Page 38 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer (Summers in Seaside)

thirty-seven

. . .

Noah

Amy half-stands like she’s ready to bolt. “I’ll just, uh—go… scrub my baseboards or something.”

“Ames,” I say, sharper than I mean to.

She freezes.

“Stay.”

She leans against the kitchen doorway, looking between me and Elle like she’s watching a match with no referee. “Should this require wine?” she asks.

“God, I hope so,” Elle says, already at the wine fridge. Bottle, two stems. Then she opens the cabinet, grabs the cut crystal tumbler and the Macallan 12 Sherry Oak. One cube, two fingers, and she presses it into my hand like a memory.

It shouldn’t get to me that she still knows my pour. Or that the bottle’s open and I’m not the one who opened it. It does anyway.

I let silence settle the way it does in an interview room—just the fridge hum and the rhythm of a house that has seen too much and still pretends it’s fine.

Elle doesn’t break first.

She tips a glass toward Amy, pours, then fills one for herself and lets the wine sit on her tongue while she looks at me over the rim. Her hands are steady now. Of course they are. She’s always held a line better than half my suspects.

She must know what’s coming, even if I barely know what I’ll say until I hear it.

“What’s this about, Noah?” she asks.

I don’t soften it. “What were you two doing near Doug Finch’s truck this morning?”

Not a gasp. Not a flinch. Just a shift—weight sliding to her back foot, shoulders settling like armor. Amy blinks a beat late and laughs, bright and hollow.

“Pilates,” she says. “Early class. Core and… obliques. Obliquing. I’m so sore.” She clutches her stomach like she’s auditioning.

I almost laugh.

“We have footage,” I say.

Amy’s glass pauses midair. Elle sets hers down without a clink, eyes steady on mine. “Footage.”

“Traffic cam,” I say. “Seven twelve a.m. Silver SUV slows, parks half a block behind the truck. You get out first.” I tip my chin at Elle. “Circle the driver’s side. Pause. Look in. Amy does the same. Pause. Confer.”

Amy swallows loud enough to register. Elle glances at the sink, like she’s considering turning the tap just to move, then keeps her hands where they are.

“We saw it was parked weird,” she says. “Crooked. It looked… off.” A micro-glance at Amy, then me again. “We wanted to check it out.”

“The giant banana is hard to miss,” Amy adds, hopeful.

“Why not report it?” I ask.

Her mouth twists. “Because there was nothing to report,” she says. “A weird truck parked weird. I’m not calling that in when you have actual emergencies. Also, I didn’t have my phone on me.”

“You had it in your back pocket,” I say.

Her lashes flick once. “Is this an interrogation?”

Not in the way you think, baby.

“You could’ve texted,” I say. “Anonymous tip. ‘Truck looks abandoned.’”

“Anonymous tips aren’t anonymous,” Amy mutters. “Like comment cards. They always know.”

I angle closer, voice low. “Then don’t leave anything that needs anonymity. Leave… nothing.”

Elle keeps me in her sights like I’m the thing parked wrong. “I looked because that’s what people do when something sits where it shouldn’t,” she says. “Neighborhood watch without the vest. That’s all.”

I shift just enough that the loose floorboard announces me—something else I never fixed but should have. The sound lands between us like history.

“Tell me the truth,” I say.

“I am.”

I study the places she can’t stage-manage.

Tendons tight at the back of her hand where it braces the counter.

Shoulders loose but not low—ready to absorb impact.

Her body angled—without thinking or because she thought about it too much—between me and the small hallway that leads to the backyard door.

“I should bring you in,” I say, light as a coin flip.

Her gaze snaps to mine. “Then why haven’t you?”

“Because we’re talking,” I say, and even my ears don’t buy it.

She huffs. “Cops don’t ‘ talk .’” Air quotes. “You taught me that, Noah.”

Amy sets her empty glass down like she’s defusing a bomb. “Can I pee during ‘ talking ’? Or…?”

“Stay.” It comes out harder than I intend. I don’t take it back. I’m pissed we’re here. More pissed she doesn’t trust me enough to give me something I can use to protect her.

Both feel it. The air tightens.

I change tactics.

“We had the weirdest case come in,” I say.

“Is the interrogation over?” Elle asks, chin hitching stubborn.

“We’re just talking, Babe.” My hands go up, empty.

She half-laughs to say she doesn’t believe me. Fair. So, I add in a low voice, “Let’s keep it that way.”

Her head jerks up and her eyes widen. I can only hope she’s finally picking up what I’m putting down.

“What case?” Amy asks.

“Couple of nut jobs tried to dump something at a construction site,” I lie.

Her face blanches.

“Which might’ve worked,” I say, casual, “if the city hadn’t flagged the lot for underground utility mapping. Crew’s verifying soil compaction tomorrow, realigning sewer access for the fancy eco-homes going in. People like their waste flowing where it’s supposed to.”

Silence. I don’t think either of them is breathing.

“Anyway,” I add, “night crew saw fresh tire tracks. Disturbed soil near a southeast pit. Nothing dramatic. Just… wrong. Someone backed in, bailed fast. Left a corner of a blue tarp.”

Amy makes a strangled sound that could be cough, prayer, or both.

I meet Elle’s eyes. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“No,” she says.

I nod once. “Good. Because whoever did it? Amateurs. Could’ve gotten themselves caught. Or worse.”

“Worse than being caught?” Amy whispers.

“Construction accidents happen,” I say. “People fall into things they can’t get out of.”

Amy licks her lips. “So, hypothetically,” she says, “if your construction nut jobs accidentally… you know…” She flaps a hand like punctuation. “What would they do now? Hypothetically.”

“Amy.” Elle’s warning is a knife in silk.

“What? I’m curious about what these idiots might do in their hypothetical situation.”

I don’t smile. “Hypothetically? They’d stop making mistakes,” I say. “They’d stop doing anything memorable. Or on camera. They’d get dull. The kind of dull nothing sticks to.”

Amy nods like a bobblehead. “I can get dull. It’s practically my middle name. Amy Dull-as-Fuck Person.” A hiccup. “Now I really have to pee.”

Elle softens. “Go.”

Amy vanishes down the hall, held together by sheer will and poor choices. The house shrinks around us. Back to the fridge hum, the neighbor’s sprinkler, the space between our breaths.

“You done?” Elle asks.

The kitchen goes that specific, heavy quiet—right before a glass tips and shatters.

“With the talking?” I say. “No.” I rake my palm over stubble I didn’t get to this morning. “With the warning, yeah.”

She steps in. Not coy. Not aggressive. Intentional. The counter edge grazes my hip when I adjust my stance; the heat off her skin eats the distance.

“Why are you really here?” she asks.

I should lie again. But I don’t. “I’m here because a man is dead,” I say. “And because you were near the truck he was found in.”

We stay too close for too long. Watching. Waiting. The whiskey sits where it always does, warm behind my sternum, burning a slow path I remember too well.

“You still wear that cologne,” she says, too quiet. It isn’t a question.

“You still keep my glass,” I answer.

Her mouth curves, not quite a smile. “Maybe I like the weight of it.”

Maybe I like the weight of you.

I shouldn’t touch her. So, I do the next-worst thing: reach past her for the bottle to set it farther from the edge—an inch away from a fall. The back of my hand skims the inside of her wrist. Static. She doesn’t move. Neither do I.

“Careful,” I say, and I’m not talking about the glass.

Her breath hitches. A small, traitorous sound that detonates in my ribs. She tilts her face up, eyes on mine like she’s measuring danger against want and not hating the math.

“Noted,” she whispers.

My mouth is a bad idea away from hers. I plant my hand on the counter instead, close enough that our fingers almost touch. Close enough to remember the freckle at the base of her throat and how it rises when she swallows.

“I should go,” I say.

“You should,” she says. She doesn’t move.

I take two steps, pause, and look back because I don’t know how not to. “If you think of anything you forgot to mention,” I say, pinning my gaze to hers, “call me.”

Like if you made a mistake and need my help. Just ask, dammit.

“I won’t forget,” she says.

For a second, something shifts—her lips part, the muscle at her throat jumps. The moment stretches like warm sugar.

Then Amy flushes and the thread snaps.

I nod once. If I say anything else, it’ll be the wrong thing. I can’t afford wrong.

She’s lying. I know it.

And still, I want to build a wall between her and whatever’s coming.

I walk away before I something else and make everything worse all over again.