Page 28 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

But Juniper takes the matter out of my hands when she answers, even though I haven’t finished speaking yet.

“She never told me anything about my dad,” she says. “He was a one night stand she barely remembered. A random hookup.” She shivers, turning her head this way and that as we reach the bottom of the concrete steps.

“There,” I say, pointing straight ahead of us. Solomon the Spud is hard to see at this hour, but he’s just across from us on the opposite side of the field. I almost set off through the grass, but then I remember Juniper’s shoes. Those heels will sink three inches deep in two seconds flat. So I stick to the spongy red track instead.

The moon is playing peekaboo with the clouds, hiding and reappearing, and the wind rattles the leaves in the trees. Something about the whole scene feels eerie, though I couldn’t say why. I can tell Juniper feels it too, though, because she picks up her pace.

As we round the track, the shadowy figure of Solomon the Spud slowly becomes visible, looming in a way that only a potato statue can—bizarre and lumpy-shaped. He’s nestled right up against the forest, but every now and then I spot the dull glint of moonlight on metal.

When we reach Solomon, we stand there in silence for a second, looking up at him by the light of my phone flashlight. He’s depicted emerging from a vague, blob-like hunk of metal, and his arms are in the flying Superman pose.

“Interesting that they gave him a belly button,” Juniper says from next to me, her voice musing.

I sigh, embarrassed on behalf of the entire institution. “I know.” Then I stroll forward, my hands back in my pockets to keep them warm, and seat myself on the plinth of the statue.

“Let me know when ten minutes is up?” Juniper says. She’s turned away from the statue now; she’s so nervous that even a weirdly anthropomorphized potato can’t keep her attention. She paces instead, radiating that same tension I felt when we first read the note on the back of the invitation. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her topleasesit down, because it feels like all her nervous energy is trickling over to me, but I hold it in. She doesn’t need to hear from me right now.

“I will” is all I say, and then I watch as she continues to pace. She looks around almost constantly, craning her neck, searching in every direction.

But no one is here.

And no one comes.

The minutes tick by almost painfully slowly, and though I would never admit it, I actually don’t speak up until fifteen have passed. It’s getting colder, and later, and something feels…off.

What exactly is going on here?

“Juniper,” I say. My voice cuts through the expectant silence, and Juniper turns to me.

“Yeah,” she says breathlessly, coming to a halt.

I swallow. “It’s been ten minutes.” It’s been seventeen.

“Right,” she says. “Okay.” Her voice is wobbly, full of things she doesn’t need to say. I can only imagine how she’s feeling right now.

And maybe that’s why I find myself speaking, offering something I never intended to offer. “If you want,” I say, “we can look around. Just check and make sure we didn’t miss them. Maybe they hid in the trees.”

I sincerely doubt this is the case, but I know what it’s like to have regrets; even though she pushes my buttons, I don’t want Juniper to leave here with any lingeringwhat ifs.

When she doesn’t answer, I stand up, smoothing my suit coat absently. “Do you want to do that?”

“Yeah,” she says finally. “Let’s—” Her voice cracks, and she tries again. “Let’s look in the trees for a second. Just to make sure we didn’t miss them.”

I think she knows as well as I do that it wouldn’t make sense for someone to be lingering out of sight in the trees; still, I follow her around the statue and then back to the tree line. I hold my phone up higher so that we can see.

We do not go gently into that good night. We crash through the underbrush, and we may as well just announce our presence with a foghorn. But despite my light, the darkness still hides plenty for us to trip over, and we do—especially since Juniper is in heels.

We’ve been walking (read: stumbling) for about one minute when something appears in my line of sight. I can’t quite tell what it is, but I can certainly tell what itisn’t:undergrowth or a plant of any kind.

“What’s…” Juniper begins, but her voice trails off into silence as we start walking faster, approaching the strangely shaped lump on the forest floor. I lower my light a bit. That looks—it looks—like—

“A person,” Juniper whispers, sounding stricken. “That’s a girl.”

I hurry to get closer, crouching over the figure and using my light to inspect the scene.

Juniper is right. It’s a girl.

And she’s dead.

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