if that’s all you say after I spilled my guts,” I told him.

He wasn’t exactly the eye-rolling type, but he did give my hand an amused little shake. “How did you put it? It made me feel feelings.”

“More,” I growled.

He actually laughed, which all things considered, was very rude. But the amusement dropped away, and when he spoke, his voice was heavy. “I’m…not happy.”

“Okay. This is good. Keep going.”

“I—” Bobby released my hand and rubbed his eyes. My heartbeats counted out his silence. He stopped rubbing his eyes and put one hand on the roof of the Pilot, and he looked off into the dark, and I didn’t know what he was seeing. “I tried to talk to him,” Bobby said, “and he looked at me like—like I was nobody. Like I wasn’t even a person. Everybody else who tried, he stared in the mirror, but he looked at me.” Bobby stopped again. I could feel him battling himself, fighting to control his emotions. “I should have—” But the words cut off. And then he said, voice tight, “I should have done something .”

“He’s scared,” I said. “And he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“He knows. He’s scared, but he knows.”

“Bobby, he idolizes you. He was probably embarrassed you saw him like that.”

Bobby shook his head. “I should have done something.”

“Like what?”

He made an unhappy sound that wasn’t exactly a laugh. Then he looked at me. “I’m proud of you for taking a risk with Keme. I know that was hard for you. And I don’t think you should read too much into what Keme did. He loves you.”

“You realize this is a pot-and-kettle situation, right?”

“I’m kind of gathering that.”

“Well, I’m going to help him even if he does think I’m the most annoying person in the world. Keme didn’t do this. I understand the sheriff is in a bad spot because there’s all this evidence, but I’m not going to let anyone pin this on Keme.”

I waited for the arguments, but what Bobby said was “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help you. The sheriff is keeping me out of this.” Sourly, he added, “Rightly so.”

“I know.”

His jaw was tight, but he spoke with forced casualness. “What are you going to do?”

“Do we have any idea where Keme got those bruises?

Bobby shook his head.

“I think I should talk to Millie,” I said. “What did she say when she gave her statement?”

“She didn’t. She ran out of the station the minute you went with the sheriff. Louis too.”

“What? Why?”

All I got in answer was a patented Bobby Mai shrug.

“Well, I’ll see if I can pin her down. If Keme was at that party, maybe I can figure out where he went next. Put together a timeline, you know? All we have to do is establish an alibi for JT’s time of death.”

“And you might suggest that next time, Millie not lie to the sheriff. That kind of thing only makes this worse for Keme.”

I sat up straight. “Oh, I had a brain, um, flash.”

Bobby did not look suitably impressed.

“What if we framed Louis for JT’s murder? Hear me out! That’s two birds with one stone. We get rid of Louis, and we save Keme.”

Bobby considered me for a long time. Then he said, “I know you’re joking, but just in case: absolutely not.”

“He called me Dan! And he said Fox’s ‘costume’ looked nice! And he said mysteries are like dessert , and that’s an insult to mystery novels and to dessert.”

Leaning in, Bobby kissed me and said, “Please be safe.”

“He’s a philosophy major.”

Bobby didn’t look back, but he gave me a little wave over his shoulder as he headed into the sheriff’s station.

I waited until he was inside, and then I gave him an extra minute, just to be safe. I wanted to make sure Bobby didn’t come back to ask a follow-up question, or tell me he’d changed his mind and was on board with my plan to frame Louis, or kiss me again. (I definitely wouldn’t have minded the last one.)

I had to wait. Because Bobby would have known, as soon as I turned the Pilot out of the lot, that I wasn’t going to Millie’s. I turned the other way and drove toward the Bay Bridge Suites.