Page 79 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

I sigh. “Honestly, Juniper, I’m just used to being on my own. Spending a lot of time around anyone is going to be an adjustment for me, much less someone so—” My voice falls away as I hunt for a word that’s neither offensive nor too revealing. When I come up blank, I just gesture at her instead, hoping maybe she’ll understand what I mean.

“I know,” she says quietly. “I’m a lot. Too much sometimes.” She doesn’t look at me; she keeps her head turned, staring out the window so that all I can see of her is her hair, her ear, and the faint curve of her cheekbone.

“It’s not that. You’re not too much. I’m just—” But I break off once again. How do I explain that she’s not the problem—I am? “This is going to sound stupid. But it’s not you. It’s me.”

This, finally, is what gets her to look at me. She gasps dramatically, clutching her hand over her heart—over the tauntingly low neckline of her silky blouse. “Are you breaking up with me?”

I allow my smile to break through, little more than a twitch of my lips, and redirect my eyes back to the road. “No,” I say as we wind through the Heights. “I’m just trying to explain. We’re roommates, so it’s important that we avoid misunderstandings wherever possible. That’s all.”

“I understand,” she says, and her voice is back to that light, detached tone she’s been using. “You like me but not romantically, and you want to maintain a peaceful roommate relationship.”

“I—yeah. I guess. I think so.” Something about her assessment doesn’t sit quite right with me, but it allsoundsokay, so I don’t say anything else.

The smile she gives me is bright, but her eyes don’t crinkle or squint. Maybe they always look like this, and I’m imagining things? “I understand,” she says again. “And I’m completely fine with that. I appreciate you speaking up. Communication is important when we’re living together.”

And once again, everything she’s saying sounds fine. It all sounds accurate. But…her words curdle in my stomach like sour milk, making me feel faintly sick.

“And you said you wanted to talk to me about something earlier…?” I say, because I don’t want to leave things like this.

“Oh,” she says, sounding surprised. She hesitates a few seconds too long before going on, “It was nothing.”

I just nod.

But that sick, sour feeling slithers further down into my gut, churning and squeezing. It continues to worsen as we drive to the little spot of land between Autumn Grove and Valley Hills where the cemetery is located. The miles pass in silence, and not the comfortable kind.

Strangely enough, it’s not even Juniper making things uncomfortable. She’s just looking out the window, glancing through the windshield every now and then.

It’sme.I’m the issue here. The quiet is torturous, and for the first time in probably my entire life, I’m desperate to say something—anything—just to fill it up.

A reckless, idiotic part of me wants to take back what I said, to tell her I was wrong. But that doesn’t make sense; I’m pretty sure I meant what I told her. Maybe I just want to say something that will get rid of that lukewarm expression on her face, the polite, distant, perfectly acceptable voice that somehow doesn’t suit her at all.

But who am I to decide what suits her? Who am I to tell her she can’t look at me like that?

So I bite my tongue and try to ignore the brewing discontent in my gut.

We arrive at the cemetery ten (painfully silent) minutes later. It’s not big enough to be webbed throughout with any sort of road or street or trail; you park in the front and walk wherever you need to go. The lot is lined with trees, all of them in the midst of their color change, and the grass is that unpleasant yellowish-brownish that comes from needing more rain than we actually get.

“Want to meet my mom?” Juniper says when we’ve pulled into a parking spot.

“Oh,” I say. It would probably be rude to say no, right? “Sure.” Then I look at her high heels. “Are you going to wear those?”

Juniper looks at the heels too, shrugging. “They’re the only shoes I’ve got right now. It will be fine.”

I personally think she’s going to sink right into the ground, but I guess a little extra aeration never hurt anybody.

“So,” I say as we get out of the car. “Lionel was a little creepy.”

“Ha,” she says, her voice dry. “He’s about what I expected, honestly. Taller, maybe. What he said was weird, though, I agree.”

“About seeing you again soon?” I say, looking around as I wait for her. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, and I don’t know where Nora Bean is buried.

“Yeah,” she says, setting off. “And how he knew my name.” Maybe I’m imagining things, but I swear I see her shiver at that. She just pulls her blazer tighter around her slim frame and begins to walk. I follow her across the parking lot until we reach the burial plots, and together we thread through the rows of headstones.

“Maybe he kept tabs on your mom,” I say, slowing my pace. As I anticipated, Juniper’s heels are a problem—they appear to be perforating the ground with every step she takes, something that’s never ideal, but especially in a cemetery.

“Maybe?” she says, and it’s clear she’s only partially paying attention to me; she’s frowning down at the shoes Caroline gave her. They make her legs look incredible, but they don’t seem very practical. “But I haven’t kept track of what my old high school crushes are up to,” she goes on.

“Me either,” I say, “but Rocco said Lionel had a thing for your mom. If the person you liked got pregnantwhileyou liked them, you’d probably remember the name of the baby at very least.”

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