Page 46 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

“Sorry,” he says gruffly. He rubs one massive hand over the top of his head. “There was just a bit of an incident. And I would have brought it up with you if Sandy had returned, but…well, she never did.”

“What kind of incident?” I say as my heart continues to thunder along. We’ve entered a bit of a Twilight Zone area, where I’m not sure which way is up and which way is down or what’s even going on. Gus knew Sandy? He isn’t smiling? There was an incident? It’s too many things for my brain to make sense of at one time.

“She—it wasn’t—I never—” he stutters, and strangely it makes me feel better; stumbling over his words makes him feel more human and less like an iceberg-sized muscle monster. Then he sighs. “Frankly, it’s not relevant to your job here. If it comes up again, I’ll inform you of anything you need to know,” he says.

What? That’s it? That’s all I’m getting?

“Because maybe I could help—” I say tentatively.

But Gus shakes his head, his face is still pulled into that tense, scary expression. “No need. Appreciate the offer, though.”

I nod my defeat, suddenly feeling very tired. “I’m leaving,” I say with a sigh. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I guess I need to put Gus on the Murder Board when I get home.

Aiden and I have fallen into an easy routine in the last week since we learned the name of the girl in the woods. The second half of this week was when Harvest Break began, so he hasn’t been at the school; he’s been helping at the food bank instead, throwing himself into his work there with a restless fury.

Meanwhile I write every morning while he’s doing his own thing, or I try to; yes, my characters keep killing each other, but it turns out there’s a lot more to writing mysteries than just murder. There are logistics I know nothing about, and it’s slowing me down.

It’s more than the logistics, though, really. I’m brainstorming ways to figure out that stuff, but the biggest problem I’m having is that the book is feeling so…mechanical, I guess. Lifeless. I’m hitting the beats, but everything feels robotic, and I can’t figure out why.

So I spend a lot of time staring at the screen and shotgunning chips and guac.

Then in the afternoons I teach yoga and fitness classes until six. After that I go home, and we eat dinner together, usually on the couch while watching something. Recently it’s been a series of World War Two documentaries. I complained about this at first, but honestly, it wasn’t long until I was completely engrossed, booing whenever footage of Hitler came on the screen.

And then, once we’re done eating and booing fascist dictators, we go stare at the refrigerator, which is the home of our Murder Board—just like in the detective shows.

Only this isn’t a detective show, and we aren’t detectives. So instead of lots of pictures with connecting lines and ideas, we pretty much only have two things: Sandra’s name—though it seems clear she went bySandymore thanSandra—along with what we know about her, and a list of people who knew her or interacted with her at all. That’s as far as our combined investigative prowess has gotten us.

We spent Monday and Tuesday after the dance waiting for Sheriff Garrity to call and say that we were right, that a girl had been reported missing—but he didn’t. When Aiden finally called him Tuesday night, Sheriff Garrity said Sandra von Mellerisn’tmissing, despite what Aiden told him Monday about her being the girl we saw.

“Are you absolutely certain it was Sandra von Meller?” Garrity said, sounding frustrated as his voice echoed over the speaker. “Can you guarantee that’s the girl you think you saw?”

“I—I can’t—I can’tguaranteeanything,” Aiden replied, scrubbing his hand down his face. “But she’s been absent, and I really think it was her—”

But Sheriff Garrity wasn’t having it. He talked to Sandra’s mother, apparently; according to her, Sandra is spending Harvest Break on a solo road trip, looking at colleges. Her mother did admit that Sandra left early Sunday morning, several days earlier than planned, and that she didn’t see her before she left—but she says she’s been in touch through text since then, sending updates and even pictures.

Which means that someone has Sandra’s phone and is pretending to be her, sending photos that were either photoshopped or already on the phone. That will probably give me nightmares until I die. Plus, what kind of parent lets their teenager go on a road trip by herself?

So from Wednesday on, we’ve just been trying to learn more about Sandra.

We don’t know a ton about her or what she was like, but everything we do know is thanks to Aiden’s position as guidance counselor at the school. He was able to get a hold of some files and learn a bit more. And honestly? It doesn’t paint a great picture.

She was in pageants since she was a little girl; I looked up photos, and all of them involved big hair and blinding, vacant smiles masking disturbingly dead eyes.

Probably related to the pageant life was the eating disorder she was working through when she was in middle school; Aiden says there are no additional details on that one. He does know that she went to the nurse’s office every afternoon between lunch and fourth period to get her depression medication.

Her grades were good, and she was planning on applying to four or five Ivy Leagues. Among her extracurriculars were student council, cross country, and twice-monthly volunteer shifts at the food bank.

“And you’re sure Rodriguez said her car was small and white with bumper stickers?” I asked Aiden when we first started getting all these details figured out.

“Yes,” Aiden said, sounding annoyed—and, admittedly, it wasn’t the first time I was asking that question.

I asked again anyway. “And that definitely matches the description of the car you saw in front of our house, and the one that was following you?”

“For the millionth time, yes. I checked her intake paperwork, too. The handwriting matches. She’s the one who wrote the note to you.”

So that’s what we know about her: that she had good grades, iffy mental health, a beauty pageant past, and Ivy League ambitions.

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