Page 20 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer (Summers in Seaside)

twenty

. . .

Elle

“Change of plan,” I announce.

“Did we have a plan to begin with?” Amy asks.

“Ha. Ha,” I say drily. “I think we should just put Doug in his truck with the other body and roll them both off a cliff. It’s the easiest way to get rid of Doug’s body.”

“I would agree,” Amy says. “But it’s broad daylight now. People will see when we move the body and get suspicious.”

“Duh,” I say. “That’s why you’re going to jump in Doug’s truck and drive it away. I’ll follow you and we’ll wait to move the body someplace private.”

“Why do I have to be the one to drive Doug’s truck?” Amy asks.

“Because I’m already driving my car.”

“I’m not super comfortable driving around with a dead body,” she says.

“What the hell do you think we’ve been doing all morning already?” I ask.

She thinks on that for a moment. “I’m not sure. But somehow, it’s different in my mind.”

“Figure out a way to un-different—” We turn the corner onto the street Doug left his truck and I slam the brakes so hard Amy nearly face plants into the dashboard.

“My God, woman,” she says, sitting up and fixing her ponytail, “was that really necessary?”

I point ahead. “Look.”

Doug’s giant banana on wheels sits in the same place, parked all wonky on the side of the road like it got drunk and gave up halfway through a parallel park.

Except, the problem isn’t the truck—it’s the crowd of people around it.

Civilians and cops alike, many sipping at their morning coffees and taking in the goings on like they’re watching some sort of Neighborhood Watch-sanctioned live murder retelling.

Amy leans forward, squinting through the windshield. “This is bad.”

She’s right. It is.

I pull up to the curb across the street and leave the engine running. I just want a peek. Maybe a scrap of info to tell me how fast I should be panicking. Like, are-we-bonfire-levels-of-incriminated or just a mild-mistake-and-some-therapy level of fucked?

And because the universe has the comedic timing of a coked-up ferret with a vendetta, the crowd parts and a man steps through. Pulling off latex gloves and handing them to one underling while barking orders to another.

Detective Noah Grant.

Tall. Built. Brooding. Hot in that “please ruin me emotionally and I’ll thank you for it” kind of way.

Most of the women, and some of the men, watch him appreciatively as he ducks under the yellow tape, and strides toward a government-issued SUV like the fate of justice depends on him and his very chiseled jawline.

If it’s even possible, he’s gotten better looking in the last two years.

Amy groans. “How is it that he smolders even at a murder scene?”

“I hate him,” I whisper reverently, like I’m confessing a sin to the Church of Petty Ex-Wives.

“Oh. Yeah. Me too,” Amy agrees.

Noah’s face is all business, which is somehow worse. I can handle flirty Noah. I can even handle angry Noah. But Detective Grant—cool, composed, morally upright—is the guy who once promised he’d never stop loving me.

Clearly that was a lie.

And now he’sback, didn’t even tell me he was coming, and he looks even better than before our divorce. Honestly, who does that?

What a prick.

“Amy,” I whisper hoarsely. “He’s back.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“And he didn’t tell me.”

“I know, babe.”

“He’s back and working with the police force and didn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s worse is, he didn’t tell the kids.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod. “They would have said something for sure.”

As if he hears us talking about him, Noah pauses before getting into his shiny police SUV and looks in our direction.

“Duck!” I whisper.

We hurriedly slouch low in our seats. And even though his eyes are hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, I can feel his gaze cutting right down to my very soul.

“He’s back. He’s working homicide. Oh, God Amy, he’s going to connect this,” I mutter, clutching the steering wheel like it’s a lifeline. “I just know it.”

Amy flicks her gaze toward me. “You think he’ll tie you to Doug?”

“I think if he gets within ten feet of this car, he’s going to smell the Eau de Rotting Contractor I’ve been marinating in since last night.”

Amy makes a strangled sound and grabs my arm. “Shit! He’s coming this way. Abort. Reverse. Flee. Go. But be cool about it.”

“Be cool?” I whisper, throwing the SUV into drive and peeking just far enough above the dashboard to make sure I don’t hit anything. “Right. Okay. We flee coolly. I don’t even know what that means, Ames.”

I make the most obvious U-turn in suburbanite history, completely cutting off a kid on a scooter who stops mid-roll and proceeds to watch us with the disapproving glare of someone whose mom probably hand-stencils their name on their snack bags.

I wave and smile in that way you do when you're trying to pass for a regular citizen and not an accidental murderer on a low-speed getaway.

“Act casual,” Amy hisses, still ducking as if that helps.

“I am acting casual.”

“You’re signaling with your wipers.”

“Shit.”

I hit the turn signal instead, but now it just looks like I’m doing a musical number with my windshield.

I glance in the rearview mirror. Noah is still by the SUV, faced in our direction but talking to someone else.

His hand is on his hip, and his head tilts like he’s deep in thought.

The same head tilt he used to give me when I told him I wasn’t mad, and he knew—knew—that I was about to emotionally gut him with a passive-aggressive remark about laundry.

We clear the block, turn a corner, and I exhale like I’ve just been laced into a twenty-three inch corset on the set of Downton Abbey . My heart is pounding. My stomach is grinding itself in knots. And my thighs are sticking to the seat with the kind of sweat that only guilt and panic can produce.

Amy shakes her arms in front of her and does a little shimmy in her seat. “Okay, so that was?—”

“Bad,” I say. “That was bad.”

“It could be worse,” she offers weakly.

“How?”

“He could’ve seen you. Or smelled you.”

“Not helping.”

She looks at me. “Do you think he means it when he says he’s back for good?”

I grip the steering wheel tighter. “Noah doesn’t do casual drop-ins. He’s a full-commitment kind of guy. If he says he’s here, it’s for good.”

There’s a beat of silence between us as the SUV hums quietly down the street. Amy doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to. We both know the stakes just changed. Again.

Because if Noah’s investigating this mess, then the margin for error just shrank to the size of my willpower around carbs. And that is dangerously small.