Page 14 of Retool

“Are you okay?”

(Everybody was going to ask me that tonight, it seemed.)

“Fine.”

“What happened?”

So, I went through it all again, from the beginning: being approached by Vivienne in the conference center, and what she had told me about solving a murder, and my suspicion that she was going to try to do something.

“Something in particular?”the sheriff asked.

“No.I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said.“No, I didn’t know what she was going to do.But I guess I thought it would be…something like last time.”

“Faking her death?”

“Sheisdead, isn’t she?For real this time?”

The sheriff nodded.

Some of the strain in my body finally relaxed.“Thank God,” I said.And then immediately, “I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant, Dash,” the sheriff said.

“And we’re sure it’s Vivienne?”Bobby asked.“It’s not a double or—or—”

What he didn’t say—what nobody had said, yet—was that the last time, when Vivienne had tried to fake her own death, our last sheriff had helped her pull it off.

“I ID’d her myself,” the sheriff said.There was a certain stiffness in the words.Then, relaxing, she said, “We’re going to do everything by the book.”

“I know,” I said.I squeezed Bobby’s hand.“Thank you.”

“Do you know why she was out here?”the sheriff asked.

“No clue.But she seemed like she was—I don’t know how to say it.Like it was something official, or like it was business.There’s this way she carried herself at the conference, and when she left the veranda, that’s how she looked, still in conference mode.”

“Did you see anything after she left the veranda that might help us?”the sheriff said.“We’re having a hard time finding a camera near the grotto.”

Of course they were.

“Not after she left the veranda, no,” I said.But I mentioned the conversation I’d witnessed between Vivienne and Graeme, as well as the short argument—or whatever it had been—between Vivienne and the petite woman on the veranda.

“Thank you,” the sheriff said.“I’m going to say something you won’t like.”

“Am I a suspect?”

“I don’t think you killed Vivienne, Dash.But you also need to understand that it’s in your best interest for this investigation to move forward fully and transparently, without any sign of partiality from the sheriff’s office.”

“You’re telling me not to investigate.”

“I’m telling you that the best thing you can do—for yourself, and for everyone else—is not to get involved.The further you can keep yourself from this, the better.”

“So, Iama suspect.”

“Dash—” Bobby said.