Page 77 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

“Excuse me for a moment,” she says, her perma-smile back in place. She looks relieved, frankly, to have an excuse to take a break from this conversation; she shoots up out of her chair with surprising dexterity and hurries to the marble-top desk, where a landline is stationed.

“Hello,” she says, her voice breathless. She listens for a second or two and then says, “Yes.”

More listening—both by herandby Aiden and me. I have no shame. If you are the in-denial parent of a girl I know to be dead, and you are on the phone in the same room as me, I will eavesdrop with every ounce of listening power I have.

“Yes,” she says again after a stretch of quiet. “Any time today would be—” She breaks off, her eyes darting over to where Aiden and I are sitting on the world’s least comfortable couch, watching her with rapt interest. Then she turns her back on us and says, in a much lower voice, “Now would be perfect, actually. Head on over now. Yes. See you in a few.”

Aiden looks at me; I look at him. It seems we’ve officially overstayed our welcome.

When she returns to the sitting area, Tonya doesn’t even bother pretending she’s sorry to see us go. “Unfortunately,” she says through the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her thus far, “I’ve got a rather important guest who needs to swing by for a few things. It’s terribly rude of me, but I’m going to have to ask if we can wrap this up a bit early.”

“Of course,” Aiden says, his voice desert dry. “Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

“So kind of you to understand,” she says. “If you will?” She gestures to the door, her bracelet jingling with her movements. A ray of sun catches the massive diamond on her ring and reflects right into my eye, rendering me blind for probably the next hour. But I stand anyway, Aiden following in my wake, and together we see ourselves out.

The door shuts behind us with an awful air of finality. I don’t think she’s going to be willing to meet with us again.

“Was it necessary to attack her?” I say, rounding on Aiden.

“I didn’t attack her,” he shoots back. “I just asked questions thatsomeoneshould ask—”

“But not you,” I say. “Can’t you tell she’s worried? She knows something is wrong. She just doesn’t know what or why, and she doesn’t want to admit it. Especially since she’s the one who let Sandy go off by herself.”

“It’s not her fault her daughter was killed—”

“I know that,” I say gently. “But I have to assume that she would still feel responsible. I think that’s a parent thing.”

Aiden grunts but doesn’t respond further, which is probably for the best. This is not a conversation we need to have right here or right now. I head down the path instead, making my way back to the driveway as I watch a shiny black town car pull up to the front curb.

Fancy, fancy.

I continue walking, keeping my eyes on the ground mostly so that I don’t trip in these heels. That would be the icing on the cake here—falling on my face in front of Tonya von Meller’s VIP guest. When I look back up, though, it’s in time to see a large figure unfolding from the back of that fancy-pants town car.

I freeze in place, my eyes narrowing as I try to get a clearer look. Aiden steps up from behind me, nudging me lightly with his elbow.

“Come on,” he says, crouching down to tie his shoe. “Why’d you stop?”

“Aiden,” I hiss, tapping him on the shoulder. When he doesn’t respond, I tap him again. My heart has dropped to my stomach, and there’s a zoo’s worth of hyped-up animals rioting in my veins—stampeding masses in the strangest fight-or-flight dance my body has ever done. I’m somehow both frozen in place and full of purely adrenal energy at the same time. “Aiden!”

“What?” he whisper-yells, finally standing up again. “Stoppokingme—” But he breaks off when he sees what I’m staring at.

Or rather,whoI’m staring at.

“Aiden,” I whisper as my eyes catalog every inch of Lionel Astor I can see. “That’shim.”

“It is,” he says, sounding dazed. Slowly he reaches into his pocket.

My brain whirs, tying itself in knots, until one crystal-clear thought emerges: this man might be my father.

Unfortunately, somewhere between my mind and my mouth is a disconnect. So instead of commenting that Lionel Astor might be my father, what pops out is this: “Should I go introduce myself and call himPapa?”

Aiden snorts as he pulls his phone out, holding it up. “I would pay good money to see that.” Then he starts snapping photos of Lionel.

“What are you doing?” I say, my body still buzzing unpleasantly.

He zooms in, his brows furrowed as he concentrates. “Gonna blow one of these up and use it as a dartboard later.”

I almost laugh out loud at this, catching myself at the last second and slapping my hand over my mouth instead. “He might be completely innocent in all this.”

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