Page 28 of Wham Line (The Last Picks #10)

I called Fox.

They didn’t answer.

I called Indira.

Nothing.

I looked for Keme and Millie, but they were gone. I tried their phones, and they didn’t answer either.

When I turned to say goodbye to Larry, he was leaning on the refrigerated display case, pointing to one of the fish as he said something to a woman who must have been from out of town.

I jumped in the Malibu and flew back to Hemlock House.

A part of me wanted to call Bobby—if the sheriff was going to arrest Indira, maybe he could talk to her.

But that was a childish hope. Bobby couldn’t tell the sheriff what to do.

And anyway, Sheriff Acosta was a good sheriff; if she thought she needed to arrest Indira, it was because she had evidence she could no longer explain away or ignore.

Say, for example, Indira’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.

Indira, I thought as I drove, what did you do?

When I got to Hemlock House, it was stark and black against the gray sky. No sign of Fox’s van. No sign of Millie’s Mazda3 either. When I went into the coach house, no cars were parked inside. I ran up the stairs and pounded on Indira’s door. No answer. I tried the handle, and it turned.

Inside, the rooms looked as neat as they had on my last visit: everything in its place, everything tidy.

No drawers hanging open. No piles of sentimental trinkets that had been gathered and then abandoned.

No signs, in other words, that someone living here had packed up and run. But no Indira. No Fox.

I tried Hemlock House next, wandering through the high-ceilinged rooms, calling out names.

The lamps and chandeliers were dark, and I was in too much of a rush to turn them on, so I moved through the house in the hazy gray light that filtered in through the windows.

It gave the house new shadows and made familiar rooms strange.

It was like coming back after a long time.

Or like something out of one of those post-apocalyptic movies, where a house looks exactly as it did the day everyone disappeared—a blanket that had slid halfway off the chesterfield; a glass of water left on the kitchen counter; Bobby’s Adidas on the tray near the back door.

The sound of the front door opening echoed through the house.

Maybe they'd realized they’d made a mistake.

Maybe they’d come back.

I made my way toward the front of the house and reached the hall at the same time that Bobby stepped out of the vestibule.

He looked better than he had the day before: his eyes were clear and alert, and the circles under them had faded, and he’d even combed his hair back into its familiar part.

Today’s outfit was a navy pullover and jeans that put him squarely in the category of a guy who plans on taking care of business.

The first thing out of my mouth was “Bobby?” I looked past him, but he was alone. “What are you doing here? I thought you were with your family.”

“I’ve been calling you.”

“Oh my God, is everything okay? Did something happen? Wait, were you the one who told Fox?”

He took out his phone, tapped the screen, and held it out for me to see. “What is this?”

All I could see at that distance was something red. “I don’t—”

He took two steps forward and made a peremptory movement with his hand. “What is this?”

It was my spreadsheet, the one where I’d tracked all my agent submissions.

The one with all the red highlighting to show, you know, the universal rejection of A Work in Progress .

“Where did you—”

“What is this?” Bobby asked again, more harshly this time.

“Were you looking through my laptop?”

“It was the first thing on the screen when I unlocked it,” Bobby said. “I couldn’t help seeing it.”

The flowers, I thought through the rising storm of emotion. I’d told him to check my email for the flowers I’d ordered.

“Were you going to tell me?” Bobby asked.

“Tell you—”

“Were you going to tell me about this? It’s a simple question, Dash. Yes or no.”

“Bobby.” But I stopped. And the question that fell out of my mouth next sounded like a child’s. “What’s happening?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I was going to—Bobby, what’s happening right now?”

“You were going to tell me? When? Next week? Next month?”

“I don’t understand what’s happening right now. I got another rejection from an agent. Hold on, is that why you were calling me? Is that why you drove all the way out here? Because it’s not a big deal—”

“It is a big deal!” Bobby’s shout rang out. “It’s a very big deal! This is your career, Dash. This is the most important thing in your life, and you’ve worked so hard on it, and I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want to bother you—”

“I’m your boyfriend!” It was beyond shouting now—a full-throated fury that had Bobby louder than I’d ever heard him before. “You’re supposed to tell me this stuff so I can fix it!”

Some essential linkage in my brain disconnected, and then I was looking at Bobby from a long way off, and everything got much quieter.

There was so much to unpack in that sentence that for a moment, I couldn’t say or do anything.

Then I latched onto the topmost part of it, and a sound of disbelief escaped me.

Taking my phone from my pocket, I turned and started toward the den.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bobby asked, following me.

I shut the door to the den behind me.

Bobby opened it and came into the room. “Dash.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “What do you think it means?”

He set his jaw. “I’m trying to have a conversation—”

“You’re trying to have a conversation with me? Is that what you think you’re doing? Great. So, now’s the time for a conversation.”

“That was a big deal. That was important to you. We’ve talked about your submissions.

We’ve talked about how much finding an agent matters for your career.

We talked about it being a big risk, using a pen name, and how you were worried no one was going to offer to represent you.

And then I find out you’ve been getting responses and not telling me about it!

I don’t understand how you could not tell me something like that.

And then, on top of that, I wake up, and you’re gone, Dash.

Gone. Do you know what that was like, panicking, not knowing what was going on or where you were or if you were even alive, and having to pretend everything was okay in front of my dad and Eric?

You don’t answer my calls. You won’t tell me what’s going on.

Do you know how scared I’ve been? Is it too much to ask for you to talk to me? ”

For several seconds, there was only the high-pitched ringing in my ears. And then I said, “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m unbelievable? If you’d talked to me—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

Bobby’s look of shock transformed into something else. Anger. Beyond anger. The closest I’d ever seen him come to rage. “What did you say?”

“I said don’t. Stop. I’m not going to do this right now.

I can’t do this right now.” I started around him; I didn’t know why I’d come into the den in the first place, but now I knew I had to get out.

Away. “Fox and Indira think they’re Bonnie and Clyde, and I’ve got to find them before they do something truly stupid. ”

Bobby grabbed my arm. “Don’t walk away from me!”

For a second, I did stop—because of the shock more than anything.

That disconnected part of me, watching this from the other side of a television screen, couldn’t believe this was happening.

Couldn’t believe this was Bobby. Then I ripped free of his grasp.

“If you want to talk to someone,” I said, and my brain told me to stop, to let it go, not to say the words in anger—but I couldn’t help myself. “Call West.”

Bobby flinched. It was small, barely a movement at all. But it was there.

I made my way toward the front of the house.

“Get back here!” Bobby shouted after me. “Dash, I’m talking to you! Get back here right now and talk to me!” An inarticulate shout broke from him, and then his voice pitched after me, frenzied and almost unrecognizable. “I’m trying to make this better!”