TWELVE

My return flight wasn’t until the following morning. I tried to change it and was informed it would cost me two hundred bucks, so I spent fifty on a crappy airport motel room instead. I got back to the airport in time for my flight the next morning, my mind swimming with images of Simington’s face and voice.

As we descended into San Diego, the clouds were playing tag in the sky, waiting to see which one dropped the first bucket of rain on the ground. I drove to my place, my thoughts bouncing between Darcy, Kenney, and Simington but never coming together to give me an answer about anything.

I shoved my key in my front door to unlock the deadbolt and twisted. There was no resistance, which told me it hadn’t been locked to begin with.

I took my hand off the keys, letting them hang in the lock, and listened. If Carter was in there, the TV would be blaring or the stereo rattling the walls.

Nothing.

I walked back to the Jeep, grabbed my gun from beneath the seat, and walked around to the patio off the boardwalk. The blinds were pulled shut.

I’d lived in that place a long time, since college, because I loved being on the beach and being able to watch the ocean and the sunsets. I could walk to that back slider and gauge the waves every morning or watch the sun slip away each evening.

Not once in all the time I’d lived there had I pulled those blinds shut.

I walked to the front door again. I twisted the knob and swung the door open and stepped to the side, listening. Quiet.

Dropping to a crouch, I pivoted around the corner into the doorway, my gun leading the way.

Nothing seemed out of place. The sofa was empty, the coffee table as I’d left it. No one in the kitchen or sitting at the dining room table.

I crept in slowly, my ears picking up every tiny sound. I peered down the hallway toward my bedroom. Again, everything seemed normal.

I came up out of the crouch and took a deep breath, my heart rate having spiked. Through the hallway, I could see part of my bed through the open doorway. It hadn’t been tossed; it was still made, a habit of Liz’s.

I slid next to the sofa to get into the hall and take a more thorough look at my bedroom when something in the area between the back of the sofa and the kitchen caught my eye.

I looked down.

Darcy Gill was lying on my floor, a bullet hole above each eyebrow.