Page 36 of Except Emerson (Detroit ABCs #7)

“So, what, you’re totally fine now?” Vivi demanded. “You’re just going to run around and pose with your new boyfriend?”

“How did you find this?” I asked. “I’m not tagged. Were you trolling through random wedding shots?” My fingers hovered over Levi’s face. It would be great if he got to wear that tuxedo again.

She snatched back the phone. “I don’t waste my time looking at second-tier parties!” she informed me, and then explained the complicated investigation she’d done to search for my image. “That’s how I saw this picture, but anyone could!”

“Why were you bothering to do that?” I asked, flummoxed. “Why do you care?”

“You know what we used to call you?” Vivi asked me in return. “Snow Queen! Like that movie with the girl who made everything turn cold. You have that same stupid hair and those same ugly eyes.”

“My eyes aren’t ugly!” They were light blue like my mother’s, but maybe I also had a resemblance to a certain cartoon princess. I had heard that a few times before and I’d never liked it.

“You used to stare at us out of those icy eyes, never talking and watching everything. No one could stand it!” she told me.

“It was like you weren’t even human, just a robot.

Everyone hated you and we still do. Why don’t you just go?

” Now, it seemed like she was going to cry—another emotion I’d never seen from her.

She pulled herself together enough to order me again: “Go away!”

“Thank you for stopping by,” I said, and unlocked the car door. It was raining hard now and I stepped out into the downpour, sure that she wouldn’t follow me because she wouldn’t risk her hair. She and Coral felt a lot the same about water, and also in how they behaved inexplicably and hated me.

But my cat did run out of the bedroom when I slammed my door, and then she walked closer and meowed.

Apparently, I had better relationship bonds with her than with any of Grant’s friend group.

She even sat near my feet as I started to scour the internet for information about Vivienne and Lance—before I stopped myself.

What was I doing? Why did I care about these people anymore?

“It was because she showed up again, out of the blue,” I said into my phone, and the words typed themselves out. “Why?”

“? Por qué ?” Hernán wrote back quickly. “I’m not sure. She won’t tell you?”

“She’s hinting around but I don’t get it,” I answered. “She keeps ordering me to leave and I don’t know why.”

“ Pero no es normal para ella, ? verdad ? O sea, no sois amigas . You two aren’t friends and it’s not normal for her to want to talk about personal problems.”

“The most personal she ever before got was to complain about her manicure. I didn’t know anything about her father’s asset distribution, her mom’s new boyfriend, or her own marital problems. I thought everything was perfect between her and Lance.”

“? Quién sabe lo que pasa a puerta cerrada ? Who knows what happens behind closed doors? I’ll ask Lucía for her opinion.”

Then I did hear the sound of Levi coming home, which I told Hernán.

“ Dále un beso ,” he wrote, and I went to the door and opened it before Levi had time to knock.

“You can just come in,” I told him, and then asked, “What’s the matter? What happened?” Because he was pale and he looked even more worried than Vivienne had as she chewed her thumbnail.

“I had a strange—bad—I don’t know what happened today,” he answered. He sat on the couch and Coral immediately climbed on him, and so did I. Not totally climbed, but I sat near enough that we were touching.

“Tell me,” I urged. The story of my meet-up with Vivienne could wait.

“Something’s happening with August. I think, but I don’t know.”

“Something with the police?” I asked, because it wouldn’t have surprised me.

But he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “We haven’t been in touch a lot lately, and I can’t think of the last time we talked on the phone. But as I was on my way home, he called me and said that I was his best friend and that he loved me.”

“Levi! Is he going to hurt himself?”

“That was what I thought. I told him to stay where he was, that I would come get him. But he said no, he was fine. He just wanted me to know how sorry he is that we aren’t getting along.

He started talking about my mom making tuna casserole and how he thought it was the best thing he’d ever eaten, because he never had stuff made at home before.

He said that it was fun to watch me tease my sisters and he had never thought of talking to girls like that, like they could be friends, too. ”

“This isn’t making me confident in his safety.”

“Me neither,” Levi said. “But he wouldn’t tell me where he is or what’s going on. He just said that he wants to make amends and be friends again. I told him that he’s like my brother, that even if I’m pissed off at him, I still love him.” He hesitated. “He might have been crying.”

“We should call the police.”

But he hesitated again. “If August is doing something that he shouldn’t, I could get him in a lot of trouble over nothing.”

“Then we have to go find him ourselves.” I stood up. “Right now!”

“He’s not at his house, or the apartment, or the club, because I already checked. I know he owns more real estate—”

“He does,” I agreed, marching to my laptop. “I have a list.”

“Why? Why do you have a list?

I answered as I typed. “Because he made me worried, for your sake. I told you that I thought he was doing something criminal and I looked into it. He owns things under a few different names.” I pointed to the screen.

“Here’s what I found, but I don’t think that it’s comprehensive. I’m not a private detective.”

“I know someone who is. Can you drive so I can talk to her?”

Sure. It had been a while but I could do it for him, so we got into his car.

I moved up the seat and tilted down the mirrors as he made a call.

“Sophie? It’s Levi,” he said into the phone, and spoke to this woman for a while about August. “Thank you,” he ended by saying, and hung up.

“She’s going to find out what she can and get back to me.

Sophie Curran is one of the sisters who taught me to dance and she also used to work as an investigator.

She’s pretty sure she can get something fast.”

That was good, because August wasn’t at the addresses I had found, not his warehouse in Oak Park, his rental home in Southfield, or his commercial retail space in Birmingham.

We were in the parking lot there when Levi’s former neighbor called and told him about another property.

We headed to what he explained was the Green Acres neighborhood of Detroit, to another house that the woman suggested was not a rental—she wasn’t sure what August was doing with it, and the ownership had been very tricky to uncover due to a few different trusts that obscured things.

As we drove up, I thought it was funny that he’d have bought this house, a pretty, older building on a tree-lined street. What was so special about it?

“I don’t see any of his cars, but there’s a garage and he could have parked inside. I’ll go,” Levi said, but I got out and went with him just like I had at the other places. He stopped on the step. “I don’t know if I want to find him or…”

I took his hand, and he knocked. If the street hadn’t been so quiet, we wouldn’t have heard the faint noises inside the house. We glanced at each other, because someone was here.

And suddenly, the door jerked open and there was August. The two of them stared at each other for a moment and then Levi grabbed his friend and hugged him.

“You scared the shit out of me!” he said, and his voice sounded choked. “Why did you stop answering? Why did you say that stuff? What the hell is wrong with you, hiding here?”

August sounded dazed. “How did you find me?” he kept repeating, the words muffled. Levi was hugging him pretty tightly, but finally he let go.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked.

“Come on,” August said, eying me, and we both followed him into the house. The interior was just as normal as the outside, just a regular place. Nothing about it seemed to indicate intrigue or danger, so then what was going on?

His answers about that were just as frustrating as Vivienne’s had been.

“Sorry I scared you,” August said, looking at his hands. “I called because I started thinking about how we haven’t been talking, and I felt really shitty. I missed you a lot. You know I’m sorry.”

His gaze slid in my direction again as he spoke, and I wondered once more if the trouble between them might have had something to do with me.

The breach had seemed to occur just after we’d hung out at his pool, and maybe he’d said something to Levi, like a rude remark.

The same thing had happened once when one of Grant’s friends had announced that he thought I had a genetic issue.

I had told him that no, I did not, and surprisingly, Vivi’s husband Lance had spoken up for me too.

He’d told the other guy to shut the fuck up, and I’d gotten an apology.

But if August had been criticizing me, he didn’t apologize now. Levi told him it was ok but he still wanted to know what was going on. “Why are you here? What is this house?”

“I bought it for my mom a few years ago, in case she ever came back,” August answered. He was back to studying his hands as he spoke. “I wanted her to have a safe place that was away from her old friends.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Levi said. “But why are you here right now? Are you hiding?”

“I’m having some business issues,” his friend answered, and as much as Levi questioned him, that was about all he would say. Then I tried too, asking a few pointed things about his underground club, and that got more of a response.

“I’m getting out of that,” August answered. “I’m going to focus on other ventures.”