Page 40 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer (Summers in Seaside)

thirty-nine

. . .

Noah

I flick the lock on my office door and sink back into the chair. My pulse won’t settle, no matter how many times I tell myself I’ve got control of this.

Because I don’t. Not really.

Not with the gnome photo floating around out there.

I pull open another folder, this one tucked deeper than the rest. Inside: a still frame printed off a private security feed, the kind that usually gets passed around like neighborhood gossip until someone finally drops it in the anonymous tip box.

Elle.

Grainy, low-resolution, but it’s her. My gut knew it the second I saw it.

She’s caught mid-motion in the frame, hair wild, arm raised, wielding that stupid lawn gnome like a weapon.

The thing looks ridiculous—smiling ceramic face, red hat tilted—but the impact is clear. She’s hitting something. Someone.

And even though the picture is blurry enough to keep her technically unidentifiable, I know what happens if the original file is pulled. High-resolution. Enhanced. Cleaned up in a lab with better software than the crap filters I have at my disposal here.

That version could end her.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. My options are limited, and every one of them is dirty.

Finally, I reach for the burner again and scroll to the only number I can dial without thinking twice.

“Yeah?” The voice is gravel and whiskey, answering on the second ring.

“It’s me.”

A pause. Then a chuckle. “Christ, Noah Grant. Thought you forgot how to dial.”

“I need a favor.”

“Of course you do. You only call when you need a favor.”

“Not for me,” I say, sharper than intended. “For someone else.”

Another pause, longer this time. “This a friend kind of ‘someone,’ or a ‘don’t ask too many questions’ kind of someone?”

I close my eyes. Elle’s face burns behind my lids, half defiant, half terrified.

“Don’t ask.”

He exhales smoke straight into the phone. “Then tell me what you need.”

“There’s a security company. Black Sky Surveillance, out of Orange County. They host all their footage in the cloud. I need one file gone. Completely gone. No backups, no mirrors, no ghost data on the servers.”

“Ballsy request. You plan on robbing a bank?”

“Nothing like that. Just… something stupid. A mistake.”

“You got identifiers?”

“Yeah.” I slide the paper across the desk and rattle off the string of letters and numbers printed along the bottom of the frame. Date. Camera ID. Server index. “It’s tied to an account out of Santa Luna. Residential.”

“Alright,” he says slowly, like he’s weighing whether the moneys worth the risk. “But if I pull this, there won’t be any getting it back. Gone means gone.”

“That’s what I want.”

A whistle. “Whoever this is, they must mean a lot to you.”

I don’t answer.

He doesn’t push. Just says, “Give me a few hours. And Noah? Don’t call me again for a long time.”

The line clicks dead.

I sit there with the phone heavy in my hand, staring at the blurry printout until my eyes ache. I should burn it. Shred it. Pretend it never existed. But part of me can’t. Because holding onto it feels like holding onto proof that she’s still mine to protect.

Eventually, I fold it in half, then in half again, until it’s a neat little square. I slip it into the same pocket as the traffic cam drive. Both warm against my thigh, both anchors dragging me deeper.

The plan is clear now.

Doug will be the killer. Elle will be invisible. And me? I’ll be the cop who keeps building lies until the truth suffocates underneath them.