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Tempest didn’t actually have a plan. And she didn’t have much time to figure one out. There was no traffic on the bridge on their way back to Hidden Creek, so they’d be back in no time. There was something off about their re-creation of the scene of the crime. She wanted to take another look at it.

It wasn’t much past midnight when they arrived in Hidden Creek. The main road took them through the center of town before reaching the turnoff onto the side street that would lead them back to Fiddler’s Folly.

“Slow down,” Gideon said as they drove past Veggie Magic, which was brightly lit in spite of the late hour.

“Lavinia never has her café open this late.” Ivy craned her neck as Tempest slowed.

“People are getting an early start on the summer stroll.” Tempest pointed at the new Himalayan restaurant down the street with its lights still on. “They must be staying open late for that.”

“Pull over,” said Gideon.

“You hungry?” Tempest asked.

“Milton and Kira are inside Veggie Magic,” he said. “They must’ve headed there after we canceled the rehearsal.”

Tempest pulled over, and they headed into the café.

“There was no way I could get to sleep,” Kira said when Tempest and her friends arrived at their table. “Milton agreed to keep me company.”

“We were just finishing up,” said Milton. There were no plates on the table, but rumpled napkins and nearly empty cups of tea sat on the tabletop.

“Good,” said Tempest. “Because we need your help.”

Ten minutes later, they were back at the barn workshop at Fiddler’s Folly.

“We got sidetracked earlier tonight,” said Tempest. “It’s time to finish what we started. We’re all set up for a rehearsal—”

“ Now? ” Milton scratched his beard. “It’s after midnight.”

“What’s the matter, Milton?” Sanjay asked.

Milton chuckled. “I remember what it was like to be in my twenties like it was yesterday, but I’m no longer up for being awake until three o’clock in the morning.”

“Worried you’ll slip up because you’re tired?” Sanjay clasped his hands behind his back and leaned forward with his eyes narrowed. Was he attempting to look intimidating? It wasn’t very convincing.

“W-what?” Milton stammered as he stepped away from Sanjay.

“Maybe accidentally reveal something to your mentee that you wish she wouldn’t know?”

Milton reddened.

“What’s he talking about?” Kira asked Milton.

Milton’s shoulders slumped. He sat down on the bench serving as the futon in their stage reproduction and put his head in his hands. “They said they wouldn’t tell you.” He gave Sanjay a withering glance, but it only lasted a moment. “I should probably tell you anyway. It’s time. I don’t want to have to keep pretending.”

Kira sat down on the bench next to him and took his hand. “You can tell me anything. Wait, that’s not true. If you tell me you’ve only been pretending to be gay and you’re actually trying to seduce me, I’m outta here.”

That got a chuckle out of Milton, but he didn’t meet her gaze when he spoke. “I’m not a rare books expert. I don’t know anything about old books. Or anything interesting. I’m simply a boring old accountant.”

Kira squeezed his hand. “I know that, silly.”

Milton looked up at her. “You do?”

“So does your daughter.”

“She does ?”

“Milton, you’re an even worse liar than you are a ‘rare book expert.’ Ellie didn’t start spending time with you again because of that, but because she missed you. She was angry for a long time because she felt like you split up the family, but that was just her acting out as an emotional adolescent who was upset her family had changed. She doesn’t actually blame you.”

“How do you know all this? You two have been hanging out without telling—”

“No.” Kira shook her head. “She’s a chronic oversharer on social media. I started following her after we met after that first show she came to.”

“You’re not angry that I lied?”

Kira shrugged. “Everyone lies about their lives online. You aren’t active online except to share new shows of the Creekside Players, so I gave you a pass for needing an outlet to pretend to be good at something you weren’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Milton said. “It was a stupid thing to have lied about, and I didn’t know how to unsay it.”

“It’s all good,” said Kira. “Just don’t do it again. You don’t ever need to lie to me.”

“Yes, well.” Sanjay cleared his throat from where he stood in the spot that would have been the bathroom if they’d been in Gray House. “I’m glad we got that cleared up. Can we please get to the actual matter at hand?”

Tempest was standing a few feet away from Sanjay, in the room that would have been the dining room, which they’d marked off with blue painters’ tape. She followed the line of sight from where Sanjay stood to where Kira and Milton sat on the futon.

“I know what happened,” Tempest said. She’d been close to figuring it out when her grandfather’s text about Enid had arrived, and now she could see it clearly.

“You really know?” Ivy asked.

“Not just a guess?” Sanjay added.

“I do,” Tempest said quietly. “Gideon, could you bring me the large sheet of cardboard on the table behind you? Then I’ll be able to tell you for sure if this is about lines of sight. Everyone else, stay where you are.”

The four-by-four-foot piece of cardboard swayed as Gideon handed it to her. She placed it on the line of tape of the dining room wall that faced the living room, then slowly moved it around each section of wall they’d drawn with tape. When she was done with the dining room, she moved on to the kitchen and bathroom.

“You’re looking to see if there any blind spots,” said Sanjay, catching on.

“Sort of,” Tempest said. “The arched opening from the living room made us discount the idea that someone could have left the group and moved the body from the living room.”

“I was in the kitchen,” Ivy said, “where it’s a straight shot to see the living room, bathroom, and dining room. I’d swear to the fact that I didn’t see anyone go back into the living room.”

“I don’t doubt you,” Tempest said. “But do you remember what you were doing in the kitchen?”

“Of course,” Ivy snapped. “I was with Cameron the whole time between when we found the body and when it disappeared. I was helping him open the cabinet to get our cell phones to call the police. I was…” She trailed off and gasped. “You’re right. If I’d turned my head, I could have seen what was happening. But I was so focused on getting to a phone… I was facing away from the living room.”

Tempest nodded. “The living room and the bathroom were both behind you. And from where Enid, Milton, and I were in the dining room, we could only see the kitchen, not the living room or bathroom. We were all in such proximity to one another that we assumed we were all together.”

She should have noticed even sooner. There was only one person with an opportunity to slip away. Even though Ivy and Cameron were in the kitchen, they were facing in the other direction.

“There was only one person who was alone,” said Tempest. “One person not in our line of sight. We thought we knew where she was, but in truth, we only heard her.”

One by one, all eyes turned to Kira.