Page 100 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

And it’s so tempting. It’s so tempting to forget about all the things she needs to know, to just be with her and forget the rest. But—

“Goodness gracious!” a voice gasps from our left. I start, and pressed against me, Juniper does the same. We break our kiss as our heads swivel to look at our intruder. It’s the librarian, her glasses perched at the end of her long nose, her hands disapproving on her hips as she marches toward us from the end of the row. “Students kissing in the library after school—”

“Not students,” I say quickly. Juniper moves to pull away from me, but I hold onto her with tight hands until gradually she relaxes against me once more. “A teacher and his legal,non-student—” Crap. His…girlfriend? Friend? Roommate?

A deafening silence falls between Juniper and me as I search for the right term. I look at her quickly, only to find that she’s turned her gaze back to me too.

“Gonna finish that sentence?” she says, arching her brow at me.

I shrug helplessly. “I am not capable of kissing you like this one time and never doing it again.” I hesitate. “I also am not capable of casual relationships. Sofriendandroommateboth feel wrong. But…” I can’t date her. Not yet, anyway.

I sigh internally as our little bubble of bliss pops, thanks to the librarian and also thanks to the reminder that Juniper and I have things to talk about if we want any sort of romantic relationship. “Let’s go,” I say, finally releasing her and stepping away. I hold out my hand for her to take. I don’t want to forfeit contact completely. “I guess we’ve got things to figure out.”

24

IN WHICH AIDEN TELLS THE TRUTH

“Tell me.”

It’s the first thing I say when Juniper slides into the driver’s seat of her car, closing the door quietly. She’s jumpy, looking around with a tight, nervous expression, and that’s part of why I chose to get in her car instead of going to my own. We can come back and get mine later sometime. Right now I just want to stay close to her.

She’s silent for a moment as she buckles, the belt snapping into place with aclickthat somehow seems too loud.

“Juniper,” I say when the silence stretches on. “Just tell me.” I’m well aware that the next words out of her mouth will be shocking, but that just makes the anticipation worse.

It’s a relief when she finally turns to me. “How well do you know Rocco?” she says.

In my head, my brain produces the same sound you see in cheesy comedies—that sound like a record scratching that happens when a character is taken aback or when something unexpected turns up.

How well do I know Rocco?

How well do I—how well—Rocco—what?

She must be able to tell that this one question has reduced my intelligence to a pile of scrambled eggs, because she sighs, and the look she gives me is almost pitying.

“Rocco Astor,” she says, her voice betraying a slight tremor. “I think it’s possible he’s the man Sandra was seeing.”

I blink once. Twice. “Explain,” I finally say.

She sighs again, starting the car. “I’m not sure I can,” she admits. “Not properly, anyway.” She looks over her shoulder as she backs out of her parking spot. “It seems sort of…I don’t know. Sort of nebulous, I guess, in my mind.”

“Try,” I say. It comes out as more of a croak.

She shrugs, but the movement is tight. “When I first came to town, I went to Grind and Brew. I was waiting for you, right? But someone followed me there. I didn’t think anything of it; I just figured we were going the same place and they were riding my tail. It was a couple sitting in that car, or at least two people. They were looking at me sort of surprised, and I thought it was because of my bad parking job.”

My first idiotic thought is that I remember that parking job, and itwasbad. But the thoughts keep flowing, and her words register. “You actually sawthem together?” I say, my eyes widening. “It was Sandy and Rocco?”

“The thing is,” she says, “I’m really not sure itwasthem. I didn’t know Rocco yet, and I hadn’t seen or heard of Sandy. I did think Rocco looked familiar when I first met him at the dance, but then you told me he was Lionel’s brother, and I figured that was why—because there’s a resemblance between them. All I remember about the people in the car is that they were wearing matching tops, some sort of bright pink color. It was hard to tell exactly what shade through the window, and I only saw them briefly.”

“Okay,” I say slowly, my brow wrinkling as I try to figure out what I’m missing. “But why would they have been following you? No one knew you were in town.”

“That’s not true,” she says as she shakes her head. “I posted on the town forum about a place to live. I set up the meeting with you through your sister in the comments on my original post. It’s a bit of a stretch, maybe, but we definitely talked about the move-in date and the color of my car and the place and time of our meeting at Grind and Brew.”

“Okay…” I say, trying to put everything together.

“But when I spoke to Gus,” she goes on, “he told me about the man he saw on Sandy’s phone. The contact picture of the guy was him and Sandy together, wearing matching pink hoodies. He didn’t describe exactly what color pink. But it reminded me of the photo Sandy’s mom showed us, of her in that fuchsia hoodie with the hood pulled up, the drawstrings tied so it scrunched around her face. You remember?”

“I remember,” I say after a second. “So…your reason for suspecting Rocco…is a pink sweatshirt?”

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